Shoddy offensive line play has been far too common around the NFL during the first few weeks of this season. Bill Belichick believes he knows why that is.
Speaking Wednesday in a conference call with Houston media members, the New England Patriots coach blamed the O-line struggles on teams’ inability to hold daily full-contact practices during training camp.
Rules implemented in recent years have limited the number of padded practices teams can have and eliminated two-a-days, which some coaches, including Belichick, argue makes it much more difficult to prepare players for the regular season.
“I just think in general, fundamentally, it’s difficult to play on the offensive and defensive line,” Belichick said. “You’re playing a contact position with pads, and you’re practicing it without pads the majority of the time. That usually develops a lot of bad habits, and a lot of the techniques that a player would have the chance to work on and improve with pads, that opportunity just isn’t there without pads.
“So it’s hard to improve at those positions when, a lot of times, you’re practicing techniques that are really not the ideal technique or, in some cases, incorrect, and it just develops bad habits, especially on the offensive line.
“I think that the way, without being able to practice, favors the defensive players a little more, whereas the offensive unit has to work together and be able to block things at more of a game tempo with pads and penetration and combination blocks and things like that. It’s just hard to simulate those and hard to get the timing of those when you’re just standing up watching each other without pads on a lot.
Belichick used a golf analogy to drive home his point.
“It’s like (if) you go out to the driving range and hit drives and hit balls, but you can’t go on the putting green,” he said. “And then, to think that your putting is going to be at the same level as your driving when you can’t really practice it, it’s not really realistic. …
“It’s hard. It’s hard at that position. It’s hard to tell a guy, ‘This is what you should do,’ but he really can’t go out and practice it.”
Thumbnail photo via Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports Images
