FOXBORO, Mass. — Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has two assistants to thank for endorsing two of New England’s most important offensive players.
Wide receiver Danny Amendola was the catalyst behind the Patriots’ comeback victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC Championship Game when he had seven catches for 84 yards with two fourth-quarter touchdowns. The Patriots signed Amendola during the 2013 offseason when they allowed Wes Welker to leave for the Denver Broncos in free agency.
The Patriots knew what they were getting in Amendola because offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels had worked with him on the then St. Louis Rams in 2011.
“So, really the light went on with Josh,” Belichick said Wednesday. “Josh was here, Josh had had him in St. Louis, and we saw a good player in St. Louis, but you didn’t see all the things behind the scenes that you kind of can see when you actually have the player on your team. Josh saw that, and he made me aware of, us aware of what all the things that Danny does and how well he does and what his skills were and so forth. That’s kind of when it started, and once we got him here then all that became evident to everybody who works with him.”
Belichick took a similar recommendation from Mike Lombardi, who served as an assistant to the coaching staff with the Patriots from 2014 to 2016, on Dion Lewis, who emerged as one of the NFL’s top running backs this season.
Lombardi was general manager of the Browns when Lewis was with Cleveland in 2013.
“Dion, very productive at Pitt, we all saw that, went to Cleveland, got off to a fast start, got injured, missed most of the — whichever year that was — then again it was Mike Lombardi,” Belichick said. “Mike was here. Mike was with him and saw him and same thing I just talked about Danny with Josh, Mike saw that with Cleveland. We signed him as a future player and that’s, again, when you see somebody on the practice field on a daily basis and you’re around him, you know a lot more about him, especially a player like Dion who you didn’t get to see on the field a lot.
“What you saw was good, but it just wasn’t very much. When somebody’s on the inside like that, then you can know a lot more about the player than what you do just seeing him on however many snaps he gets on Sunday afternoon, which in Dion’s case wasn’t very many. They were good, but they were just minimal.”
Belichick has taken recommendations from staffers who have worked with players on other teams many times through the years. As Belichick noted Wednesday, however, the Patriots don’t have many top assistant coaches or scouts who have recently worked on other teams. So the well is drying out.
“When I’ve changed teams in the past, you take the information and the knowledge of the players you have with you,” Belichick said. “I haven’t been anywhere but here for a long time, so I don’t really know what anybody does anywhere else. We have (had) a few coaches on our staff, like Mike, like Josh, those two examples, where they had been with other teams and seen other players. And so maybe someone coming on here, staff can do that — Scott (O’Brien) when he came from Denver or Joe (Judge) when he came from Alabama in the SEC.
“You get that occasionally, but by and large most of us have been here — Matt (Patricia), Brian Flores, Dante (Scarnecchia) — we haven’t seen any other team, only teams we’ve practiced against. So, that knowledge base is limited. If you get it from somewhere else, you get it. If you don’t, go with what you have and do the best you can.”
The Patriots will have openings on their staff next season with McDaniels and Patricia expected to take head-coaching gigs with the Indianapolis Colts and Detroit Lions, respectively. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Belichick add coaches who have been with other teams so he can get some more valuable endorsements when it comes to adding veteran players from outside the organization.
