Sports

Belichick maximizing special teams performance

FOXBORO — Patriots coach Bill Belichick was focused on special teams Monday morning as he addressed the media in a conference call.

Q: How much emphasis is placed on creating big plays in special teams when you go into a season and how much do those plays swing the momentum either for or against a team?

BB: Well, sure I think those big plays are always good plays for momentum and, you know, just put a little spark into the team. Honestly we’re always trying to make them. We’ve never tried to do anything but make plays. I’d just say the more playmakers you have out there then the better chance you have to make them. Sometimes you end up with players who are just fulfilling a role out there, which you need that, but when you actually have playmakers, guys in the return game that you can count on to make blocks, or you can put one-on-one to make blocks on their good players, or in coverage guys that can’t be single-blocked and have to be double-teamed. If you only have one of those guys then they double team him and you’re back to kind of treading water. If you have more guys than they can handle then whichever ones, one or two they might double, then you’ve got good opportunities with other players. So, returners that can make plays with the ball in their hand, blockers that can block good players, coverage players that have to be double-teamed and then obviously good specialty play from the snapper, kicker, punter, and punt returner or kickoff returner; those are all the keys.

Q: Is there a common denominator in terms of their mentality that allows certain guys to excel on special teams?

BB: Well, I don’t know if it’s a mentality. I mean it is to a degree, the aggressiveness, trying to make plays as opposed to just trying to stay in your area of responsibility. I’d say that just the instinctiveness of being primarily a space player, recognizing how much space there is between you and the runner or how much space you have to defend from the guy you’re blocking to where he has to get to the runner, can you get around the guy to the backside to make the play, do you have to go to the front side, or do you have to go through him? Obviously, the combination of speed and explosiveness, their strength, is the combination that you’re looking for. So, if you have to take people on you can take them on and if you can run around them or avoid them you’ve got the speed to do that as well. So, it’s a combination of space ability, speed, power, explosion, quickness, and just judgement in space which is different than making inline judgements or close quarter type decisions. Those space judgements are your speed, their speed, the angle, what’s between you and the guy, whether you’re blocking or covering. Those are all kind of instinctive qualities that we coach, we have guidelines on, we try to explain fundamentally what you want to do but each situation’s a little bit different. The player has to make that decision as to whether he can make it or not make it and so forth. So, it’s a lot of instinctiveness on all of those plays because each one of them is different. You just have to have a good sense and a good feel for where you can get to with your skills versus what obstacles you encounter along the way.

Q: What did you see from the Bills’ running game yesterday and how difficult is it to defend against an offense like that with a mobile quarterback and a feature running back, in Tyrod Taylor and LeSean McCoy?

BB: Yeah, their running game definitely gives you a lot of problems and I think that in addition to those points that you made, which are very solid ones, the overall scheme that they employ is challenging as well with the read-option scheme, zone schemes, and then some blocking scheme plays. Double teams, pullers, combination blocks; they have all of that. I also thought that [Mike] Gillislee gave them some good, strong runs in some short-yardage and red area type situations as well. Obviously, McCoy is as good as it gets. The production that he has had is outstanding so he’s a very difficult guy to handle. So yeah, they give you a lot of different problems there between, like I said, not only the players but also the different schemes that they employ.

Q: What is the thinking behind kicking off closer to the sideline as opposed to the middle of the field where the returner may traditionally line up?

BB: Well, I think what most teams try to do on the corner-type kicks is to force you as the return team to either take the ball right up the sideline where you catch it, which means you have a limited amount of space to work on, or to  bring the ball all the way across the field which means you’re doing a lot of running without gaining yards and there’s the potential that you could really get caught inside the 10 or really get pinned down there deep if somebody’s able to cut off the returner before he can get all the way across the field. And if you put hang time on that ball that makes it tougher to come across the field with. On the return end of it if you know where the balls going to go then you could set up a boundary return even though you’re running into pretty tight quarters there, but you could set it up and get the blocking angles the best that you can and just try to take the ball up the field the shortest distance. But if you’re not sure where it is and if the kick goes away from where you think it’s going to go, so if you set up a boundary return one way and the ball ends up getting kicked the other way, now you’ve kind of got all of your guys out-leveraged, and again, your choices are to either take the ball straight back up field with not enough blocking or bring it across the field to where your blocking is but you’ve got a long way to go. It definitely can put you in a tough situation on that. That happened to us in the Carolina game where they kicked it over to the corner and James Develin had to field it and he obviously was our short returner, not the primary guy, so it kind of limits what you can do if they can get the ball in the right spot or in a tough spot. It really limits your options for the return team. Obviously, the best option for you in the kickoff return is that the ball is straight down the middle of the field with not very much hang time. That’s the best returnable ball. The toughest returnable ball just on the kick alone – forget about the coverage, that’s a whole other discussion – is a ball with good hang time that pins you in the corner. You just have a lot fewer options there.

Q: What kind of performances do you feel you have gotten from Jonathan Freeny and Clay Harbor in their respective roles?

BB: Well, Jonathan continues to do a great job for us. If Jamie [Collins] and Dont’a [Hightower] are ready to go at inside linebacker then Jonathan would see less time defensively but with High out the last couple of weeks Jonathan has seen a lot of time. But Jonathan’s a very good and core special teams player. He gives us some size in the kicking game, [he’s] important, so he’s a versatile player in that he can give us those special teams plays but he also has given us a lot of defensive plays, whether that be in sub defense when we’re in a two linebacker defense or in some of our bigger groupings, whether that be three linebackers, or goal line, or short yardage, things like that. He also has enough length to at times be able to play on the end of the line if we need him there, which he plays there in certain alignments. His versatility on defense is very good, and as I said, he gives us a lot of plays in the kicking game because of his size and his length. Again, it’s hard to find those players on special teams. It’s a lot easier to find smaller, faster, more athletic guys. So, I’d say that’s kind of where Clay comes in to play, too – 250 pounds or wherever he’s at. He gives us another size and athletic player in the kicking game with good depth there at tight end, so in keeping AJ [Derby] and Clay, that was part of our decision there on the roster, was to keep our depth at that position with guys that had both offensive and special teams value. A lot of times with those types of players it’s one or the other. So, to find guys with both, like I said – Freeny, Harbor, Derby – guys like that, they’re just harder to find. Those players are harder to find.

Q: Is there statistical analysis that has shown that an offense will have a tougher time starting with the ball on the 20-yard line as opposed to the 25-yard line, and is that why with the change in touchback rules this season there has been a bigger emphasis on those lofty kicks that are designed to force the return team to bring the ball out of the endzone?

BB: I think that’s part of it. Yeah, I do. I think that’s part of it. I’d say, you know, also part of it is just the matchup with your opponent and what they’re strength is in the return game and so forth. You know, I would say over the last couple of years because of fewer and fewer kickoffs were returned, it made decisions tougher for teams, made it tougher for teams to carry guys on the roster whose strength was on kickoff or kickoff return, whether that be the returner, or a coverage player, or a wedge guy or something like that because you just weren’t getting very many shots at it. And so if you have a real good kickoff returner, how many times are you going to get to return it? In some games you’re probably not going to get to return any. Again, especially depending on where some of those games are being played, a little bit less of an issue where we are because sooner or later those balls aren’t going to be touchbacks but if you’re kicking in a dome or you’re kicking in the south consistently, those are pretty heavy touchback games. That’s one thing there, so I’m just saying that explosive kickoff returner that maybe could make a handful of plays during the year that would change the game, can you really afford to carry that guy for the number of opportunities he’s going to get? Overall, generally speaking the level of returner in the league has probably declined a little bit on kickoffs because the opportunities that they have and so it’s become more of a punt and punt return game. Not to digress, but when I came into the league on special teams you had six phases. Every phase was very competitive, so field goal protection, field goal rush, kickoff, kickoff return, punt, punt return – now that’s really down to just two phases; punt and punt return. Field goals – it’s very hard to block a field goal because of the rules. You can’t hit the center, you can’t jump, you can’t overload, you can’t do much of anything. You just have to make a great play to somehow split the coverage or have a bad kick or both to really affect that play. It’s not impossible but it’s hard, so field goal protection isn’t what it used to be and the field goal rush has really been taken out of the game. Then when you start touch-backing the kickoffs you take the coverage players out of the game because you and I could cover a lot of the kickoffs when they’re nine, 10, 11 yards deep in the end zone. You don’t need anybody to cover them and the same thing with the return game. They don’t block because there’s no return, so it’s become a punt and punt return game and that’s where a lot of the emphasis now has to go in the kicking game because that’s where most of the plays are. As  the kickoffs I think are coming back into it, at least it seems like they are this year more, then that increases those opportunities and probably the value of some of those players that play in that phase of the game. It will be interesting to see how it goes. We’re only a couple of weeks into the season. We’ll see how it all plays out, but in looking at a few other games it looks like there are a lot of teams that are doing some of the directional, corner-type kicking with good hang time. Just kind of popping the ball up in the air and making teams bring it out, which isn’t surprising. That’s exactly what happened with the college rule.

Q: It was interesting that the first rule change in 2011 to the kicking game didn’t entice teams to do these lofty pop-up kicks.

BB: Right. Well, I think the 25 – getting the ball out to the 25-yard line is obviously harder than getting it out to the 20 and those touchbacks that put it on the 20, I mean I know it’s only five yards and five yards is five yards, but it just seems like it’s a lot easier for teams to just touchback and put the ball on the 20, whereas now there’s just a little more incentive to make them return it to the 25 as opposed to just handing them the ball on the 25-yard line. And I think there are really a lot of teams where if the ball is a yard or two yards deep in the end zone, they’re pretty content to just touchback it and take it on the 25. I think that extra five yards has enticed the return teams to do that more.

Q: How impressive have LeGarrette Blount’s last two performances been on short rest with the game being on Thursday?

BB: It was good. We really needed it in both games. LeGarrette has a lot of skill as we know. I mean he’s a big back that has very good quickness, and feet, and balance and speed for that size. So, we just kind of always feel like if we can just get a hole, get him started, get him going that he has a lot of ability to make yards on his own if we can just get him going, get him downhill, and get him some space to run. He has done a good job with it. He has broken tackles. He has run through some arm tackles and things like that. He has gotten some good, tough yards for us. Hopefully we continue to do that. Hopefully we can continue to get him the ball with some momentum, some space, and give him an opportunity to do some things on his own and not have to deal with four or five guys there at the line of scrimmage but try to get him going. He has worked hard, he’s in good condition, he has done a good job of gaining yards in the fourth quarter and at the end of the game. He hasn’t gotten worn down in those situations so that’s all been very positive and we needed it.