Bill Belichick: No One Knows Our Football Program Like Steve Belichick
Having 15 percent of a single coaching staff share the same genes isn’t exactly commonplace in the NFL, but the Patriots hold that distinction heading into the 2020 season.
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has been with the team for 20 seasons, but his two sons – Steve and Brian Belichick – have also managed to accumulate 12 combined seasons in New England.
“Steve and Brian have grown up a lot and they’ve come a long way,” Bill Belichick said Friday during a video conference with the media. “They’ve been around a lot of football, they’ve seen a lot of football, they’ve seen things done from a different perspective than other people. But in the end, I don’t know anybody that knows our football program better than Stephen – who’s been in it a little bit longer – but Brian as well, who’s just lived their whole life with this program.”
Steve has been a part of the organization since 2012, when he was hired as a defensive assistant at the age of 25. This year he made the move from safeties coach to outside linebackers coach this past offseason. Brian is entering his first year as safeties coach, taking over for his brother at the position, and has been a part of his father’s staff since 2016.
The older of the two Belichick brothers, Steve, said he has a lot in common with his dad when it comes to technology and adapting it to the game of football. This year more than any other, that trait played a major role in the Patriots’ offseason, considering all meetings were held over Zoom.
“Me and my dad aren’t the most tech-savvy people out there,” Steve said. “The virtual process was definitely new. I like to be a little bit more hands-on and demonstrate a little bit of things which I can’t do on a video screen...I learned a lot about different teaching methods, different teaching tools that I had no idea existed before.”
The Patriots’ staff is much larger than the Belichick household, however, and Bill made sure to praise the rest of the coaches as well.
Still, the head coach said having his sons come up through a championship system inside the family has given them a unique perspective to say the least. The brothers were pre-teens when Bill was hired in Foxboro back in 2000, so they have had plenty of time to build familiarity with the organization.
“We have a lot of good coaches on our staff,” Bill Belichick said. “But it’s a little different to see it from the perspective that Brian has seen it from or Steve.”
