I did a previous post on just Bill Belichick's outstanding portion of this clinic but here are my notes from the entire clinic, including Urban Meyer, Jon Gruden, and passing game notes from Scot Loeffler.
Also, I wanted to include the notes from the clinic shared by the late Craig Howard, who was a great coaching influence on my career. Coach Howard was Tim Tebow's high school coach at Nease HS where he won a state championship in 2005. He also won the NAIA National Championship in 2014 as the Head Coach at Southern Oregon. Coach Howard was gracious enough to help me out as a young coach and I will always be grateful for everything he shared with me. Much of my Football Program Manual includes his quotes and wisdom.
Coach Howard's notes:
Patriot Team Meetings
Bill Belichick
Head Football Coach
New England Patriots
“If you are spending all your time as a Head Football coach
handling DISCIPLINE ISSUES you are not going to win. You must have great discipline and great
leadership if you want to win.”
Coach
Belichick
HC -- Spend quality time in TEAM MEETINGS to get players
on the same page and cover the things that WE HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO WIN THE GAME.
“What do we have to
do to win?” Everybody MUST have an
understanding of how they have to DO THEIR JOB and do it well……..DO YOUR JOB.
We have to put the team first.
But it is crucial that each player
understand his role and DOES HIS JOB TO THE BEST OF HIS ABILITY.
THOUGHTS ON SPECIAL TEAMS
Point out the things our
opponent is doing on special teams.
In
the Kicking there are two critical
elements that determine your success.
1) How
you Handle the Ball……DO NOT MISHANDLE THE BALL.
2)
DO not commit a penalty.
Games
are LOST because of mishandling the
football.
Punt Returns – not catching the ball, lost yardage, dropping the ball resulting in a TURNOVER
Punts and Field Goal units – bad snaps will kill you.
KOR – not
fielding the ball, WE MUST FIELD ALL KICKS.
No STUPID PENALTIES - It’s about Discipline and Judgment. Make good decisions.
Players must understand WHAT WILL &
WILL NOT be tolerated
ü Running
in the Kicker
ü Blocking
behind the Ball Carrier when he has broke away and you are trailing the play.
ü Grabbing
or holding because you are lazy
Handling
the ball and not committing penalties is the key to a solid kicking game.
Center/Quarterback Exchange – must never be taken for granted;
work on it daily, work on it in the off-season. If the Patriots ever have an
exchange problem in practice, it is a given, NO QUESTIONS ASKED, Tom Brady and
his center go the goal line after practice and snap the ball and sprint to the
other goal line, line up snap the ball, sprint the other goal line. (for 10-15
minutes). If we only fumble ONE in practice. Emphasizes the importance of the Center-QB
exchange.
We get one chance a week to perform at our OPTIMUM LEVEL.
I Expect and
Demand that we do our BEST!
Each week we need to IDENTIFY “what you need to do this
week to win”
Make
sure the players KNOW and UNDERSTAND what we need to do to win and then
EXPECT
them to go out there and do it.
DISCIPLINE! Do
your job!!
Have a plan for
every situation. Football
is a game of SITUATIONS. Prepare on a daily basis for those situations:
Down and Distance Situations P-10, 3rd
& 10, 3-1, 4th and inches, etc,
Field Position Situations – Red Zone, Goal line, Backed Up, Middle of Field, etc.
Game Time Situations – First Drive of each Half, 4 minute Offense, 2 minute
Offense/Defense
Last play
of Half, Last Play of Game
Kicking Game Situations – i.e. Downing the Ball inside the 10 yard line, +50 yard
line punting, Punting out of end zone, Kick-off after safety, etc
*Coach Belichick has an Anything Can Happen Category – expect the unexpected, have a plan
for unusual situations that occur during the course of a game or season.
INSIDE-OUT THEORY
Football
is a game that starts inside-out.
Offense/Defense/Kicking game
Field
Goal Pro – Protect from the inside out.
Field
Goal Block – starts inside so that you can come off the edge.
COACH BELICHICK’S THOUGHTS ON PATRIOT DEFENSE
WHAT ARE THE
ü Players we have to stop
ü Plays we have to stop
ü Critical Situations “Gotta Have it” Plays -
What are we going to do in those special “Gotta Have It” situations.
We MUST Take-Away
something….Make them do something
they do not want to do.
Don’t
let receivers run (UNMOLESTED….UNCONTESTED) down the field.
Example
of Arizona Cardinal Offense…. Just too good to let them run down the field we must re-route the the receivers. Showed
game film examples of times defenses just let Bolden and Fitzgerald go downfield uncontested. They smoked people. Patriot plan was to be physical and match receivers underneath with a
man-under two deep coverage.
If everybody DOES THEIR JOB and executes the GAME PLAN,
we will win.
“Our players try to do what we ask
them to do” Coach Belichick
Patriot’s Plan for
Defending the Run
I.
Do not let the ball get outside. “SET THE EDGE” ….Turn the ball back inside to
the pursuit.
When
a fast back gets outside, how many
guys on our defense are fast enough to catch him? We
must get him turned back inside where our defenders are. You cannot let the opponent run the football outside uncontested.
II.
Teach players HOW TO DEFEAT THE BLOCK. Every
offensive play has a player assigned to BLOCK
you. You must beat his block.
Work hard on TACKLING FUNDAMENTALS.
III.
Defend the Deep Pass.
There’s nothing worse than giving up a deep pass for a
touchdown.
Each
week we talk about which PLAYS and which PLAYERS, our opponent uses to attack the
deep part of the field.
The
#1 JOB of our Defensive Backs is to
defend the deep part of the field.
NOBODY
ELSE CAN DO IT.
IV.
Rushing the
Passer
Attack
the pocket. Don’t allow the QB to step
up. Challenge the quarterback right up the middle.
You can’t let a good quarterback step up in the pocket uncontested.
PASS
RUSH and PASS COVERAGE all need to be tied together.
“We had better being
doing it the way we have coached it.”
Coach
Belichick
We show the team what
we don’t want them to do and we show the team what we want them to do.
THOUGHTS ON OFFENSE
We teach our
players specifically how we want them to run the ball. We teach our quarterback,”here’s how we expect
you to pass it. When you carry the ball
for our team you carry the fortunes of everyone in the New
England Patriot’s organization. We cannot
operate a football team when we don’t know what is going
to happen to the ball when we give it to a given player.
Ball
Security is #1
We
must Protect the football.
QB’s awareness of Ball Security
– he must keep 2 hands on the ball until just prior to delivery, you never know
when you are going to get hit from the backside.
We must
Protect the quarterback. In the passing game, never let the defender
inside. Block them from the inside-out.
When they penetrate inside, we’re dead. There is no passing game. There
is no chance to throw the football. We
must allow our QB to step up into the pocket to throw to his receivers.
The
receiver’s job is two things:
·
GET OPEN - must
use either speed, quickness or technique, but you must get open.
CREATE
SEPARATION FROM THE DEFENDER!
·
CATCH THE
BALL
If the receiver can’t get open or can’t catch the ball
there is no passing game. It doesn’t matter how fast he is, how tall he
is, whether he was a Parade All American or not. I
don’t care. I care that he can get
open and catch the football. Anybody can
run routes and not get open. Anybody can
drop the ball. It’s simple….GET OPEN AND
CATCH THE BALL.
Handling Pressure Defense
We’ve got to be ready
every week for Pressure Defense.
How
do they pressure and then what are you going to do about it.
Going
into the game, the offensive line, quarterback and running back and receivers
know how we are going to
handle pressure this week. Our mentality
on offense has to be: “We hope they blitz, we are going to kill them if they do!”
·
Get the ball out quick
·
Hot receivers
·
Maximum pressure
·
Screen game
Have a Plan for Critical Situations
These are the “Got
to Have” plays in the game. Plan,
prepare and practice for these situations.
There are about 10
of them.
3-6 We’ve got a 4 point lead. There’s two minutes to go. What are we going to do?
3-1…3-12…overtime…last play
of the half….last play of the game…4th and inches on the Goal line
2-1
What do we tell our RB? YOU DO NOT lose yardage. Put your foot in the ground and get
downhill. Get what you can get. We
cannot call a play on 2nd and one and it becomes 3rd and
6. If we call a play on 2nd and 1 and they stuff it and its 3rd
& 1, I can live with that.
QB on 2-1 and we call a Pass……You cannot take a sack on that play. This is an example of a Critical Situation
that we would cover very thoroughly with our team. We make sure that when CRITICAL SITUATIONS
occur every coach and player are on the same page.
Last Play of the Game – Where should all
the receiver be…..in the end zone.
No Penetration on the LOS
Stopping penetration is a fundamental part of the running
game. Who is controlling the LOS, us or them? Once they penetrate the LOS, the back is
running for his life.
Passing in the Red Zone
Because we see so much zone in the Red Zone we utilize a
lot of SPACING concepts. Spread the
receivers out in the end zone to create spacing.
Our QB’s must EXEPCT the UNEXPECTED….We
have a definite plan for those situations.
It is not left to chance.
When
I meet with the QB’s each week one of things I talk about what we are going to
do when something unexpected happens.
For example, primary receiver falls down, the receiver runs the wrong
route, a bad gun snap, the RB goes the wrong way, somebody comes free unblocked
on pass rush. These are the plays the winning
QB has to make!!
The Plan
1) Don’t lose the ball
2) Don’t lose your poise…Do not
panic.
3) Get rid of the ball.
4) Secure the ball and try to
get positive yardage.
Thanks again, Coach.
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