In his weekly press conference, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick talked about the importance of versatility.
Looking for the players who can do it all is something that Belichick does even in the NFL Draft process. Sometimes noticing if players have different skillsets happens when the enter professional football.
“Sometimes you look at guys and think this guy can do these things,” Belichick told reporters. “Maybe he’s done it in college, maybe he hasn’t it’s a lot easier if you’ve seen him do those although it’s a lock that it’s going to happen at this level but at least you’ve seen them do that so that’s good and there are guys that you haven’t seen do it and you don’t find out until later.”
One of these players whom the team spotted unexpectedly was Julian Edelman.
“He can return punts, he can cover kicks, he can play receiver and we didn’t know any of that about him,” Belichick said. “Sometimes you think maybe [he can] but that’s why he wasn’t drafted in the second-round and there was a lot of questions about him coming out and he answered them all but there was process for that to occur.”
With limited roster spots, having players that can do more than one job is something that Belichick does not take for granted.
“As a coach, it’s just a tremendous luxury to have players that are that versatile,” Belichick said. “When you’re coaching special teams and you got 66 players that have to be backed up by another 66 players and you only have 46 on the roster, and when you get rid of quarterbacks and lineman, you get down to 30 [players] in a hurry and if you have a guy like [Rex] Burkhead who can play three spots on the kickoff team and Chung [also], you can back up the whole kickoff team with two or three guys and that’s a good thing. You might not have to use them but then you don’t have to get 10 other guys ready for all of that when you can do it with two or three guys.”
“Until you have been through that as a special teams coach which I did for many years,” Belichick said. “I don’t know if you appreciate how valuable these players are, I certainly do.”
One of these players the coach said he was lucky to have as previously mentioned is Burkhead. Belichick detailed what makes him a special player for the team.
“He’s been a pretty solid player for us, he plays all four downs, he can run the ball on regular down plays, be a third down back,” Belichick said. “He can also be worked into the kicking game, punt returns, kickoff returns, so he’s one of the most versatile players on the team.
Belichick then went ahead to name who he thinks are the most versatile players on his team.
“[Patrick] Chung who can do stuff on every down, Devin [McCourty] can probably go into that category too, maybe Kyle [Van Noy],” Belichick said. “There’s a handful of guys that can play on every down but those guys are rare that play at a high level like Kyle, Devin, Rex in all those situations and you’re lucky to have one of those guys on your team or two of those guys on your team, more than that. It’s something that’s really a great help as a coach in terms of game planning and also managing the entire roster because they give you so much depth.”
