Bill Belichick All Business As Patriots Prepare For Panthers Preseason Game
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Patriots' summer is rounding a fairly significant corner, as the team prepares for its third preseason game this week in Carolina against the Panthers. And as the team takes an important step toward the start of the regular season, head coach Bill Belichick appears to be locked in.
Belichick spoke with the media on Monday at Gillette Stadium, and he stressed the importance of this week -- both for the opportunity to improve now and for the momentum to be built toward the start of the regular season.
"Every week is a big week," Belichick said. "Every day is a big day for all of us. It's an opportunity for us to get better, for us to improve in the areas that we all need to improve in, and if we don't take advantage of it, then it's a missed opportunity. If we have to go back and get it, then it's just more time wasted that we could've been doing something else. It's an opportunity for each of us individually. It's an opportunity for each unit. It's an opportunity for our entire football team. That's what training camp is, it's just a series of opportunities to improve your team to get ready for the regular season opener and get ready for the regular season schedule."
The common belief among football followers is that the third preseason game is the most "meaningful," in that the starters tend to play more in this game than any other. But Belichick refuted the notion that it's necessarily more important than other weeks.
"Each week of the preseason is a step closer towards preparing for the regular season opener and the 16-game regular season schedule," he said. "With each succeeding week, there are more things that are closer to a regular season week. None of those weeks are regular season weeks, but it progressively gets closer and more like it. It's not it, but it's movement in that direction."
Belichick did state that a preseason week can never fully resemble a regular-season week, but he added that this week can serve as good practice for the routine that will shortly dictate their football lives. Part of what makes the preseason weeks so different, Belichick said, is the multitude of areas that require attention.
"There's about 20 things going on at this time of year," Belichick said. "That's the way it always is between our team, and preseason games, regular season games, another preseason game next week, evaluating players, making roster decisions, talking with other teams in the league. That's the way it is every preseason, every training camp. That's the way it is now and that's the way it'll be through the next couple of weeks. So yeah, it's a juggling act."