Steve Belichick, Bill O'Brien shed some light on what it's like to work for Bill Belichick
BOSTON -- Bill Belichick has been around for a while. A long while.
This Sunday in Foxboro, he'll begin his 49th season as an NFL coach, his 29th season as a head coach, and his 24th season as the Patriots' head coach.
Coaching for just shy of a half-century in the NFL will typically lead to someone getting on in years. Nevertheless, linebackers coach -- and son of the head coach -- Steve Belichick stated the obvious on Tuesday morning.
"He's obviously old," Steve Belichick said of his father. "I mean, he's definitely old."
While nobody on the coaching staff not named Belichick could probably get away with such a comment to the media, Steve did share some specifics on what it's like to work with one of the best head coaches in the history of the sport -- who also happens to be his dad.
"I haven't seen a lot of changes in terms of his approach and stuff like that. I think he does a good job of adapting. He's not stuck in his ways. He listens," Steve Belichick said. "He listens to feedback and he implements it how he wants to. But he's always open to feedback. He'll listen, and that's from a lot of people in the building -- players, coaches, support staff, everybody -- to try to learn and improve."
Steve Belichick continued: "He's never -- I've never heard him say, like, 'I've got this, it is what it is, we're done with -- we're not going to progress or change based on what we have.' There is always a level of what can we do better, what do we need to do better? And I appreciate that from him, especially as a young person. Sometimes you get stuck in your ways more than him, being so old. But I appreciate him listening to us and taking the feedback we have."
Steve Belichick has known his father as a boss for a dozen years now, so he knows his management style as well as anyone on the staff.
"As the head coach, it's up to him whether he wants to implement the changes or do things differently than how they were done before. That's up to him. But he listens to our feedback and he's not a micromanager," he said. "He lets us do what we do. He hired us to do a job. He has trust in us to do a job. But if it's not good enough, then he'll step in and tell you that it was flat-out not good enough."
Offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien, who spent five years working under Belichick from 2007-11, was also asked about the head coach and the way he operates the football business.
"The building's changed a little bit but the guy who runs the football part of it has not changed a bit," O'Brien said after his decade-plus away from New England. "He's a guy that we all learn from every single day. I'm personally always impressed with his energy, his ability to work consistently the hours, the consistent work ethic that he has day in and day out, I think it's unmatched. And his ability to see the game and help us on offense, defense and on special teams, to put together a game plan. He's a great team player. I've always enjoyed working for Bill, working with Bill. And it's basically very similar to the way it was when I was here before."
O'Brien, who was a head coach at Penn State and with the Houston Texans before working the past two seasons as Alabama's offensive coordinator, expressed contentment with his current place of employment.
"It's a great place to come to work every day, it really is," O'Brien said. "You're learning. You're learning every day, you've got really good people that you're working with -- the players, the coaching staff, obviously the Krafts. You know, the organization itself is, it's just a really good place to come to work every day."
