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While no member of the New England Patriots will be available for the press during the media portions of the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, a lot of familiar faces are — men with close ties to the organization. Today, the following men who used to work for the Patriots held press conferences:
Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia
Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn
Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores
Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury
While the four men naturally spoke primarily about their current teams as opposed to the one they used to work for, there were still some interesting tidbits from a Patriots perspective.
Matt Patricia on teams coached by former Patriots pursuing the same type of players
“I remember probably the mid-2000s, kind of the same situation came up and some of the schemes were the same. There’s probably more of a variance now than there was back then; I think some of the schemes were exactly the same. I would say everyone’s learned and shifted a little bit.”
Matt Patricia on schematic changes in the game
“One of the things about the league that’s always interesting is that you’re always trying to predict the curve — where it’s coming from and what’s going to happen next. And we’re probably close to another change and we’ll see how it goes the next couple of years. I think for us, I’d say defensively a lot of it is dictated by the offense and where they go, and I think some of that is dictated by the college game; just the guys coming out and what’s available to the offense and I think the offensive coaches do a great job adapting to the players they have. I would say it’s still kind of a sub-game […] The good thing about saying it’s a sub game: there’s a lot of different sub-packages and they’re not categorized as 3-4 or 4-3.”
Kliff Kingsbury on if he picked up valuable information during his time with the Patriots
“No question. Through my playing career and as a coach. When you’re around Bill [Belichick] and Tom [Brady] and the way they operate and the level of preparation, the competitiveness of practice, those are things that stay with you for life when you’ve been in that building.”
Brian Flores on what he learned in New England when it comes to building a culture
“Culture is very important. I would say, a lot of the things that I learned in New England is putting the team first. That was another part of that was important to me in putting together a staff and people around me who don’t have egos. We work well together. I think that’s going to be a big part of what we do in Miami.”
Brian Flores on the Super Bowl
“It was great, but again it happened quickly. It’s almost like it didn’t happen, quite honestly with all that’s gone on. […] I watched it briefly. I thought the guys played well. Again, it’s a testament to the players. The credit goes to them. They practiced hard. They played hard. They played with the discipline, the toughness, the team-first attitude that I’ve talked about already this morning. They reaped the benefits of that. But that happened and it was over. I was on a plane and I’ve been in Florida since.”
Bob Quinn on evaluating college tight ends
“There’s only a certain amount of offenses in college football that I would say are pro-style. Most of them are spread four-wide or three-wide with a tight end displaced. So you get into evaluating guys, you’re like, ‘Wow this guy, he’s a good receiving tight end but can he block?’ And you go through all his film and you’re like, ‘Well, there’s only 60 plays of him with his hand in a three-point stance blocking a defensive end.’ So the sample size of watching collegiate tight ends block is really, except for a couple schools, there’s not much there.”