How Bill Belichick’s 1978 Broncos assistant coaching season influenced him

It’s understandable, in part, that Bill Belichick is seen as a stern, no-nonsense coach who is “slightly annoyed at all times” and who doesn’t provide any context when speaking with the media. But the head coach of the New England Patriots has often demonstrated that, when it comes to subjects he is passionate about, he can explain in great detail.

An excellent illustration of that was his appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay prior to the Army-Navy game this year. Another was revealed on Friday at a press conference.

Belichick covered a wide range of subjects and provided excellent insight into many of them. These included his opinions on the ball inflation scandal that occurred during Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs, the play of starting center David Andrews, and his brief stint as a staff member of the Denver Broncos, this week’s opponent.

After spending two years in Detroit and beginning his coaching career in Baltimore in 1975, Belichick joined the Broncos as an assistant coach for special teams and defense. Even though he only worked there for one season before joining the New York Giants, the experience had a lasting effect on his career.

“I had a fantastic year.” Belichick praised the encounter as wonderful on Friday.

He continued by discussing the coaches he worked with in Denver and their influence on him, including former Patriots quarterback Babe Parilli. He then took a detour to discuss the 3-4 defense’s history in the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, even though Belichick’s team doesn’t often employ the traditional 3-4 these days, his analysis of the scheme’s development throughout time was intriguing.

Usually, we would divide the quotes up and contextualize as we went along for readability and formatting purposes. But because of how in-depth Belichick’s comments were about the 1978 Broncos and their defensive philosophy, we took a different approach and posted the entire transcript.

Have fun.

Q: Coach, I know not many people know this, but you were the Denver Broncos coach in 1978. I was just curious if there is anything that particularly sticks out to you about that season or the organization as a whole that still applies today.

BB: I had a terrific year overall, yes. It was a wonderful encounter. I had been in Detroit for the previous two years, when I was the receivers’ and tight ends’ coach. After that, I returned to working on special teams in Denver. I had previously worked on special teams in Detroit as well, but in Denver, I focused more on both special teams and the defensive end of the ball. And that involved Richie McCabe and Joe Collier; so, Stan Jones, Bob Zeman, Richie McCabe, and Joe Collier were involved. I then completed the breakdowns and other related tasks. Thus, there was a lot I didn’t know. Joe and Richie gave a graduate-level lecture on secondary play and the 3-4 defense in general. We then overplayed defense after that. It was somewhat different from a 3-4 Detroit, but it was similar nonetheless. Joe used the same 3-4 defensive that he had played in Denver, but with much different spacing than the defense that Coach [Bill] Parcells finally brought to the Giants. Baltimore ended up winning 4-3. Detroit represented a distinct iteration of Denver’s odd-spacing 3-4 defense. After that, we played 4-3 in New York for a few years with Ralph Hawkins. And then Coach Parcells arrived, and it was all 3-4, but even though the spacing was the same, it was a different kind of 3-4 defense from what Joe ran in Denver. And looking back, that was a really beneficial learning experience because, although I observed some similarities, the ways in which they were coached and operated were actually completely different. Naturally, that also altered some of the foundations. I would argue that Joe was quite ahead of his time at the time with the red area coverages he ran out there. Although they were largely uncommon back then, they are quite common presently. That was a wonderful experience, then. Other than being present but not participating in those meetings and that kind of stuff, I really didn’t have a lot of involvement with the offensive side of the ball. We had a good squad the year before; they had defeated Oakland three times and advanced to the Super Bowl, but we lost in the playoffs there. Thus, following that year and the 1977 season, they were defeated by Dallas in the Super Bowl. There are a lot of excellent athletes out there, as well as a lot of excellent coaches, and I have learned a lot of valuable experience. They had [Craig] Morton as their quarterback coach, Babe Parilli. I spent a lot of time with Babe and learned a lot from him as well. From the other side of the ball, he served as a sort of mentor to me. Even though I disturbed and questioned him a lot, he was incredibly accommodating from the standpoint of coaching the quarterback, something I hadn’t done before. I therefore gained a lot of knowledge that year.

Q: Coach, you brought up the strange spacing and 3–4. How do you distinguish between those and how have you observed them changing from your time in Denver to the present day—that is, how do the structures change and how do teams sort of use them? You indicated that there were various variances in spacing and related aspects.

BB: Do you mean the 3-4 defensive scheme? Okay, so Pittsburgh plays a 3-4 defensive. I would say that’s a lot different than — way, much different than what Joe’s defense was in Denver. Although the spacing is the same, the defense’s coverages and organizational structure are very different. We used five different techniques to play the ends in Denver. They are played inside the tackles by Pittsburgh. We refer to it as 4i. Some undershifted and some overshifted. Joe, we’d enter a game at Denver with fifty different fronts. Thus, the 3-4 changed to a 4-3. The situation evolved into an over, an under, an even, and a plethora of fronts with accompanying stunts. However, we actually only ran—let’s say, two or three coverages. However, the variety of the fronts made it difficult to block them because there were so many various combinations and looks. We also had talented players. Rubin Carter was one of those very terrific ones. Good people like [Lyle] Alzado and [Barney] Chavous. Then [Randy] Gradishar — the two outside linebackers, who were both excellent, were [Tom] Jackson and [Bob] Swenson. They might dash. They had the ability to establish the edge. Jackson moved quickly. Thus, the guys in the front posed a serious threat. When you added up all the possible combinations, they would have been an issue if they had just sat there and never moved. Billy Thompson was one of the best safety players ever. He’s right up there, but I’ve coached a lot of terrific safeties. He’s one of the best ones I’ve coached, that I was with. So, it’s just a different system, that’s all. Again, it was a good learning experience. When came to the Giants from New England and brought the 3-4, his version of the 3-4, which was from Fritz Shurmur. Fritz was in Detroit when I was there. When we played that over 5-2 at Detroit, Bill’s 3-4 was a lot different than Joe Collier’s. In my role as a coach, I kind of took a step back and observed how I might be able to combine some of those ideas. Over the course of my career, I have combined ideas from Bill and Joe along with other ideas.

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