Bill Belichick Shares His Thoughts On New Helmet Rule

The National Football League came out with a new helmet rule, and New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick isn’t bothered with it.

Belichick went on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni & Fauria,” and talked about the NFL’s new helmet rule.

“From my standpoint, there’s really — it’s not a change for us, not a change for our coaching staff. We’ve never taught tackling with the crown of our helmet, putting our head down, leaning our body forward in that type of position. I don’t think fundamentally that’s a good position to be in. It’s not effective. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong besides getting hurt, and that’s an important one. We’ve always tackled and blocked with our head up, and our eyes open, and our head back, so we can see what we hit. That’s the only way I’ve ever coached it. If we do it that way, then we’ll be within the rules. That’s what we’ve tried to teach,” Belichick said.

“There’s a lot of bang-bang plays where you have to react quickly and try to make a tackle or make a block or get an extra yard, and sometimes instinctively a player will put his head down. I think there’s certainly more of an awareness of that because of the way that it’s called. Fundamentally, we’ve never taught that in any technique, so that’s not a big change for us.”

The head coach doesn’t believe defenders are singled out with flags for leading with their helmets. Pats safety Jordan Richards got flagged for leading with his head in the second preseason game against the Eagles.

Belichick added that his job isn’t to like or dislike the new rule, but to understand it and coach it. That’s how he rolls, and helped the Patriots get this far. Will other coaches accept the rule?

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