We do the same thing with all our players. We take a look, as I said, at their personal family life, we look at the history of what they’ve done in high school and college.
I had no knowledge of the various steps involved in the game balls and the process that happened between when they were prepared and went to the officials and went to the game. So, I’ve learned a lot about that.
I obviously understand that each team has the opportunity to prepare the balls the way they want, give them to the officials and the game officials either approve or disapprove the balls. That really was the end of it for me until I learned a little bit more about this .
I’m sure that any current or past player of mine would tell you that the balls we practice with are as bad as they can be: wet, sticky, cold, slippery.
I think that we’ll continue to try to look at ourselves in the mirror and see where we can do a better job, maybe where we can improve the process. But I think the fundamentals of the process will remain the same.
I was out of the country for a period of time but followed everything closely through other people in our organization and we’ve made the decisions that we felt were right for the football team and we’ll continue to do that and be as diligent as we can going forward.
I feel like I’ve had a strong relationship with Robert [Kraft] and his family since I was here in 1996 and I think it’s gotten stronger every year that I’ve been here with the Patriots.
As part of the process, there are a lot of different ways to evaluate players. There are a number of different companies and things out there that do different things; that have different ways of evaluating and those types of tests and so forth.
I would say that during the course of the game, I honestly never – it probably has happened on an incomplete pass or something – but I’ve never touched a game ball. It’s not something I have any familiarity with on that.
![Bill Belichick Quote - I feel like I’ve had a strong relationship with Robert [Kraft] and his family since I was here in 1996 and I think it’s gotten stronger every year that I’ve been here with the Patriots.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/i-feel-like-ive-had-a-strong-relationship-with-rob.jpg)
