NEWSLETTER
One of Bill Belichick’s secrets to success is out.
Nobody in college football is living a better life right now than Georgia head coach Kirby Smart. Smart reached legend status in Athens last year by ending Georgia’s 40-year championship drought. Smart and the Bulldogs then repeated this past year after throttling TCU 65-7 in the National Championship Game. So you’ll have to forgive him if he’s going to let loose a bit.
That’s what happened at a coaching clinic where he revealed what he learned from observing Bill Belichick at the NFL Combine. When evaluating defensive linemen, it turns out the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach REALLY likes butts. Big ol’ butts.
The clip is really worth listening to if you can, simply for the inflection Smart puts on the word ass. If you’re unable to listen it to, the tl;dr is that Smart was at the Combine with his mentor Nick Saban who told Smart to observe Belichick. That’s when Smart noticed Belichick’s affinity for big rear ends.
“Bill likes to look to see how big their ass is when they get down into that 40 yard stance cause he wants to sign the biggest ass defensive linemen that he can sign. Cause those backers want to line up behind those guys and be protected by ’em, and they wanna have an anchor,” Smart said.
It makes sense when you consider that one of the most dominant defensive players of the Belichick era in New England was the delightfully massive Vince Wilfork. A space-eating nose tackle is a staple of the Belichick defense and both nose tackles on the Patriots depth chart are north of 310 pounds.
Bill Belichick’s Philosophy Taken To Heart
It’s something that both Saban and Smart took to heart with their programs. several Alabama defensive tackles go high in the draft. Terrence Cody (345 lbs), Marcell Dareus (331 lbs), A’Shawn Robinson (330 lbs), Dalvin Tomlinson (325 lbs) and Daron Payne (320 lbs) all went in the first 60 picks of the NFL Draft.
Not to be outdone, Georgia’ Jordan Davis (335 lbs) was selected 13th overall to Philadelphia and Jalen Carter (300 lbs) is expected to be a high draft pick this year, but he’s dealing with legal issues right now and reportedly struggled at his Pro Day on Wednesday which might affect his draft stock.
So there you have it. If you want your team to win lots of Super Bowls you don’t need the greatest quarterback of all time, you just need some defensive linemen with massive posteriors.
