FOXBOROUGH -- Bill Belichick said Tuesday that among his many positive attributes, running back James White asks questions “like a coach.”
“If you were talking to another coach about a play, the coach would think ahead to what are the problems that could come up,” Belichick said when quizzed about White and his approach. “'If they do this, if they do that, if they do something else, what if this guy lines up here instead of there?' Those are the kinds of things that a player, like all of the ones I just mentioned, (Matthew) Slater in the kicking game, (Nate) Ebner in the kicking game. They ask those same kind of questions.”
So could that be a possible career move for White once he decides his playing career is done?
“Possibly,” he said. “Yeah, I feel like I could do it. I mean it just depends how I feel once my career is over with, but I feel like it would be cool to kind of pass down my knowledge to the younger generation.”
Belichick’s statement about thinking like a coach got us wondering: Is there anyone else in the Patriots’ locker room who has considered a career in coaching? And who would be best suited to making the move? We asked a dozen different players in the locker room which teammate would make the best coach. While there were several players mentioned, one name came up time and again.
Offensive lineman Ted Karras.
Karras was cited by his teammates for many reasons, including the fact his father is a coach who worked for more than 20 years at the high school and college level. Many in the locker room rave about his preparation, saying that he not only knows his assignment on just about every play, he also knows what everyone else needs to do at any given time. And there are others who simply mention his flat-out love and respect of the game and its history.
The Illinois lineman, who said he wants to go into coaching when his playing career was done, was honored to be the pick of so many of his teammates.
“There are so many guys in this locker room who I think would make great coaches, so to hear that is an honor,” he said.
Karras said he wasn’t sure what direction he wanted to go in — as an offensive line coach or head coach. But he did note that in college, a good offensive line coach can get paid like a head coach.
“You get a good one, those guys are few and far between,” he said of the offensive line coaches.
There were a handful of other names who came up. On the offensive side of the ball, that included center David Andrews, backup quarterback Brian Hoyer and offensive lineman Brian Ferentz. Andrews was cited for his highly cerebral approach to the game, while Hoyer also got a nod because of his smarts, as well as the fact backup quarterbacks seem to have a track record in that department (“I can see Hoyer with a headset on calling plays,” said one teammate). And Ferentz comes from a line of coaches — his father, Kirk, is the University of Iowa's head football coach and his brother, Brian, is the current offensive coordinator for the Hawkeyes and former member of the Patriots coaching staff.
“The family business,” said one teammate with a smile when asked about Ferentz’s future plans.
When he was informed his name came up as a possibility, Hoyer sounded honored, but he also sounded like someone who would want to stick to one specific part of the job, at least at the college level: X’s and O’s. He wants no part of recruiting. That’s one of the reasons he’s thought about working as a throwing coach when his days are done.
“I’ve had so many different experiences — I think I could really do something like that when I retire,” he said.
On the defensive side of the ball, one guy who teammates believe has coaching chops is linebacker Kyle Van Noy. One fellow defensive player said like Karras, Van Noy is always correct when it comes to his assignments, and is one of the more detail-oriented defensive players on the roster — two things that bode well for a possible career in coaching down the road.
One other defensive name that came up? Defensive lineman Trey Flowers, a guy who was initially mentioned an awful lot by his teammates as a future coach, but multiple players dismissed the idea “because Trey is going to play forever.”
For what it’s worth, more and more ex-Patriots are going into coaching. The most notable is Mike Vrabel, but a quick check of past rosters reveals that 10 guys who were part of the 2004 team at some point have all gone into coaching. It’s a group that includes Vrabel and Kliff Kingsbury (the current head coach at Texas Tech), as well as Larry Izzo, Roman Phifer and Joe Andruzzi (who have had assistant coaching jobs in the NFL). In addition, Hank Poteat, Adrian Klemm and Terrell Buckley have all found work at some point as college positional coaches. And finally, there are guys who have been part of the football administrative staff at the college level like Kevin Faulk (LSU) and Shawn Mayer (Rutgers).
Can this roster end up like the 2004 team and make the same sort of impact at the next level as coaches, either at the pro or college level? Only time will tell. But the chance to enrich their collective legacy by staying in the game would make for a fitting postscript for their careers, and ultimately serve as an auxiliary branch of the Belichick Coaching Tree.