FOXBORO, MASS. (WHDH) - With his team gearing up for a Super Bowl showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick flashed a rare smile on Wednesday before praising a pair of his former players.
“It’s good to be working this week,” a grinning Belichick said as he spoke with the media.
But with two former Patriots now gracing the Philadelphia sideline, Belichick knows his team has their work cut out for them.
“A really good football team. Ton of respect for what they do and how they do it,” Belichick said of the Eagles.
LeGarrette Blount and Chris Long, key pieces to the Patriots Super Bowl championship a season ago, are now contributing at a high level for Philadelphia.
“They’ve done a great job for them. The guys have been productive and are having good years,” Belichick said.
Blount has continued to do in Philadelphia what he did in New England: run the ball well and bulldoze players in the process. He’s thrived as part of Eagles head coach Doug Pederson’s offense.
“He does what they do well, but not in such a way that there’s an overriding tendency, where the defense knows exactly what it is,” Belichick said. “He does a great job of balancing those things off.”
Long, a pass rushing specialist, left the Patriots in search of a new role in a different defense. Belichick believes he made the right call.
“He did a great job for us. There was no better teammate or guy that embraced the program, but in the end, he probably has a better fit there,” Belichick said.
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