Heel Tough Blog: Bill Belichick Press Conference Takeaways- 8/2

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Saturday was the start of the first fall camp of the Bill Belichick era in Chapel Hill as a team with 70 new players looked to begin finding answers to some important questions before the season opener against TCU. Prior to practice, Belichick met with the media to answer some important questions himself about his team. Here are our biggest takeaways from what he had to say on Saturday morning.

Max Johnson is Back to Fully Practicing After Scary Leg Injury

One of the bigger storylines around the first practice was the return of Max Johnson to the practice field after he spent the spring working on the side on his way back from a gruesome leg injury suffered in last year’s season opener. Johnson, who would speak with the media afterwards, said that he had five surgeries on his right leg and that at one point, there was a thought he might lose the leg. Now, just 338 days after suffering the injury, Belichick confirmed that he was good to go to be a full participant in practice. “It’s a big jump for him in terms of what he’s able to do, although I think the progression is very gradual. It’s 1 percent at a time, but at some point, he’s crossed that threshold and so he’ll be ready to participate out there with all the other players.”

There Is No Timeline for the QB Battle

Belichick was asked directly about the timetable for the quarterback battle and said that there isn’t one. “We don’t have a specific date. I think the time will be when we’re sure.” The way he was talking makes it seem like it is a two-horse race and with Max Johnson taking a lot of first team snaps, it would appear that he is the biggest threat to Gio Lopez for the job. At this point, it’s still hard to see Lopez not winning the starting job, but as Belichick has been saying, this is something that he will have to earn.

Offense is Expected to Be a Physical Group

When asked about the offense this season and what principles it will be built off of, Belichick pointed to physicality. “In terms of Freddie, he’s a very aggressive coach, who wants to have a physical team, physical running game, physical presence on offense. We just don’t want to run backwards on every play, we want to be aggressive. And we think we have the players to run that type of offense.” The hope is that this offense will look drastically different from what we saw in the bowl game from Kitchens, which was a unit that was simply ineffective. The promise from the players, though, is that this offense will look completely different and will resemble a lot of what we see from NFL offenses and let's hope they are right.

Second Portal Was Focused on Add Talent After First Portal Was About Adding Bodies

Belichick was asked about how the strategies between the first portal window and second window differed and he pointed to the pursuit of talent as the main difference. While he might say there was a difference, it really felt like the staff took a similar approach to both portal windows because of just how many depth pieces they added to the roster late in the spring window. As for talent, there was still plenty of talent in that first portal window that was added in names like Thaddeus Dixon, Pryce Yates and Khmori House. It feels like the Tar Heels did a really good job of finding the talent that they needed throughout while also plugging the holes that this roster still had depthwise. Despite all of the changes, this roster is in pretty good shape heading into the season even though they won’t reach the 105 scholarship limit.

Everyone Has to Earn Their Spot on This Roster

Belichick closed his presser with a stern message that he has been communicating with this team about earning your starting positions. “Anybody who’s walking in here feeling like, ‘well, I’m going to be just starting this, or that I’m entitled to this.’ That’s not really the way it’s going to work. They’re going to have to earn it. If they want to come in and earn playing time and earn a roster spot and play at Carolina and play in the ACC, then we’ll give it to them and we’ll see what they can do.” This just feels like a completely different mindset from the previous staff despite them saying similar things. Belichick and his staff don’t appear like they will award lackadaisical or undisciplined play the way that we saw under Mack Brown the last six years, which is a breath of fresh air.