Montlake musings: On Steve Belichick, Jedd Fisch's NFL influence and more
Plus: we can't go three days without a roster update, can we?
Jedd Fisch spent only one season with the New England Patriots, but you can tell it made an impact. He coached quarterbacks for Bill Belichick in 2020 prior to taking the head coaching job at Arizona. Fisch once said that upon informing Belichick he was leaving for Arizona, the coach immediately offered to connect him with Tedy Bruschi and Rob Gronkowski — a pair of Wildcats legends — whom Belichick had coached in New England. There’s a certain level of respect at play there.
And while Fisch worked with the offense, it was, of course, Belichick’s defensive acumen that he referenced during a conversation with reporters, shortly after his introductory press conference as Washington’s new coach.
In describing his preferred defensive scheme, Fisch said, among other things, that the Huskies will need to excel in man-to-man coverage.
“I think that’s where Coach Belichick has been a separator in his career, for every year he’s ever coached, is his teams play the best man-to-man coverage,” Fisch said, “and we need to be able to do that, to be able to have the extra guy in the box to be able to play good defense.”
The playcaller for Belichick’s defense the past four seasons? That would be his son, Steve Belichick, who also coached the Patriots’ outside linebackers and, UW announced Tuesday, will serve as Fisch’s first defensive coordinator in Seattle.