Main page | February 22, 2008 »

Patriots announce coaching changes, hire Capers

New England has announced changes to its coaching staff: longtime coach Dom Capers has been brought on as a special assistant/secondary, Bill O'Brien was promoted to receivers coach from offensive assistant, and former receivers coach Nick Caserio has moved back into the front office as director of player personnel.

Left unsaid in the release is that former secondary coach Joel Collier has been let go.

Capers, who has spent 22 years in the NFL, was most recently the defensive coordinator in Miami for the last two seasons.

Speaking about Capers, who has served as head coach of the Panthers and Texans, Bill Belichick said, “I have known Dom for a long time and respect him tremendously as a coach, particularly defensively. To add a coach of his caliber is an outstanding opportunity for us. I look forward to getting to work with Dom and (defensive coordinator) Dean [Pees] immediately.”

Caserio spent last season as receivers coach, but must have decided that he prefers the front office; from 2004-06, he served as New England's director of pro personnel, and the year before that, he was an area scout. In his first season with the team, 2002, Caserio was an offensive coaching assistant.

He is a former college teammate of offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels at John Carroll University.

O'Brien, a Brown alum, left Duke before last season to join Belichick's staff as an offensive assistant. He will take Caserio's role as receivers coach.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

No tag for Moss

In news first reported by ESPN's John Clayton, the Patriots have not used the franchise tag on receiver Randy Moss; the deadline for teams to designate a franchise player was 4 p.m.

The feeling is that Moss and the Patriots are close to signing a long-term deal with the receiver and he likely will not hit the free agent market.

When New England acquired Moss in a draft-day deal last April, he signed a one-year contract with incentives that marked a significant pay cut for he veteran wideout compared to what he was due to make with his previous club, Oakland.

Moss came to the Patriots and returned to his previous impressive form, with 98 catches for 1,493 yards and a league-record 23 touchdowns. He also was praised as a great teammate, and did not cause any ripples save for the restraining order a Florida woman filed against him during the playoffs.

Tom Brady has made no secret of his fondness for Moss as a teammate, and said at the Super Bowl earlier this month that he figures he has at least 10 more seasons left in him and would like to have Moss with him for as many of those as possible. Brady was not happy when the Pats traded Deion Branch to Seattle, and expressed as much publicly; clearly, it is in New England's best interests to keep the best quarterback in the game happy.

Had New England franchised Moss, he would have gotten a one-year contract for a guaranteed $7.85 million. When teams designate a franchise player, they have until July 15 to work out a long-term deal with him. Otherwise the player signs the tender and the sides can't meet again until after the season concludes.

Eleven teams used the franchise tag this season.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

One more off the Christmas list

This isn't the first time we've realized that Bill Belichick and Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher aren't exactly buddy-buddy, but Fisher made some comments today that seem like a shot at Belichick.

The longtime Titans coach addressed the media with other members of the NFL's Competition Committee today, and was asked if their needs to be a clarification of the rule Belichick was found to have broken by having a team employee videotape from the sidelines.

"No. those rules are very, very clear. There is no need to be more specific or clarify
any rules whatsoever as far as the bylaws are concerned," he said.

Belichick has maintained that it was his mis-interpretation of a gray area in the rule that led to New England's videotaping.

Fisher was also asked how he'd react if he learned that his opponent had recorded his walkthrough, as New England has been accused of doing to St. Louis before Super Bowl XXXVI.

I'm not going to answer that question because we're dealing with a hypothetical situation
related to an ongoing investigation right now," he said. "I think you could speculate what my
answer would be. But I'm not going to go into any detail."

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Lovie Smith on Spygate

Bears head coach and former Rams defensive coordinator Lovie Smith was among the coaches and team officials to address the media today at the Combine, and was of course asked about Spygate. Smith was with St. Louis when the it lost to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI.

Asked if he felt like New England had some inside information during the game, Smith replied, "No, not at all. Again, I'm having a hard time remembering last year's (Super Bowl). To think back to St. Louis, that's definitely harder for me. But what I recall is that we were beaten by a good football team that year. It was an excellent football game. And that's about all I remember from it."

Smith said his team takes precautions to try and prevent opponents from stealing defensive signals, but it isn't a major focus.

"We take all type of precautions. You have wristband calls and things like that. I don't spend a whole lot of time ... most of our effort goes into trying to find a way to be successful on the football field doing it the right way. We spend most of our time on that. We have precautions in place to guard against that on game day, and that's how we've always done it," he said.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

More from Milloy

In talking with former Patriots safety Lawyer Milloy yesterday, he relayed a funny story about Tom Brady that didn't make it into our story this morning. Milloy and Brady became close when the former was with the Pats, and has seen the quarterback's rise from fourth-string to star.

It was two years after Milloy had signed with Buffalo, and Milloy hadn't hung out with his friend since he had joined the Bills. So the two, along with some other friends and Milloy's former teammates, including Mike Vrabel, decided to meet at the Kentucky Derby.

"We show up at the Derby in a Suburban, and he steps out of the truck. I go to step out and a big hand stops me. It's his security. I was like, what the hell?," Milloy recalled, smiling. "He had two security guys around him, answering questions from the paparazzi, and we had to walk behind him. That's the difference between a good player and superstar status."

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments 0