There are very few things that Bill Belichick likes more than soccer. The list is basically limited to hoodies, Nantucket, monotonous press conference responses lasting a word or 15 minutes, and most of all lacrosse.
Belichick played lacrosse in high school and college. Her daughter, Amanda, is the lacrosse coach at Holy Cross. She likes lacrosse so much that she even allowed the Patriots’ official website to feature on her love of the game. He has been seen playing lacrosse (or at least whipping the ball) on the field at Gillette Stadium and even “coached” the Johns Hopkins lacrosse team in practice.
Last year, Belichick talked about which of his Patriots players would be good lacrosse players. Tom Brady would be a goalkeeper, he said, while players like Devin McCourty, Patrick Chung, Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel would have a chance to excel on the field.
However, this weekend, Belichick lavished perhaps his highest lacrosse-related praise on the new Patriot: Cam Newton.
“Cam Newton looks like Myles Jones to me,” Belichick said, according to NBCSportsBoston.com. “He’s fast. He’s big. He’d be a tough guy to deal with. He could run through them. He could get past those stick controls and he’d have a tough, stick work, a hard overhead shot, so I think that those tall and long guys really do have a huge advantage of being able to change the angle of their shots and still be able to get through some guys. “
Jones is a star for Chaos LC, scoring 21 goals with nine assists last season. According to the Premier Lacrosse League website, Jones was a three-time All-American at Duke, as well as a two-time LT jg award winner Donald MacLaughlin, a two-time Tewaaraton Award finalist, and ACC 2016 offensive player of the Year. At 6-5, 260 pounds, Jones also has some physical resemblance to Newton, who is one of the only 10 quarterbacks in league history (or at least in the time the NFL has been measuring height and weight. of players) to be at least 6 -5 and weigh at least 245 pounds.
As Newton mentioned earlier this offseason, the Patriots are likely now able to access parts of their playbook that they couldn’t when Brady was in the middle, simply because he wasn’t the same size, speed, or athleticism as Newton. That Jones-like ability that Newton has is what will allow them to execute those plays now that he’s on the roster.
