Bill Belichick became verbose in his press conference when asked about how the New England Patriots have a "game-plan" offense, which changes each week depending on the opponent.

"I guess I’ve always had that philosophy. You try to do what you think works best against that particular opponent certainly within the framework of what you’re comfortable doing, whether that’s offense, defense or special teams, it’s all the same. [Former Head Coach] Wayne Hardin at Navy maybe, if you want to go back a ways; Detroit, the Giants. I don’t know ... 

"I’ll just give you this example. When I was in high school at Annapolis, I played for Al Laramore, who was Maryland Coach of the Year, a Hall of Fame high school coach in Delaware and all that. So, he’s a pretty good coach. We won a lot of games, we won a ton of games and we ran four plays. We ran four plays: '22 Power', '24 Quick Trap', '28 Counter' and 'Sprint Right' and that was it. When we ran them to the other side, we just flipped formation. The whole line flipped and the play went the other way: '22 Power', '24 Quick Trap', '28 Counter' and 'Sprint Left.' That was the offense, that was the entire offense and we won a lot of games. 

"Then the next year when I went to Andover and played for Coach [Steve] Sorota there, who again was a great player, great coach, played with [Vince] Lombardi at Fordham and was one of the most renowned coaches I’d say ever in New England prep school football or maybe high school football period for that matter. The quarterback called his own plays. They didn’t send them in; they didn’t tell him what to call. They got in the huddle and he may have asked for a suggestion from me or Ernie [Adams] or somebody, but he called whatever he wanted to call and that was the offense. So, that was about as opposite as you could get it from one year to the next year. 

"We won just as many games. It was totally different, but both were very successful. So what’s the right way to do it? What’s the wrong way to do it? I don’t know. Whatever works, whatever you believe in. But then it all has to line up that way. 

"I got to Baltimore with Coach [Ted] Marchibroda, Bert Jones. Bert called all the plays. I want to say it was his second year in the league. He called all the plays. Call timeout, come over to the sideline, fourth-and-one, Bert would say, ‘What do you want me to call?’ Ted would say, ‘We have 24 Hunch, we have 36 Bob, we have Play Pass 37 Y Flag, whatever you feel good about.’ ‘Alright.’ Other players and coaches would come up and say, ‘What are we going to run?’ ‘I don’t know, it depends what Bert calls.’ 

"There are other teams, Coach [Ray] Perkins, Coach [Bill] Parcells, those guys, called every play. Not that we wouldn’t audible to a play or something but he called every play. So, what’s right and what’s wrong? I don’t know. It can all work. If you do it right and you have the other things – if you do it one way, you have to have other things that are in place to do that. There’s a reason for doing it. There are also some drawbacks to doing it that way. When that happens, you have to have some way to counter it. That’s the same way on defense. 

"When I was with the Broncos and Joe Collier, there were game-plans where we had 60 different fronts. Fronts! It’s hard to imagine 60 different fronts in a 3-4 defense really, but that what it was. It was 60 different alignments, which would include a linebacker that was blitzing so any one of the four linebackers were blitzing so that was part of it. 

"I got to the Giants when Bill [Parcells] came in, we put in a 3-4 there. We played one front with one adjustment. We reduced the end on the weak side from a four-technique to a three-technique and that’s it. Then I’d say 95 percent of the snaps that we played from ’81 to ’90 that weren’t nickel snaps; over 90 percent of them had to be either base or reduced front, maybe 95 percent. It might have been higher than that. 

"Two good defenses -- the Orange Crush, the Broncos defense, that was a great defense. The Giants defense, that was a great defense. The same 3-4, two totally different philosophies. So what’s the right way to do it? Both work."