Bill Belichick is arguably the greatest football coach of all time. And he’s also arguably one of the worst quotes.
It’s not for a lack of effort, though. Belichick is often intentionally dry with his quotes, careful not to reveal too much. However, when it comes to showering praise on players around the league, especially those who play for the New England Patriots, Belichick is quick to give credit where credit is due.
The Patriots coach did just that during a recent interview with The 33rd Team. He praised Matthew Judon, the 30-year-old pass-rusher, who is also the team’s highest-paid player. And as we’ve come to find out with the Patriots, it’s not often that they’ll hand out large contracts to defensive players, though that has been more commonplace in the post-Tom Brady era.
“Judon’s done a great job for us. We made him our highest-paid player, so I don’t think it was a situation where he was some big secret,” Belichick said, via Pro Football Talk.
Belichick discussed in his interview how highly the Patriots valued Judon in free agency and it showed when New England doled out a four-year, $56 million contract to the former Baltimore Ravens star in 2021.
“He had a lot of production for the Ravens,” Belichick said. “We’ve lost players like that in the past, too, whether that was [Joe] Thuney going to Kansas City to be the highest-paid lineman or guard or whatever it was. Sometimes you just can’t afford to keep guys because of the structure and just the way it falls. I don’t think there were any issues with Judon, I think he would help any team. It just worked out that we had a good opportunity and financially we were able to compete for him.”
Judon has 28 sacks over two seasons with the Patriots. It’s fair to say that they’ve certainly got what they paid for and then some.
