A frustrated Bill Belichick was adamant that his personnel department handles most of the NFL trade deadline talks
FOXBORO -- Judging by Bill Belichick's description of his day Tuesday, there weren't many trade offers that crossed his desk that were worthy of consideration.
Less than 24 hours after the 4 p.m. ET trade deadline on Halloween, Belichick conducted his standard Wednesday press conference and fielded a number of trade-related questions.
"Yeah," he said when asked if it was a busy deadline period, "we're getting ready for Washington."
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Were the Patriots close on executing any deals, Belichick was asked?
"Spent time getting ready for Washington," he replied.
Belichick made it clear that director of player personnel Matt Groh and his staff handle the bulk of the communication with other clubs around the deadline. Meanwhile, Belichick and his coaches, he explained, zeroed in on the Commanders.
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"We talked about this the other day," he said. "The personnel department, the coaching department, we talked about that last week. It's just another day...
"If there was anything to talk about, we talked about it. If there wasn't anything to talk about, then I worked on Washington, and the personnel people worked on personnel things."
Based on sources within the organization, though, Belichick is still the decision-maker on the 53-man roster. And he did indicate that Groh and his staff would approach him if there was anything he needed to make a call on.
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"We've talked about this 50 times," he said. "If they have something that they think I need to know about, then we talk about it. If I have a personnel situation that I think they need to know about, I tell them about it, and then they look into it.
"It's the same thing I've said the last 50 times we've talked about this. We work together when there's something to work together on. If there's not something to work together on, I coach, they do the personnel...
"If there isn't something to talk about, we don't just sit there and stare at each other all day. We both have other stuff to do. Their department, the coaching department, there's other things going on.
"So we don't just sit there and stare at each other and see if the phone's going to ring or there's going to be something on the news or whatever. We have stuff to do."
