Alabama football coach Nick Saban still remembers one of the reasons why former colleague Bill Belichick would reprimand him during their coaching tenure with the Cleveland Browns.
“Belichick would chew my butt out, man, and say, ‘Let the players play,'” Saban said Wednesday after practice ahead of the team’s first spring scrimmage. “And I was like, ‘Wow, I’ve never had my butt chewed out before for coaching [and] teaching.”
Saban, who spent four seasons as Cleveland’s defensive coordinator, said he now has the same message for members of his coaching staff. In his 13th year at Alabama, Saban said he sees value in time that’s dedicated to “[letting] the players play” — just as Belichick told him over 20 years ago.