FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Patriots coach Bill Belichick will extend his NFL record for most postseason games as a head coach in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game, but that experience doesn’t mean he won’t be nervous. In fact, Belichick revealed he experiences nerves before every game.
“Yeah, every week. They all count in this league,” he said Friday morning, two days before he will coach in his 41st career postseason game. “Just let me know the next game that doesn’t matter, so I can take that into account.”
Belichick added that preseason games fall into that category as well.
“Just let me know the ones that don’t matter, I’ll make sure I don’t get excited for those,” he said. “Nervous? Sure. You want to go out there and do well. There’s an anxiety.
“We all have things in the game that we have to do. You want to perform them well, not let your team down, because everyone is counting on you to do your job, and you’re counting on everybody else to do theirs.”
Belichick’s 41 postseason games as a head coach puts more distance between him and Tom Landry and Don Shula on the all-time list, as they both had 36.
This is his 13th conference championship game as a head coach, which is also a record. Landry (10), Shula (7) and Chuck Noll (7) follow him on that list.
Belichick, who turns 67 in April, also sounded like he doesn’t plan to stop coaching any time soon. Asked about Robert Kraft set to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of purchasing the Patriots on Jan. 21, Belichick lauded Kraft while at the same tipping off his own intentions.
“We have a good set-up here. He has been very supportive, gives us a great opportunity to go out and compete every week. We’ve done that. Hope we can continue it for a long time,” he said.