Be careful comparing anyone to Jalen Hurts around Bill Belichick

BOSTON -- The role of a scout team football player is a selfless but invaluable one. Instead of taking the practice field looking to improve one's own game, a scout teamer is often tasked with emulating a certain opponent in order to prepare teammates for the challenge that lies ahead.

And with Jalen Hurts on the schedule for Week 1, the Patriots are most certainly leaning on rookie Malik Cunningham on the practice field to impersonate Hurts when running the scout team offense. While Hurts is a much more accomplished quarterback, Cunningham obviously has the background to fulfill that role in a practice setting, as he rushed for over 3,000 yards with 50 touchdowns while throwing for almost 10,000 yards with 70 touchdowns during his collegiate career at Louisville.

So, late in Wednesday morning's press conference, Bill Belichick was asked how helpful it is to have a player like Cunningham on the practice squad for weeks like this, so that the quarterback can provide "some similar looks on the scout team." It was a fairly standard question with a presumably obvious answer ... but the response went to a slightly different level.

"Yeah, no, I mean, Malik's got some good skills. I mean, I think it'd be a stretch to compare Malik Cunningham to Jalen Hurts now," Belichick said, indicating right away where he intended to go with his response. "I mean, you're talking about a guy who's second in MVP voting last year, or whatever he was. I don't know."

(Bill did know this. Hurts was second in MVP voting last year, behind only Patrick Mahomes and ahead of Josh Allen and Joe Burrow. The "or whatever he was, I don't know" was simply for effect. OK, back to Bill.)

"So yeah, athletically there are some similarities, but you're talking about arguably the best player in the league -- or one of the top two or three best players in the league. Nobody has anybody that can be him," Belichick said with a tone of disbelief that such a suggestion could have been made (even though it hadn't been made). "And if they do, that guy's probably not playing on scout team for that team anyway. So, yeah, I mean, it is what it is. We go through that every week. Every team's got a few good players and some great players, and it's hard to replicate those players. And if you have one, your guy's probably not on the scout team doing it for that for that guy anyway."

Belichick concluded: "So, you know, you do the best you can but yeah, we'll have somebody to try to simulate the best we can what Hurts does. But we don't have anybody like Hurts, and probably neither does anybody else."

So there. The next time you want to ask if having a quick, athletic quarterback on the practice squad can help the defense prepare to face a more talented and accomplished quarterback who is also quick and athletic, be warned. That's not how it works. Teams don't stash MVP-adjacent-caliber players on their practice squads, so don't assume that they do. 

The message from Bill Belichick -- that Hurts is exceptional and cannot be imitated -- has been delivered.

(If the Patriots do limit Hurts on Sunday, don't be surprised to see Cunningham wearing a black jersey next week, indicating that he has been named one of the practice players of the week ... for emulating Hurts in practice.)