Roughly the same size as the 6-foot-6, 28-year-old Gronkowski, Zo was Gronk long before Gronkowski ever guzzled from a beer bong. Belichick was asked during a break in the taping of his show what Zolak, now 50, was like at that age.

Belichick paused, smiled and said diplomatically, “We’ve all matured.”

But while Zolak may sound like an over-the-top homer to a Patriots hater, his commentary is mostly fair and often instructive. That might explain why Belichick respects and trusts him enough to collaborate.

The two men met in 1996, when Belichick joined the Patriots’ staff as the assistant head coach to Bill Parcells, nominally responsible for the defensive backs. In that pre-dynastic iteration of the Patriots, Zolak was Drew Bledsoe’s rowdy backup and the extra hand who ran the scout team for Belichick’s defensive backs, impersonating the opposing quarterback in practices.

“I worked closer with him at that time than I did with Drew,” Belichick said during a break in the taping of the show. “He was great at it. He knew the game, he’s smart and he always had a great sense of humor. Everyone got along with him, plus he could throw the hell out of the ball.”

From the other side, Zolak witnessed Belichick’s mind-boggling attention to detail.

“If we were playing the Dolphins, I had to wear No. 13 just like Dan Marino,” Zolak said. “I had to have the sleeves cut off like Dan and wear the same face mask. Bill told me where Marino put his hands at his belt. He wanted the exact same mannerisms.”

Before a game against the Broncos that year, Belichick admonished Zolak for failing to accurately capture John Elway’s cadence at the line of scrimmage. “No, no, it’s ‘set HUT,’” Belichick instructed. To the coach, even something as microscopic as emphasizing the proper syllable in a scout-team drill was worth doing correctly.