FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was a guest speaker at Ohio State’s annual coaches clinic on Thursday. As part of the Cleveland.com report on his appearance, there are two videos in which Belichick discusses how he views his coaching staff and what he looks for in players (in the context of speaking on Ohio State alum Nate Ebner).

Here are some notable sound bites:

On coaches: “The way I see a football staff being put together is that it’s a group of head coaches. The head coach is the head coach, and he has certain restrictions in the program that he’s running -- whether it’s academic, salary cap, players in that district, budget constraints, whatever they happen to be. The coaches below that, coordinators, are really head coaches of their respective side of the ball: offense, defense, special teams. Position coaches are really head coaches of the positions they coach, that group of players. ...

Bill Belichick's approach to coaching is to step back and allow his assistants, like Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, to run their units. AP Photo/Charles Krupa

"Even down to the GAs [graduate assistants] and so forth that have their area of responsibility, whether that’s scout team or film breakdown or whatever it happens to be ... they have certain guidelines that they have to follow -- whether that’s the coordinator’s final decision on playcalling, on techniques of a play, whatever it happens to be or whether it’s the guidelines I’ve set for them. On the other hand, there is also a lot of latitude in the way that they coach their players, the way they organize their meetings, the way they interact with the people they are responsible for.

"I think the most important thing as a head coach is, No. 1, to make sure everyone is on the same page and understands what you want them to do and how you want it done. That’s not to say everything has to be rigid, but I think there have to be guidelines. The clearer those are, just talking about the head coach -- if you want to install your philosophy, your style of play, your standards -- those have to be done forcefully; they have to be done without too much deviation.”

On players: “For me, tough, smart, dependable. That’s where I would start. Tough -- mentally and physically. Smart -- good decisions, good football understanding, high football IQ. Dependable -- [in] critical situations, you can count on those players to perform under pressure. You can count on those players to execute what you want to execute as a team. The tougher the game, the more critical the game, the more important the situation, the more I want the tough, smart, dependable player in the game, in the eye of the storm, making a decision that needs to be made for us to win.

"We all want great players; we all want as many as we can get. But in the end, there’s a cap on that -- I don’t care where you are or what program you’re in. We all have some good ones, maybe a few more than others here or there. But in the end, that’s the way most teams are comprised. It’s the bulk of the rest of the players that you need to decide based on your scheme, the style of play you want to be.”