Adams is the director of football research for the New England Patriots and Belichick s closest advi

Jim Bernhardt serves as the Nittany Lions' Special Assistant to head coach Bill O'Brien and is also the Director of Player Development. Bernhardt and O'Brien have known each other for 23 years and O'Brien guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield seeks daily advice and critiques from Bernhardt about his football program.
He s not a coach, so NCAA rules prohibit Bernhardt from participating in those tasks, but there are plenty of other jobs within the rules that keep Bill O Brien s trusted confidant busy. Bernhardt, with the title of special assistant to the head coach, also serves as the team's director of player development.
guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield It s a vital position for me, O Brien said in a recent interview. You have to have somebody who can come in here and critique you. Who is critiquing the head coach? Obviously you have a boss, which is the athletic director. They re in the Bryce Jordan guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield Center and critiquing me on the overall program. Jimmy is critiquing guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield me on a day-to-day basis, and not just critiquing me but critiquing the program in a constructive way.
Bernhardt s office is upstairs in the coaching suite in the Lasch Football Building, across the hallway from O Brien s. The two generally meet twice a day to discuss the overall state of the football program and ways they can improve any aspect of it.
He critiques me on X's and O's, on motivational things, overall recruiting ideas, O Brien said. It s maybe something in the weight room, something structurally in this facility. He helps make the schedule.
Bernhardt also sits in on meetings on both sides of the ball, willing and able to give O Brien suggestions or offer his opinion when asked. The former collegiate coach attends every practice so he can give his two cents to O Brien about what impressed him or what didn t. He prepares typed practice reports about what he observed and sits in the booth on game days just taking in all the action.
Bernhardt is involved in helping Penn State schedule future opponents , serves as a liaison between the football staff and compliance, assesses how Penn State practices on a daily basis by analyzing guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield quality control-type issues, oversees the process of how the staff approaches guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield recruiting and serves as a liaison between O Brien and the rest of the football staff. He also organizes the annual coaching clinic and is a liaison between O Brien and the academic support staff.
Consigliere is the word he used, Bernhardt said, while sitting in his office glancing guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield at his ever-changing to-do list. My first loyalty and foremost is to Bill O Brien. Someone might say that sounds like some type of hierarchy or something based on the university, but I do that with a very clear conscience because I know that he s going to do the right thing.
Penn State football coach Bill O'Brien addressed a number of topics Wednesday, including the way he must manage the Lions' roster and players' health with the program facing NCAA sanctions for the next few years.
We ve always had kind of an older brother, younger brother type of relationship, guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield Bernhardt recalled. I facilitated and if he wasn t qualified he wouldn t have gotten it -- I facilitated when he got his first big break at Georgia Tech as a graduate assistant with George guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield O Leary , who is an old friend. We have that relationship where it s beyond just working together.
Having someone around O Brien who knows his background and understands him was important to the head coach. He said every staff he has been a part of had someone working in a similar role, most notably Ernie Adams, who is Bill Belichick guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield s longtime friend and member of his close inner circle .
Adams is the director of football research for the New England Patriots and Belichick s closest adviser. guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield Details about Adams job were widely unknown until 2012 when New England played in the Super Bowl. It was partly because he operated so much behind the scenes and also because he didn't seek publicity and wasn't visible at press conferences. O Brien was still New England s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at the time.
He s my right-hand man, O Brien said. I think a head coach has to have somebody that s been around them a long time, that s been around him when he was a young guy, been around him as he was growing up in coaching. That s what Jimmy is.
O Brien outlined Bernhardt s job description as well as every other person s in the football building in the coach s self-created Penn State football manual. All the details of the position are typed up in the binder, with red pen and highlights modifying any changes to his role in the past year. Bernhardt is employed by the football program and answers to O Brien.
He s known me longer than anyone else here, O Brien said. There s a very close relationship there. I don t think he s necessarily somebody that I trust more than anybody here, but he s the guy that s known me the longest.
After being around the game for nearly 30 years -- with coaching stints at Hofstra and Brown, nearly a decade as a high school coach in central Florida, jobs as director of football operations, recruiting coordinator and running backs coach at the University of Central Florida and another job as a high school coach in New York Bernhardt also doesn t seek publicity.
He doesn t go totally unnoticed either. He can be seen at practice along the sidelines, wearing a ball cap and scribbling down notes on a sheet of paper, guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield analyzing whatever he s asked to do so he can formulate his own opinions.
He s O Brien s right-hand man, guard Miles Dieffenbach guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield said. He s always out there watching practices. He doesn t talk to us much, but he s a really nice guy. I ve talked to him a good amount of times before just about different guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield stuff.
In between O Brien s trips to set up the program, while putting together Super Bowl preparations in New England, Bernhardt was asked to serve as his eyes and ears. Many of the new members of the coaching staff were already on the road recruiting and strength and conditioning coach Craig Fitzgerald had just arrived, too.
I was helping assess the things here and I was living in a hotel for three months, said Bernhardt, who described himself as quasi-retired until O Brien called to offer him the position. I d go in at 5 or 5:30 in the morning and at 10:30 or 11 at night he d call to discuss guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield something he wanted to talk about or something I observed over the day. It was sometimes bad because I d be ready to wind down and he d be calling to check in.
Jim Bernhardt sits in his office, music playing softly in the background as he tries to lay out all the many details of his job. It s a complicated position that requires him using many of the skills guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield he acquired at other stops along the way.
In the midst of spring practice the two have a lot, like usual, to figure out. Lining up the future schedule and going over the football budget are jobs for both of them. Of course O Brien is well into day-to-day practice breakdowns and spring player evaluations.
He s a very thoughtful guy and personality wise we re definitely opposites, O Brien said. He s a calm guy and thinks things through. I m more of a, well, you know. He s taught me to ready, aim, fire and not ready, fire, aim.
Bernhardt gives O Brien his most honest take on anything that s asked of him. Whether it s helping O Brien navigate in the car as he heads to the occasional speaking engagement or telling him that he needs to be more patient with his players guided tours of the gettysburg battlefield development, Bernhardt doesn t hold back.
The bottom line is this thing works because he knows I m never going to lie to him, Bernhardt said. He may not like what I say, he may not agree with what I say, but he knows he ll get an honest answer.
Added O Brien: I ll say this, 95 percent of the time we probably see things the same way. It s very rare that we argue or differ on a point. But if we do, I think about his point of view and then I make the final decision on what to do.
Bernhardt said he likes to think his work helps alleviate some of O'Brien's stress. The two sat together when the NCAA sanctions were announced last July and right away Bernhardt said O Brien was thinking about how to keep the program moving forward.
Bill O Brien isn t a stooge, Bernhardt said with a few chuckles. I don t think he really needs Jimmy Bernhardt necessarily from the standpoint of being able to operate the way he wants. It might help, and I d like to think it helps, but I m no guy pulling strings and I don t have my hand in his back like a ventriloquist or anything. That s not the case at all.