Bill Belichick Post Game Comments
Here’s the complete transcript of New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s post game press conference following New England’s win over the Green Bay Packers:
Opening Statement:
“I think you have to give the players a lot of credit today for playing 60-minutes and fighting through some adversity and coming out with a win at the end – they made enough plays to win. It certainly wasn’t one of our better games and obviously I have to do a better job of preparing the team than what I did this week. So we couldn’t handle a lot of the basic things that they did, and that was disappointing. But we had a few big plays, it was a game of big plays, and fortunately we were able to make a few more than they were. We got a couple of good plays there at the end from the defense, and the offense set us up with the lead there on the drive before. In the end it worked out, but we’ve obviously got a lot of work to do. I think we’ve got to play better than this, or our season won’t last much longer.”
On if he’d ever seen anything like Dan Connolly’s kickoff return:
“I don’t think so. It was a good run, he broke a tackle there on [Charlie] Peprah, Sergio [Brown] cleaned him off, kind of looked like he was looking to go down, but then they just couldn’t really find anyone to tackle him. It was a nice job by the kickoff team, they short-kicked us all day really with the pooch kicks and the squib kicks there. We’ve been working on those, but it was an alert play by Dan but also by the blocking to get in front of him there to at least get him started.”
On the last two sacks before the end of the game:
“It looked to me like the guard was trying to come out and get him, and he beat him off the edge. The last couple – I think we were in a three man rush – and the quarterback, Flynn, just held the ball trying to get it down the field, and we were able to fall back. When he stepped up in the pocket, we came back in and got him it looked like.”
On Tully Banta-Cain’s penalty, and the fact he made the play at the end to seal it:
“It’s good to win. We had a lot of penalties. Look, these guys call the most penalties of any crew in the league, and they called them, and we knew it was going to be a tight game – and it was. We’ve just got to do a better job of that - I’ve got to do a better job of preparing the team.”
On if Packers QB Matt Flynn’s play surprised him:
“No, I mean that’s about the way we’ve seen him play. We played him in preseason, he does a good job managing the game. He’s a good quarterback.”
On what he thought they weren’t prepared for:
“All the stuff that happened, we’ve got to do a better job. We’ve got to do a better job of getting the players ready for those things, and we’ve got to do a better job of executing them when we get a chance to do them.”
On the defense’s performance in the fourth quarter:
“Our performance was up and down all night. That’s the way it was for all four quarters. We had a few good plays, then we had some bad plays, we had a few good plays, and then some bad plays – that’s the way it was the whole game.”
On what he meant about the fact he had to do a better job coaching:
“If we can’t execute, then it’s got to come back to the coaching at some point. So we’ve got to do a better job at coaching.”
On the last Arrington tackle that set up the 4th and one:
“I don’t think I really got a good look at it. It was on the other side of the field. I mean they ran the under route right? So I don’t think it wouldn’t have made any difference if they got the first down or not. They had no timeouts left, 15 seconds – I guess they could have spiked it – maybe they could have gotten another play out of it. But just being out of timeouts and having to try to run a red area offense, they didn’t really get many plays off - which was fortunate for us.”
On how the Packers opened the game:
“Yeah, it was good execution by them, but I mean it’s terrible by us – we can’t give that up. I don’t care if it’s well executed or not. We’ve got to do a better job in all three phases of the game, there’s no doubt about that. I mean we made some plays, we made plays on offense, we made plays on defense, made plays on special teams and we gave them up too – gave up a lot of them. We’ve just got to do a better job, and it starts with me.”
