Tom Brady PostGame Press Conference Transcript
Here is the complete transcript of Tom Brady's postgame press conference following New England's 31-14 win over the Buccaneers Thursday night.
On whether or not he was happy to be back out on the field.
"It was fun. It's been a while since we've had a chance to be out there. After sitting last week, I think a lot of the guys were antsy to be out there. I'm glad we put some points on the board, but obviously a lot of things that we could do better too. We'll use it really as a tool to get better, and hopefully come out and play better next week."
On the fact they got Chad Ochocinco involved, and whether it was nice to see him get a touchdown
"It was. He's really finding a role for himself. He's been practicing hard, he's very competitive. It's a good group we have out there. We've just got to continue to build. All of us, it's just, we haven't played in a long time so everyone's a bit rusty out there. It will be good to get back to practice this week so we can really take what we learned from the game and try to get better in practice."
On if he saw the Woodhead hit
"Yeah. I jumped up because it looked like him, but he's a tough guy - running off the field. I mean, he's unbelievable."
On the play of his offensive line
"It was a good night, and they always do a great job, they take a lot of pride in that. It's a group that's been together for a while now - excluding Nate [Solder] who's stepped in - but they fight hard. I thought we ran the ball really well, we stayed out of negative plays for the most part, and when you're able to stay on track like that and put a bunch of good plays together, you usually get in the endzone."
On their offensive performance in the first half
"I mean, we expect to go out there and score. I think we had six drives, four of them ended in touchdowns, we were good in the red area. The one drive we got penalized, and didn't make much out of that drive, and the last one was the two minute drive. So there was some good, there was plenty of bad, I'm sure we're going to - I'm sure I'm going to see the film tomorrow - and be disappointed with some of the things that I wish I probably could have done better. We've just got to build on it and understand there were things we did wrong, and try to make the corrections."
On the fact Brady was so hard on himself a couple of week ago, and if this was the best he's felt?
"No, no. I think that there's a lot of things that I need to do better out there, I think there;s a lot of things that we as an offense need to do better. I thought the defense really got us the ball in great field position early in the first quarter. We took advantage of some of the penalties that they had. We got the ball, we got it moving, made some good runs, and made the plays in the red area when we needed to. Still too many things where we need ot do a better job. We'll all go in there and see the film, and see things that we screwed up and hopefully go out there and try and improve on them."
On if he saw anything specific with Bucs defender Sean Jones on the two touchdowns he threw against him.
"He's a very good player, he's an experienced player. Nothing that we tried to really take advantage of. I think it just happened to be there at that time. But he's an excellent player, he'll be a good player in this defense."
On his reaction when Woodhead got hit
"He got hit pretty hard. That's football, there's guys moving fast out there, especially on punt returns, or any of the returns that things are happening so fast. He just turned his head and the guy really gave it to him good. Like I said, he's a tough guy, I know everyone's worried about him as his teammates would be, but hopefully he's O.K."
On his conversations with Chad Ochocinco and getting in sync
"You know, we've missed a lot of time. I think that's the reality of what's happened this offseason. We've missed a lot of time over the course of six months where we really couldn't do anything football-wise. So a lot of it is just trying to continue to talk and the only way you can make corrections is to communicate. So we're always trying to communicate between the two of us. And even with Deion [Branch] and Wes [Welker], we haven't played football together in eight months either being on the field together. So a lot of it is the receiver group, the tight end group, the quarterbacks and the skill guys really being on the same page so you can anticipate the things that are going on out there, you can play with confidence, and then you can go out there and make the tight plays in those tight situations."
On the fact that you can't just magically have two guys work well together even though he and Chad are All pros.
"Not football. I mean it's a hard sport man, there's nothing easy about it. I mean dropping back, finding the right guy to throw to, and those guys running the right route at the right depth, at the right time, there's a lot of work that needs to be put into it. You're right, it's not something that you just magically, 'Hey, let's talk about it,' and now we're good at it. You've got to put the work in. You've got to practice. You've got to make the mistakes so you can make the corrections, and that's what we're trying to do. That's what we try to do when we're in the game, we're out of the game, we're on the practice field, we're in the walkthroughs, we're in the meeting rooms. We're always communicating so that when it does come to the game time, you feel that each and everyone's really confident in one another, and the guy that you're playing next to is really confident in what he's doing, so you have a lot of confidence in him."
