Bill Belichick's Post Game Press Conference Transcript
OPENING STATEMENT:
“That’s a good locker room in there right now. The guys feel real good about the way they played, and they should. Our players really did a heck of a job tonight all the way across the board. We got good contributions from all three phases. I thought those guys really tried to play the game the way we need to play it.Houston’s a good football team, but we just did a few things better than they did tonight. Again, players, this is a long week for them, it was a lot of preparation, it was a lot of getting ready for a team we hadn’t played in a couple years that’s a real good football team with a lot of good players. But those guys worked hard all week and it definitely showed up tonight. I take my hat off to the job they did and like I said they feel good about the way they played tonight, and they should – they did a good job.”
On how important Aaron Hernandez’s versatility was tonight:
“Everything’s important. Every guy’s got to step up and do their job. They do a lot of man-to-man, a lot of five-man rushes, so everybody’s got a guy to block, everybody’s got a man to beat and get open. It’s a lot of one-on-one matchups. Everybody’s got to do a good job, Aaron, and the other ten guys too. That’s a lot of the way they play and everybody’s got a tough matchup.”
On the play of the defense:
“Again I think we got good contributions from everybody. The players did a good job. We had some third and longs, which was a big part of playing better on first and second down. We rushed, we covered, we tackled, I thought we were physical out there. We played a good solid football game in all three phases. We had real good field position. Special teams did a good job giving the defense good field position. Our offense had some good long drives there early in the game, gave us a chance to get settle down. They did a couple of plays there early on us, but we were able to get things straightened out without too much damage getting done. That was a big interception by Devin [McCourty] to take them out of scoring zone early in the game. That was a huge play for us. But we got good play from everybody. The line, the linebackers, the secondary, they all played well.”
On if there’s anyone in the league more valuable than Tom Brady:
“I don’t know, we don’t play everybody in the league. He’s our quarterback, and I’m glad we’ve got them.”
On the play of the defense against Arian Foster:
“Well, they have a good running game period. They’re well coached, they’ve got a good scheme, they’re all good backs. [Ben] Tate’s a good back, I mean, they’re all good backs. They’ve got a good line, but our guys competed well. They hit some plays on us, but we battled in there and I thought we held our own.”
On the fact they’re playing on a short week and if the outcome dictates how they handle turning the page for the next game:
“Yeah, I mean every week’s the same. We got to turn the page every week. Whatever happens, we’ve got to move on, and we will.”
On if everything that happened with the run defense started with Vince Wilfork:
“Well, I mean defensively everybody’s got to control their responsibility and you can’t control where the back runs. Sometimes the back runs to where you are, and sometimes they run somewhere else. But as long as you’re doing your job and taking care of your area – the man that’s blocking you or the blocking scheme, then that’s what matters. We can’t control where the back goes. He could go in a lot of different places and hopefully if we’re all in the right spot we can do a good job defending the play. But Vince always does a good job in there. He does a great job of taking care of his area and tackling, he’s physical, he’s very instinctive. So it is a good job but one guy can’t make the tackle if the other guys don’t do their job, I know that. You can be great on defense but if there’s holes where the backs are running, you’re not going to make many tackles. So it’s about team defense.”
On the execution up front by the offensive line against JJ Watt:
“Of course, he’s the best defensive player in the league. So yeah, we definitely planned for him. I mean, they have a lot of good players but our line, they knew they had a big challenge. But they prepared hard, they stayed in there this week, watched a lot of extra film really tried to study up. I thought the offensive coaches had a good game plan, we had a good way to attack them. But most importantly, the players played well. We had different guys blocking different people throughout the game. We were pretty competitive against them and that’s good defense.”
On the perception of playing in a Monday night game…
“We can’t control when the games is, it’s just the opponent. So we’re not really worried about that.”
On the play action game and the touchdown pass to Brandon Lloyd:
“I thought our play action game helped us. We had a few plays on that and definitely, that was a hard sell action. We really get good production,Brandon broke clean on it, Tom made a good throw as he did on the long pass to [Donte] Stallworth too. We hit a couple of deep balls against them and that’s always good when you can get a lot of yards on one play. You don’t have to drive it 12 to 14 plays, so was good to get a couple of big, big plays like that. But it was well executed, he was great protection, great run fake, and Brandon got a couple of steps there behind the secondary, Tom hit him. So it was a well executed play. The players did a good job on that.”
On if coming into this game they wanted to take some deep shots against the Texans, or if it was the coverage that dictated it:
“Yeah, always. We don’t want to throw deep if they’ve got four guys there. If we have an opportunity, then sure. If we don’t, then no. We don’t want to throw it just to lob it up there to two or three guys. Depends on where they are. We’ve got to read the coverage and throw it to the open guy”
