Bill Belichick Post Game Press Conference Transcript
The opening statement is slightly omitted due to the fact they cut in late, but here is the transcript from Belichick's postgame press conference after their win over San Diego:
"The Chargers are good, I'm telling you - they've got a good football team. But ultimately the turnovers and getting the ball in the endzone was big for us. We had a lot of guys step up, a good team win all the way around. Got good plays in all three phases of the game. Played hard for 60 minutes, and that's a good football team. So it's good to win, it's good to win, we're going into 2-0 Buffalo so we've got a tough one coming up so we can't celebrate this too long. We've got to go on to other challenges next week, but it's nice to be 2-0."
On the 4th and one stop on the goal line:
"Yeah, huge. You know, got the ball outside, looked like we got a good push inside, and the runner really never got turned up and ended up going sideways and we were able to make the play. It was a huge play. It was a first and goal at the 3 or something like that. They were down there on all four plays so it was a huge for us."
On if he saw the Tolbert run coming:
"I don't know. Norv's a great play caller, he keeps you off balance. No, we didn't know, I mean we're just trying to play goal line defense. We didn't know what the play was."
On the 99 yard drive:
"It was just good to get the ball out of that field position, and our offense did a nice job there. We stalled out a little bit there in the 3rd quarter, but overall I thought we moved the ball pretty well again against a good defensive group. Getting the ball out of the shadow of your goal line is important, and the one time we had to punt out of there, we got a great punt from Zoltan [Mesko], and then coverage out of Slate [Matthew Slater], so that was a big play too.
On if the decision to go for it on 4th down was due to Zoltan's injury:
"Yes."
On Wilfork's interception:
"The four turnovers were big, and then the goal line stands was really another stop there. It looked like Sergio made a real nice play on the interception. And you know Vince [Wilfork], hey, we've seen him catch punts and intercept passes, he's got good hands - we know that. Then of course the two fumbles were big. So yeah, I mean you can't say enough about those turnovers, that had a huge impact on the game...[and] the goal line stand. They moved the ball, just fortunately they didn't get enough points, but they certainly moved it."
On how they were able to shut down Antonio Gates:
"You can't really take him away. You just compete against him. Rivers is good, and so, he found some other guys, they ran the ball, they threw it. But the guys that covered him, Chung, Sergio, the linebackers tried to jam him, we tried to make it hard for him. But you just try to compete against him, you can't really stop him."
On Vince's field goal being a key play leading to a field goal before the half:
"Yeah, it lead to a field goal before the half. Vince is a tremendous athlete, people don't realize how good his hands are. But he can throw it, catch it, catch punts. You know he wanted to return punts after we put him back there when he was a rookie and all in training camp. He's a terrific athlete, and he's got really good hands, obviously."
On Tom Brady's strong start:
"I think our offense has played well, and that's everybody. The line that's blocking, the guys that are running the ball, the receivers that are catching it, the quarterback that's throwing it, the backs and tight ends that are picking up the blitz. One guy can't go out there and move the ball, you have to have a full team. Tom's doing a good job, the backs are doing a good job, I think overall we're pretty efficient. We're not turning the ball over, so that's good."
On if he's surprised that the offense is playing so well since there wasn't an offseason:
"Well we actually expect to go out there and play good football. I know maybe that's not everyone else's goal, but we actually expect to go out there and move the ball on offense, and stop them on defense, and kick it in the kicking game and return it, so that's what our goals are. We actually try to play good football."
On if there's a memory on Drew Bledsoe that jumped out of him:
"THere's a lot of them. Drew did so much for this franchise when they drafted him, the years that he played here, the years that I coached against him at Cleveland and New York. He's had a tremendous career and did a lot for this franchise. Of course you have to remember the Pittsburgh AFC Championship game, but there's a lot of other ones too. The '96 season against Jacksonville...I mean he had so many big games...the Minnesota game, the Cleveland game he beat us in '95. So he's got a great legacy, and certainly very deserving of the recognition - and John Morris too. I coached John at Detroit with the Lions after he had been with the Patriots for whatever it was, 11 or 12 years. Nobody's more professional than John. John Morris and the other people that played with him, they've done so much for the game. Now it's a multi-bazllion dollar industry, but it's the John Morris' that really were some of the building blocks that made this game as great as it was. Players like that that played in the 60's and the 70's, and he was certainly one of them. So I'm really happy for John and I know he certainly appreciates the honor, as does Drew. Those guys looked pretty good out there in those red blazers, they looked sharp. [They] make me look bad."
On how he would characterize his team's performance through two games:
"How would I characterize it overall? Well, we're 2-0. We did some good things, there's some things we've got to do better. Things we need to work on, I'd characterize the whole team that way. Offensively, defensively, special teams, we've done enough to win two games, beat two good football teams. But we've still got a lot of work to do."
On the fourth and three play, with the injury to Zoltan Mesko if he would have preferred to have seen a different play instead of the quick throw to Welker just before:
"Well there's a lot of things that are happening out there pretty quick. I think that the players - all of them - did the best they could in the situations that they were in. Could we have coached better, could we have made better decisions out there at different times in the game? Yeah, of course we could have. I'd say that's true for all of us, but at the same time I think everybody was doing what they thought was best. They were trying hard, I don't think there were plays where they just were asleep and just got caught napping or something like that. We tried to do what we thought was best, didn't always work out. Maybe it wasn't always the best decision, myself included, but I think we were all trying to do the right thing, trying to do the best thing. But when you're playing a good football team like that, it doesn't always work out. They make some plays too, they've got a lot of good players and they're well coached."
On if there were any guidelines on 4th down situations:
"We could make up hypothetical situations all day. All I can do is look at the ones that we had and make the decisions based on what actually happened."
On if they would have been able to punt it if they needed to:
"Well we didn't even go through with it...so...."
On using Nate Solder as a3rd tight end:
"I don't know that's something we used in the game plan this week. Whether that will be a part of the game plan another week or next week, I don't know - we'll figure that out then. Again, we've used linemen in those positions before, as a tight end, or a fullback, or things like that. So based on the personnel that we have, and what our options are, we'll do what we feel is best to try to win the game, or put a game plan together that we feel like gives us the best opportunity to run plays we feel like we need to run."
On what he felt that package added to the offense in this game:
"Obviously the Chargers have a very good defensive front. They've got outstanding guys on the end of the line with [Travis] LaBoy, [Shaun] Phillips, and [Antwan] Barnes, so to just to have another guy out there to handle them or another guy on the wing with Dan [Gronkowski] and Rob Gronkowski, it puts a little more presence on those positions. Those guys are hard to handle."
On how Brady's played over the first two weeks:
"I think I already answered that. I mean he's done a good job, the offense has done a good job, we've been pretty balanced, and Tom's made a lot of good decisions."
