Vince Wilfork's Press Conference Transcript

Here's Vince Wilfork's complete transcript from after the Dallas Game:

On the fact he was close to making his third interception:

"Actually I didn't see it until the last minute after I tipped it. It's just one of those things. You're out there playing ball and you get the chance to look at the quarterback and just read it. [Tony] Romo's a good quarterback. I was at the right place at the right time, that's all it was - once again."

On what makes Brady so special:

"I see this guy work every day. He wants to be perfect. It's hard to be perfect but, the way this guy strives in practice, and the way he approaches practice, and his work, he can't do anything but carry everyone else with him. He's probably one of the toughest competitors I've ever seen, especially from a quarterback standpoint. He's just a tough individual. He's going to try to put the team in the right situation at all times. You know, Bill has a saying around here, "mental toughness", and doing what's right when everything isn't going your way, and I think tonight we showed a lot of mental toughness. Everyone kept their poise, it wasn't perfect, but you know what? We stuck together as a team. We came together, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that our offense wasn't going to put us in a good position at the end of the game, and they did. They came through for us. One thing we want to do is just keep playing football. It's not over til it's over, and the guys stuck with it. I'm real happy with the team. We stuck together. We stuck together as a team, there was no fussing, there wasn't any hooting or hollering, we just stayed even keeled throughout the course of the game, and it paid off for us at the end. It definitely paid off for us."

On what the game says about their defense:

"We're getting better. We're definitely getting better. Each week we go in and we improve. And that's one thing you want to do. You want to be able to see improvement throughout each week, and I think we've seen that. Going into the bye week there's a couple of things that we can work on and continue to improve. Ever since week one it's been improvement and guys moving forward, guys starting to get familiar with everything, with the plays and playing together, and everything. So we're moving forward, we're definitely moving forward. I'm happy with the guys' effort. They come to work, never complain. They're tough. Bill puts us in tough situations in practice, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. We practice a lot of situational football. Being down by 3 at the end of the game with two minutes, two and a half minutes, whatever it was, that was plenty of time for our offense because we practice that a bunch with a timeout. So we were very confident defensively sitting back and watching our offense work, even though things didn't go as well for them for the whole game. But at the end of the day you know what? When it mattered the most, they came up with what we needed."

On how they stopped them on that third down play for the field goal:

"Just going and looking at film, and just looking at different things throughout the course of the week. We got a good bill on what they try to do. There were some things that they don't show the same stuff over and over at times. Going down in there in the red area, on third down, they always have something they want to do out of the ordinary. I didn't know it was going to be a shuffle pass, I thought it was going to be some type of run. But I sent the alert, and everybody was on point, and that was a huge, huge stop for us. To be able to walk away making them kick a field goal, that was a big stop for our defense. Like I said, we're getting better each week. Each week we're getting better. I mean we're working hard. We're working very, very hard, and these guys, they don't walk off the field until we all sit, come in and watch film and actually get extra work, so it's paying off for us."

On the play of Andre Carter:

"He's one of the guys, I mean you watch him on film...I mean, and he'll tell you. He'll probably lead the league in sacks, even though with the ones he missed or the quarterback getting rid of the ball, or stepping up. But I mean, he has a great motor, he's a very smart, smart player. And we always talk, especially as a defensive line. We might not be getting the sacks, but we're getting the pressure, we're getting to the quarterback. Sometimes he's throwing it away, sometimes he's scrambling and getting rid of it, or sometimes he's scrambling for some yardage. One thing we say is, 'just keep putting pressure, just keep going'. Because once you get the pass defense with the secondary and linebackers on point with the defensive front, that's when you'll start seeing more sacks and more pressures and stuff like that. It definitely works hand in hand. We're not going to take all the credit. Those guys have to cover in the back, and I think they've been doing it. Each week we're improving as a defense, and that's what we need to do in this league."

On what he meant by he "sent the alert":

"I mean I was in my stance and I kind of smelled some 'boo-boo' [laughs]. Like I said just being in that situation, and that was one of the situations that we covered throughout the week. When they get down there on third down, there's some things that they do a little differently, we have to be alert for a lot of things. I didn't know it would be that, but I had a feeling it was going to be some type of run, or whatever it might have been. So I sent an "alert", and said 'alert run here', and [Brandon] Spikes was over, and we just ate it up. And it feels good because it's hard to trust someone when they say something on the field because you're always coached to do your job. But they had the trust in me, they had the faith in me that I was going to put them in the right situation. And we walked away with them kicking a field goal."

On how surprised that they rushed three straight times leading 16-3:

"I wasn't surprised. At that point they had the lead. Everyone would probably approached it a little different, or the same way, you never know. But the chances of putting it in the air, I mean, it's pretty scary. They want to be conservative, but at the same time, we played everything. We were alert for everything, the screens, run, deep pass, we were alert with all that stuff. We just got it, and we made the plays when we needed to make the plays and got the offense back on the field. And those swing of events, being able to go out there, get a three and out, get the offense back the ball with two and a half minutes to go, and for them to put a drive together to win the ball game for us, that says a lot about our football team. Our mental toughness is, I know Bill challenges that a lot, and I think tonight we showed that we had the capability of being a mentally tough team, and a physically tough football team. So that should be able to take us a long way as long as move forward with it, continue to build on it. We'll be O.K."