Bill Belichick's PostGame Press Conference Transcript
Here is the transcript from Bill Belichick's postgame press conference
OPENING STATEMENT
"I thought our team kind of came together a little bit once we kind of got out of the slow start. We got great contributions from our offense, our defense, our special teams it was a good solid team victory. We're going to have to turn the page on this one quickly with the short week going down to Philadelphia and all that. It's a big challenge ahead of us, but it's good to win here and like I said it was good to get good contributions from really all the units, and a lot of players on those units. It's nice to be 7-3."
On Gronkowski's performance:
"It looked like he caught a couple passes and broke some tackles like he usually does. He runs hard, he's a tough guy to bring down. You get him out in the open and he's a tough guy to tackle. He's done a good job for us all year."
On the slow start:
"If I knew exactly what to do we would have already fixed it. We've got to work harder on it. We have to do a better job of coaching, getting off to a better start playcalling and execution. The players gotta do a better job, we have to do a better job of coaching."
On the contributions from Rob Gronkowski:
The only real issue with Rob was he didn't play his junior year. He missed his entire junior year, so... But when he was healthy his sophmore year, he played pretty well for Arizona too. He's a good player.
On what really caught his attention:
"Size, speed, his blocking. He works hard, tough kid, coaches love him down there. Steve had a lot of great things to say about him. He likes football. He's got a lot of things going for him. He just missed a year of football and lacked a little bit of experience so you don't know exactly where a guy like that is going to get to, but he's a talent."
On the lack of familiarity between the two teams causing problems early in the game:
"Yeah, I mean look, give them credit. The things they did, they did better than we did, so you have to give them credit for that."
On facing a coordinator who has familiarity with their system:
"We feel challenged every week. Every game on our schedule is challenging. Every team we play has good players, good coaches, they work hard, they do things to give us problems so every week's a challenge. Of course it's hard to go against Romeo. He's one of the best coaches that I've ever worked with, and he did a good job of giving us trouble with some of his schemes. They have some good players on defense, they covered us and they rushed us, so they did a good job."
On how well Julian Edelman has adapted to his new role on defense:
"He's learning how to play defense. He's got a long way to go. But he's working hard, he's getting reps, he's getting better at it. We've been talking about the return game for quite a while. We feel like we've been close to breaking off a big play, one block away, or one better hold, or just one thing, and we got it today. Our punt return team has been doing a good job. They've been working hard, we've been close, and it was satisfying for them and all of us really for that to happen because I do feel like we've been getting close on the kickoff returns. We didn't have much to show for it tonight, but I do think that's getting better. Hopefully we're close to breaking a big one there too. Those guys work hard and Julian's worked hard trying to make it happen. Sometimes you get frustrated because you're just a step away, or you get a bad kick when you get good blocking, or you get a good kick and miss a block or whatever it is. But today it game together, he broke a couple tackles, and we kind of had them sealed off there. So it was a big play in the game and I think it really, I don't want to say it put it out of reach, but it certainly put a big gap in the game.
On the defensive backfield and the interceptions:
"It looked like two of them were on tipped balls, and Kyle's been very opportunistic this year being around the ball a lot. And when you're around it and close to it, then those are the kind of plays you make. And then it looked like it was a throw there into coverage in the endzone that Phil got. But I thought Kyle and our safeties there, it looked like Sterling [Moore] got a good hit on that first post route and batted it up in the air. Look, the more times you have guys around the ball, the better your chances are of coming up with it. So we were just trying to get close."
On how much skill is involved on tipped balls:
"Like I said, the closer you are to the ball, the more chance you have of getting it. But quick hands, quick reactions, and Kyle's ability to...look, we've seen plenty of those dropped too so, you've got to give him credit for making the play and being close enough that when the receiver bobbled it he was able to come up with it."
On if they dialed up anything they hadn't seen:
"I wouldn't say there was anything we hadn't seen before. They did a good job, they gave us a couple different looks. They gave us a couple strong side blitzes with [Javier] Arenas and the linebacker over on that side. There's a couple times where I think we had them blocked, but we just didn't block them. Then there were a couple other times where we missed the guy, even on the touchdown to Gronkowski. I think that was Washington coming free and Tom was able to just get rid of it before he hit him because Rob was open...you could throw it quickly because Rob was so open coming over the middle. But Romeo does a good job of that. He does things that give you problems, and he did that tonight."
On if Romeo sent less on that play to Gronkowski:
" I don't think so. That was against their regular defense, and most of the other plays were coming off their sub-defense. We had our, I think Nate [Solder] was in at tight end, we were in a playaction pass, and kind of lost Rob over the middle, but That was their weak safety blitz off of their regular defense. I think it was a bit of a different look."
On if that was the first place Tom would look:
"Well Tom knows who's blocked and who isn't, and they kind of rolled into it, so if he sees a guy who isn't blocked, then he knows he has to either throw it away or get it off before the guy can get to him. He definitely knows that."
On the fact it seemed like they should have had a linebacker pick up Gronkowski on that play:
"Yeah, I'm sure there was somebody that was supposed to get him. But the thing as a quarterback, and the thing I was concerned about, was we didn't have the safety picked up in that particular protection. And he did a good job of timing it up - I think it was Washington - did a good job of timing it up and was free. Tom made a really heads up play in being able to get rid of the ball just before Washington got to him and Rob was open so he could throw it to him. So it was a good play by Tom, and it was a good blitz by Kansas City. It was just maybe half a step late, or if the coverage had been better it would have been a tougher play for us."
On if it was nice seeing Marcus Cannon on the field:
"Yeah, it's good to have Marcus out on the field, period. He's been out there for about a month now. He's worked hard, and I'm glad he's getting an opportunity to play. He's got a long way to go, but he took a step tonight I think."
