Bill Belichick's Post Game Press Conference Transcript
OPENING STATEMENT:
“We talked about playing 60 minutes and it took a little bit more than that today. But the players did a good job. They really fought hard, we had our ups and downs, in the end we made enough plays to win and that’s what it’s all about. We got good contributions from all three units and we’ve just got to keep working harder to get better, to do things better and eliminate a few of the mistakes that we had but I’m proud of the team I thought they played mentally and physically tough and like I said, in the end made enough plays to win. So now it’s on toSt. Louis.”
On how concerned he is that they let another 4th QTR lead slip away:
“There’s a lot of things we need to work on.”
On the play of Devin McCourty:
“Well, you know with Chung and Gregory both out, we felt like we had to do something there at safety, Devin’s got some experience back there, I thought he did a pretty solid job from what I could see – we’ll take a little closer look at it. But I thought the deep part of the field was more secure than it’s been, so that was good. The kickoff return was a big play, got us going. He’s a solid guy, does a good job for us, whatever he’s asked to do – he does a good job for us.”
On how clutch Stephen Gostkowski was:
“Yeah, Steve came through big, hit some big kicks. He kicked off well, he did a good job. I mean we got plays from every unit. We had so many people step up and play well and the Jets played well too, they did a good job. A tough hard-fought game, it came down to a few plays, luckily we made a few more than they did. About as competitive as it could get and that’s usually the way it is with the Jets. I mean, they’re always hard-fought games.
On his thoughts on Rob Ninkovich’s versatility and where lined up defensively:
“I mean he’s at the end of the line pretty much on… however you want to slice it up. Whether he’s up or down or at linebacker or whatever you want to call it. He’s an end of the line type player. Rob does a good job for us, made a big play on the running play there – came inside and made the hit… I think it was on the overtime series, right? Obvious the strip, he’s around the ball and always seems to play well against the Jets. He’s got a lot of big plays against those guys.”
On the fact Hightower played more in the second half:
“We just tried to use everybody the best that we could.”
On the fact the offense had struggled previously to make plays at the end of the game and how encouraged he is that they got it done today:
“It was a big two minute drive. It was a big stop for us defensively to hold them to a field goal and be able to stay in the game. But yeah, it was a big drive. There’s things that certainly could have been better, but in the end we did enough good things to win and certainly that was a big drive to take it down the length of the field, big kick to get it into overtime. So that was good, some of the things we did to put ourselves in that position, obviously need and hopefully can be better.”
On whether being physical at the line is part of Alphonzo Dennard’s game:
“Yeah, I think it is…I think it is. He’s a strong kid, he’s 200 pounds, he’s got good playing strength. That’s physical group of receivers. Schilens and Hill and Keller, receiver or tight end whatever you want to call him. But that’s a big physical group that they have too, other than Kerley. I mean he’s good, but that’s not really his game. They’ve got some big physical guys there and you’ve got to battle them.”
On the fact it looked like they were getting physical with Keller in the second half if that was part of the plan coming out:
“Yeah, I mean he still hurt us though. He still got open on plenty of plays. But he’s a tough guy to defend and we knew that he only played a little bit last week, we expected him to play more this week. We give him some attention, but obviously we could have given him more. He’s a good player, he a tough guy to handle. Big, athletic, catches the ball well. There were some good tight ends out on the field today.”
On if their problem late in the game offensive is just that the level of execution just isn’t there:
“We try to do what we think’s best. That could change from game to game. Playing the Jets is different than playing anybody else, or playing whoever we played last week or the week before. It’s different than… I don’t think you can just run one or two plays, you’ve got to defeat what they’re doing, whenever that happens to be. We work on it every week, we’ll keep working on it, when those situations come up hopefully we’ll be able to come through and deliver.”
On the play of the offensive line and if the guys that stepped in did a good job for them:
“Yeah, they did. You know Dan Connolly got sick this morning and we were kind of hoping to have him back for the game. But his stomach or whatever, indigestion or whatever just didn’t clear up and so we lost him right at game time. So we didn’t expect that but Nick [McDonald] stepped in there and did a good job. We practiced it that way all week and then to come into the game and kind of have to switch it there in pre-game, but that’s just the next guy stepping up and doing his job. Nick did that for us last year and did it for us again today. I thought the tackles did a good job. Nate [Solder] and Sebastian [Vollmer] out there on the edge, they blocked those guys all day, we threw the ball a lot. They did a good job on those edge rushers, and overall we handled the blitzes. Not perfect, but we were competitive with them.”
On the play of the running backs:
“They all played, they were all productive. They were all involved in blitz pickup. The Jets were sending…several times they sent linebackers right up the middle on us. We had to stand in there and pick those guys up and I thought our backs competed well too today.”
On what the win means to the club:
“It’s good to be 2-0 in the division. Those are huge games for us and we know the Jets are going to be there all the way through, they’ll be there at the end. But there’s a lot of football left to be played. I don’t think anybody clinched anything today, I don’t think anybody got eliminated today. There’s a long way to go, and we just need to keep improving and getting better. We need to build on the things that we’re doing well and do it more consistently, and the things that we aren’t doing as well we’ve got to keep working at them to get them up to a higher level. But it was a good football game today. The Jets are a good team. They played well, as they have the last couple weeks. I think they’ve continued to get better. We’re going to have to keep our game at that same rate as a go through each of the succeeding weeks here.”
On whether he’s happy about some of the personnel issues they had, having to call a timeout, only having 10 men on the field, etc:
“No, we missed, obviously, the substitution on the punt and then we had a couple guys go down there defensively and weren’t sure if they were in the game, not in the game, and we ended up not getting that sub right on the goal line. We have to do a better job of coaching and have even better awareness overall on our team in terms of substitutions, with injuries and that type of thing. I mean there’s certainly a lot of things that weren’t perfect in the game that we can improve on, and collectively that’s all of us. It’s the coaches, players, all the people that are involved there.”
On if he’s confident this group of players can get better and get to the level he wants by the end of the season:
“I think we’ve improved every week. I think other teams are improving too. They should be, we’re practicing, we’re playing, everybody’s getting better. We just have to get better faster than our opponents are getting better.”
On his thoughts on Jermaine Cunningham:
“Jermaine worked hard, he had a good off-season, he was one of our off-season award winners and that’s indicative of his work ethic. We’ve played him at several different positions this year both outside and inside, both ends, both tackles, he’s been a versatile guy for us as well as some plays in the kicking game. He’s been productive for us. We’ve asked him to do a lot of different things and he’s done a good job.”
On if he’s gotten to the point where he’s a favorable guy for him:
“Yeah, as I said it started last year at the end of the season after he was injured and was on injured reserve. Even though he was hurt and out, he still worked on things that he could work on. And then once he got healthy, he really had a good offseason and that’s something he hasn’t had the last two years. He came out ofFloridawith surgery at the end of the season and then his rookie year he was out, and his second year was the strike year so everybody showed up for training camp on that. So I think this is a year that, it’s the first time in three years really since he was a junior in college, or sophomore, whatever it was, that he’s really had a chance to train, and really work on things in the off-season. That got him off to a good start in the spring, got him off to a good start in training camp, and he’s really improved as a player. He deserves a lot of credit for how hard he’s worked.”
On if he feels the secondary’s performance was better today than it was against Seattle:
“We’ll go back and look at the film. I can't tell you exactly how everything went. Certainly some things were better. Was everything better? Probably not. We’ll have to keep working on those things but I thought we did improve in some areas.”
On the fact it looked like the Patriots secondary were in “Cover 2” and the Jets appeared to pound them all day, and whether or not that’s accurate?
“No, I don’t really see it that way. We played quite a bit of man coverage. I mean we were in Cover 2, I’m not saying that, but we played quite a bit of man coverage.”
