Bill Belichick's Post Game Press Conference Transcript
Opening statement:
“Well that was a nice way to end this trip for us. You have to give the players a lot of credit this week. It was a tough game against the Jets and kind of a quick turnaround, you know we moved everything up for them. So it was really kind of like a short week for us. We came along way, but I thought they really did a good job in their preparation and they executed and played very well out there today. As I said I’m just really proud of the way our players performed. You’ve got to them all the credit in the world. They’ve had a couple tough weeks here with aSeattletrip and this trip and all that. But they didn’t let it affect them, they just took care of business and played a good solid football game. Looking forward to getting a few days of rest here and then turn our attention to Bufflao. But it’s great to come here and come out of here with a good win like that against the Rams. I have a lot of respect for the Rams. They’re a good football team, but we had a good day today and the players did a real good job, all three units.”
On if he has any uncertainty before the game as to how his team will respond to adversity:
“Look, every team we play is a good football team. Every week is tough in this league. You’ve got to come ready to play every week, you know that your opponents are, that's what makes this a great game. Every Sunday is its own challenge. Nobody knows what’s going to happen on Sunday in the NFL, that’s why we play the games.”
On the fact they seemed a lot more aggressive in terms of sending extra people on defense:
“I don’t know. We can take a look at the calls after the game but I didn’t sense it was much different.”
On his team’s ability to get home due to the storm:
“We’ll leave that to our travel people. We have people in the organization who work on that and so we’ll see exactly what we have there.
On the way they’ve played in London:
“We certainly like the results. It was a good win for us againstTampaand it was a real good win for us today. It’s a great feeling to walk out of here feeling like you played well and knowing that you can kind of relax for a little bit here - we don’t have a game for two weeks. So at least we can relax for little bit and kind of enjoy this one for a few moments but we’ll pretty quickly turn our attention toBuffalo. But it’s good to win and it feels good to come toLondonwith these kind of results.”
On the support they had and if it felt like they had an extra home game:
“I don’t think I’d go quite that far, but it was good support out here. The Rams had a lot of support here too. But no, it was good. We had a lot of our fans here and it looks like we had someLondonfans at the game. But that was a good feeling.”
On the fact that they were in the shotgun and spreading things out, which was similar to the Jets game and whether he liked what he saw and if it was something they felt they could take advantage of in this game:
“I’d say it’s pretty much always a game plan thing. We take a look at who we play each week and what we feel like is the best way to attack that team. I don’t we can worry too much about how we played somebody else or didn’t play somebody else, it’s a new team. Doesn’t mean you can do a similar thing, but I think we have to look at who we’re playing. We can’t do something just because it worked last week”
[Inaudible – in relation to their offensive execution and how they attacked the Rams]
“I don’t know, you’d have to ask them about that. I would say from our standpoint we tried to get in formations and personal groups that we feel like could give us an edge one way or another either on the play, or maybe a pre-snap read that we go through the communication of what they were going to do or a matchup that we could create, and Tom did a good job of finding those. We blocked well, we threw the ball well, we made some yards in the running game, we scored in the red area, didn’t turn the ball over, so it was good execution offensively. A lot of good things there.
On the pressure they were able to put on Sam Bradford:
“I think probably when we look at the game we’re going to see things all the way around. Some were good, some could’ve been better. Overall I thought we did a lot of good things defensively, but it wasn’t perfect – certainly. There are a lot of things that we can continue to work on. But it was good to come up with a couple balls, we had our hands on a couple more balls, but you never like to give up… I don’t know… What was he like 16 for 18 at one point? Whatever it was, you want to defend some of those passes a little tighter than we did and rush a little bit better, so it’s a combination of that too. I’d say our pass rush wasn’t as good as what I’d hoped it would be and our coverage therefore always is going to be put under a little more stress when we don’t rush quite as well. And then we had times where we did rush well, but we’ve just got to do it more consistently.”
On the play of Nate Solder and the offensive line against the Rams pass rush:
“I think our whole offensive line did a good job, yes. Tom did a good job of stepping up in the pocket too. I mean there were plenty of times where they were running past him, but he was able to slide up into the pocket and that was the result of Donald [Thomas] and [Ryan Wendell] and Dan [Connolly] giving us a pocket that he could step up into. So it’s good teamwork all the way around but certainly Sebastian [Vollmer] and Nate saw two good edge rushers today.”
On the play of the running backs:
“All of our backs have been productive this year. They really have, including [Brandon] Bolden, who wasn’t here today but we’ve gotten good production from all those guys. We’re confident when any of them are in the game, we have different groups and packages and that type thing for them, but whichever guy’s in there, we have a lot of confidence in, they’ve all been good for us.”
[Inaudible – potentially about the health of his team coming into the game]
“Yeah, you know we talked about that before the game. I think it’s always easy the end of the game to look back and say, based on the results, ’well, it was or wasn’t’. I think the better thing to do is to really look at it before the game and say well, ‘how do you feel going into it?’ And I think in talking to our players and our assistant coaches, some of our medical people, our trainers and strength coaches and that, we all felt the team was ready to go today from a physical standpoint that we were rested, that we had some energy, that we were focused and ready to go. So of course it’s easy when you win like we did today to say well, ‘it was great’. But I think kind of the better measuring stick is kind of how it was, how you felt before the game before you know the results. And we all felt good about that. We did that the last time we were out here and I think that the players handled it well, and I thought they handled it well this time. I felt like going into the game that we had good energy, we’d be ready to go, and we played a pretty good football game.
On playing at Wembley:
“Every stadium’s different, every stadium’s got kind of their own personality and own atmosphere and own environment. You know, Wembley Stadium’s big, it’s almost cavernous there with that slight opening up on top. The lighting’s a little bit different, but it’s a big crowd, a good crowd, they were into the game and again you hear a lot of back and forth cheering in the game which normally it’s one way or another. You know, you play at home, it’s all your fans, or you’re playing on the road and it’s all their fans. This is a little bit of a kind of split, so it’s unique. Were not used to, you usually don’t get games like that. But you know the stadium was great, playing on grass is always good, you know we play most of our games on turf. So it was good to see those jerseys get a little dirty and grass stained and get muddied and all that. Got a good feeling there about watching football and guys picking out dirt around their facemasks and stuff like that. We don’t see a lot of that back in the states, we see grass fields down in Florida, and Tampa and Miami, and Jacksonville and it’s all pretty Forida grass. This is kind of a little throwback here in the mud in the rain, so was a good old fashion football game. I think our guys liked it. It looked like Gronk liked it.”
