Devin McCourty Post Game Press Conference Transcript
On how big of an advantage it is to have a bye and be playing at home for the next game:
“That’s big. Coming in knowing that we’re going to be playing at home, I think we take pride in playing at home, we love to play in front of our fans. The biggest thing is we’ll get another week to get some guys healthy and get them ready to go, and then give us a chance to really fix some things we need to fix and get ready to go for whoever we play.”
On what he feels they need to fix:
“We’ll see that. Coach will come in here tomorrow and he never falls short of having a bunch of things that we need to fix. He’ll go over the film and I think since I’ve been here, there’s probably no coach that gets you better prepared to go into the playoffs. I think for us as a team we just need to be ready to come in here tomorrow, focus on whatever coach Belichick has for us and get those things done. Because if we get them done, we’ll be in good shape.”
On what the bye week does for the mentally:
“I think it gives you a chance to really focus on whatever you need to focus on, especially a bye week like this where we won’t know who we’re playing. It will give us a chance to really focus on ourselves and try to improve in that week. I think we have to do a good job this week of just trying to improve and get better. This time of the year it’s all about going out and playing your best in each one of those games because there’s no game after that if you don’t play well.”
On how far this team has come since the beginning of the year:
“I think we’ve improved each week. I think that’s something that we talked about and we said we needed to do and I think we’ve done a good job of that. But I think the most important thing is this time right now. How much better can we get going into these last games. Going in, we don’t know if there will be at a tomorrow so we have to come out and play our best. We can’t afford to come out and have one bad game. So I think this group has shown a lot of character and a lot of determination to go out there and play. Even games that we fell short this year, we fought all the way to the end. So we’re going to have to just use that ability and that character going in to these games.”
On how nice it is to get the shutout and use this going into the playoffs:
“I think the most important thing is we came out, we played well. We talked about all week as a defense to come out, play well our last game of the season and to come out and give yourself confidence coming out and playing well and I thought we did a good job of that. We’ll fix a couple plays we had, but we came out overall and played pretty good on defense.”
On after getting seven sacks if there’s another level this defense can get to:
“Yeah, I think we have to. Going into the playoffs we won’t be the only team going to the next level. I think everyone knows once you go into the playoffs, team step it up a notch. We’re going to have to do our part and try to step it up and match teams going into these playoffs. If we keep improving and getting better, we’ll be able to get there.”
