Here's what Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had to say following the Patriots win over the Buccaneers on Sunday:
On the fact they started off slow but got it going when they needed to, and his body language was better this week:
"Well, hopefully it stays that way. I thought the guys did a great job of trying to...we had a good week of practice and I think it ultimately showed up. It was a good win, it was fun to be out there, fun to see us play a little bit better, so it's nice to be 3-0."
On what the receivers have done from last week to this week:
"They've been playing good. I think we just got good production from the tight end spot, from the running back spot, it's nice that the burden doesn't have to fall on one position. We got a great job in the running game against one of the best run defenses in the league. You know, 160 yards rushing against the number one rated rush defense in the league last year is prettyimpressive."
On how important it was for them to get points off the two fourth down turnovers by the defense in the first half:
"They did a great job. Tampa got stuck a few times going in the fringe area, going into the wind, and they had to go for it because it's too short to punt it and too long for a field goal and we've been caught in that situation a few times so our defense did a great job stopping them and anytime you can limit a team to three points is incredible in the NFL. So they've been playing great, offensively we've just got to keep doing a better job."
On the determination of the rookies working hard for him:
"Well they're doing...yeah, I mean they're doing a great job. They've worked really hard to understand what we're trying to do on a weekly basis. We change it up a lot with our offense. It's not like we do the same thing week-to-week all the time. We try to attack teams in different ways and today we definitely made some adjustments throughout the first quarter, second quarter, and we did a good job adjusting and really trying to understand what we needed to do to put drives together."
On the fact young guys sometimes have a tough time understanding urgency, with Aaron Dobson saying that last week Brady told him, "we don't have time, we've got to do this right and we've got to do it right quickly."
"It's interesting because you go through the spring camps and you have the practices and because there's not real competition, there's no scoreboard, in some ways you get false sense of security that things are going the right way and then you have preseason games and practices and things are going the right way, and none of it matters because what matters is what you do during the regular season. You come into these games, we went up to Buffalo, we won a hard fought game, it took a big drive from us at the end to win and then last week was a division opponent, we didn't play our best, but we really fought it out, grinded it out and today was a better day all around. So it's just, every week, it's a week-to-week thing in the NFL. You've got to put in every week and every week, the urgency's more because there are less games and there's less you can do about your season. Just to get to 3-0 is, we've only done it once out of the last seven years, or nine years or something like that, which is a pretty good stat. So, would love to get to 4-0."
On the fact he's talked about poise and mental toughness, and whether or not overcoming the first few drives was part of that:
"Yeah, we got off to a bit of a slow start. We just didn't convert some meaningful third downs, and when you don't do it, you're off the field and you're punting the ball to the other team. But our defense did a great job of limiting them to a field goal, then stopping them and really that was a big turnaround where they stopped them in the fringe, we took the ball and went down the field and I hit [Kenbrell Thompkins] on the route for the touchdown. So that ended up being a big swing with the big stop, a good drive, and really resulting in that touchown."
On the five yard run before the field goal at the half and whether or not that was an audible or by design:
"We talked about it, so it was, I mean, I wish I could have been a little faster and got a little more, but the great thing is Steve [Gostkowski] made the field goal and coach always talks about those really important siutational football plays of actually, when you get a chance to finish the play, we finish a play. That was a great field goal attempt, kick, blocking, snapping, and huge momentum play going in for the interception, made two good positive plays and then a great kick to go into the half with three points."
On the report before the game that he reached out to Deion Branch and Brandon Lloyd:
"No, I haven't talked to those guys in a while. I love both of them, they're good friends and great teammates, but I haven't talked to either of them in a while."
On whether or not spreading the ball out to these guys will help him when Danny Amendola and Rob Gronkowski return:
"Fortunately all those guys, [Zach] Sudfeld, the three rookie receivers, have all been out, they had practice every day throughout the spring and the summer, I know Josh [Boyce] missed some in the spring. But I've thrown a lot of balls to those guys, we've spent a lot of time talking about offensive football and situational football, and we've done a pretty good job in situational football, which has really helped us. The plays before the end of the half, the drive at the end of the Buffalo game, the third down play that we made against the Jets where Julian [Edelman] caught the ball on the under route. I mean those are big plays. The're little things, but they're big things, and now it's a big reason why we're 3-0."
On how he felt he threw today:
"I could play better. The interception will bother me for the rest of the week until I get a chance to get out there again. The missed touchdown pass, that was terrible. I expect to make those plays."
On if they started attacking them differently on 1st down than they did on their first couple of drives:
"Yeah, we did a better job on the drive starts. This team has done a great job last year, through the preseason, of getting teams into 3rd and long. They do a great job with their run defense to get you in 2nd and 10's, 2nd and 10 plus, which forces you into 3rd and long and it's an aggressive defense. When you get in these 3rd and 11's, 3rd and 9's, 3rd and 10 plus, they've had more 3rd and 10 plus attempts than 3rd and less than 10, which talks a lot about their first and second down defense. We obviously didn't do a very good job of that early in the game, I thought we converted better as the game went on. But we're going to have to do a better job of it next week."
On if they tried attacking them differently on first down as the game was going on from what they had done initially:
"A little bit. I mean we definitely made some adjustments of routes that we thought would be better against what they were playing, then we ended up making the plays. It's one thing to make the adjustments and say, 'Look, this is going to give us a better chance'...we did end up doing a better job. Guys made a lot of really great catches out there, good catch and run plays. Like the touchdown, we had a bunch of third downs with guys crossing the field, so that was important."
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