Bill Belichick's Post Game Press Conference Transcript: "It's good to be in this position"
OPENING STATEMENT:
"It's always good to be able to walk up here after we've won an AFC East Championship. Good feeling today, I think our guys really finished the game strong, 27-0 second half. Didn't play very well in the first half, obviously, but they did a good job in the second half and we were able to get some points on the board, get a little momentum, get some turnovers, Danny had a good play on the punt return that set us up in good field position. We were able to hit some bigger plays, so it was a good second half, played 30-minutes of good football offensively and had our moments on defense and special teams in the first half. It's good to be in this position and hopefully we can play our best football going forward. That will be our goal."
On the end of the first half if it was a tough decision deciding what to do when they were at the 15-yard line and just ended up punting the football away:
"It wasn't our call."
On his thoughts on the return of Chandler Jones:
"It was good to have him back. He's practiced a little bit kind of sparingly the last couple weeks and then this week he was able to take a lot of reps and certainly looked like he was ready to go from a practice standpoint, a conditioning point. I'd say this week he kind of looked like Sealver [Siliga] looked last week relative to being ready. Different play styles, I'm not saying that. So it was good to get him back out there."
On his thoughts on the defense today situationally and the fact that in the first half they kept them in the game:
"You know, some good, some not so good. We were up and down. We were up and down. Made some plays in the second half, able to keep them out of the end zone but we gave up a lot of yardage in the first half, played a lot of plays. Didn't really do much to help our offense other than the interception. We just didn't play well in the first half offensively. Obviously weren't coached very well either. It just wasn't very good."
On the run by Tom Brady and the fact that after he was hit going out of bounds it seemed to light a fire under the offense:
"I thought it was a good run. It was a third and long play, third and nine, third and ten, whatever it was. Did a good job of seeing that in the pass rush, that's something we've talked about this week. He made a big play on that last year against them on like on a fourth and five or fourth and four, something like that where he had a scramble play in that situation. An alert play on his part, and it was a key first down for us and we were able to punch it in after that. But at that point in the game, that was a big third down conversion, one that you usually don't expect to get that way, but a heads up play on his part and ran well."
On the fact the Dolphins did score before halftime and if there was anything they did to adjust going into the second half:
"There was a lot of things we had to adjust in the second half. We didn't really do much of anything the way we wanted to do it in the first half other than we made a couple of big plays, but other that, I just didn't think we played the way we needed to play. We did a much better job in the second half of blocking, tackling, throwing, catching, defending, covering, returning, I mean, just about everything in the second half was executed better than it was in the first half."
On his thoughts on Jamie Collins:
"Jamie continues to make big plays for us on the defensive side of the ball and in the kicking game he's got real good length for a linebacker, tall with long arms, great jumping ability, his ability to knock down passes and reach into passing lanes or block a kick in this case. Very obviously athletic, we all know that. He just keeps playing faster and faster each week it seems like. He gets a key and he's able to make plays, whether it be in the kicking game running through, making tackles for a loss in the running game or tackles in the open field on receivers and backs. So he's playing well. He's strung together quite a few weeks here of good football for us."
On his thoughts on now that Chandler Jones is back, how his pass rush is coming together over the final month of the season:
"Well, we'll see. It was certainly a good opportunity for us to rush in a game where we were ahead in the second half. That wasn't the case in the first half and we didn't generate that same kind of pressure so I think the score had a lot to do with it. And we rushed well when we had the opportunity, I mean it was kind of the reverse of the game down there when they got ahead and put pressure on us, then today we got ahead and they had a hard time blocking our pass rush. So I think the score situation has a lot to do with that. But of course it's good to have him back out there, it was good to get Siliga [Sealver] back last week, it was good to get Chandler [Jones] back this week. So hopefully that will just make us stronger going forward."
On the play Kyle Arrington made on the scoop and score on the blocked field goal:
"I mean that's kind of what the outside guys are looking for, they're looking for a block to put themselves in a position, which he did, to be able to attack the ball. That's the kind of situation where there really aren't too many guys on the other side of the ball that can tackle or are very good tacklers, so if you can just get it up and get going, a bunch of offensive linemen, a couple specialists. Kyle's a fast guy, once he got a little bit of space, I don't think there's too many guys who are going to run him down. But he did his job. He was in position and he took advantage of the opportunity and turned it into points. It was a heads-up play."
On his thoughts on Stephen Gostkowski becoming the all-time leading scorer:
"Steve's done a great job for us. We all know that this area of the country and this division's certainly not the easiest to kick in. He does a very good job of handling the conditions, he's got a good leg so he's got range on kickoffs and long field goals, with good height on the ball. Good team player, always there to support his teammates, everybody in the locker room likes him, he has a good rapport with everybody. You're right, I've been really lucky. Adam [Vinatieri], Steve, Shayne [Graham] came in here, didn't miss a kick the half a year that he kicked or whatever it was. Since I've been here they've all done a great job, but Steve, those are big shoes to follow there with Adam and he's never blinked. He's always kicked with a lot of confidence, a lot of poise, a lot of focus. He's kicked with a lot of different holders, different snappers, not the easiest conditions, but he does his job. He's very focused, and he's been a really dependable player for us. I love having him on the team. He's a great asset to this football team both on and off the field, the locker room and productively when we need him, of course."
On what it means to him to be in the same sentence with Curly Lambeau with 229 career regular season/postseason wins:
"It's flattering, very flattering. Curly's one of the great founders, really, of the National Football League. Spent the year at Notre Dame, brought the Notre Dame offense into the NFL, ran the box, had Championships in Green Bay, really kind of started the passing game with [Don] Hudson and Cecil [Isbell], so he was certainly not only one of the founding fathers of the league, but really one of the innovators of the league in his time. So very flattering to be put into his category, in any sentence really."
On what happens for a team to flip the switch after how things ended in the first half:
"I mean, what happened is we didn't play very well in the first half and then we didn't play very well in the last forty seconds, or minute, however much it was. We just took some not very good football and made it worse. Then we were able to do things a lot better in the second half. But i think that whole sequence was just symptomatic of the whole rest of the half. I mean, what was the difference?"
