Bill Belichick's Post Game Press Conference Transcript
 Bill Belichick won his fourth Super Bowl ring with the Patriots on Sunday night against the Seattle Seahawks. (USA TODAY Images) |
Here's the transcript from Bill Belichick's postgame press conference as released by the NFL's PR Department:
(opening statement)
“I just want to start off saying that I couldn’t be prouder of this team. These guys have been counted out many times through the course of the year by a lot of people, but they always believed in themselves and just kept fighting. They did a couple weeks ago against Baltimore, and we did it today, just tried to play good solid football, tried to string some plays together even though there were times there where things weren’t looking the way we wanted it to look. They kept fighting and they kept trying to play better each series, and we were finally able to cut it to a one-score game, which was the big touchdown to (Danny) Amendola and then getting the ball back and then obviously, making the stop there at the end on the goal line. A lot of big plays in all three phases of the game. A lot of guys contributed that I just can’t say enough about the players. This is a great team—a great group of competitors who never gave in, never lost their will, mentally and physically as tough of a group as I’ve been around and I’ve been around some. These guys are really special. I’m happy for them, and they deserve all the credit in the world. They’re the ones that made the plays. They’re the ones that fought for 60 minutes out there on the field against a great football team. I was very impressed this week in preparation for Seattle. I’ve said many times, I’ve spoke about the job that Pete (Carroll) and his staff and that organization has done. That’s a really good football team. My hat is off to Seattle. The game couldn’t have been any closer than what it was. They’re a great football team that is within a yard or so, or a few seconds—however you want to look at it—of winning a second title. They should be congratulated. I have all the respect in the world for them. I just can’t say enough about our players and our assistant coaches too. I’ll say that as well. We got off to a little bit of a slow start last week, but Matt Patricia and his defensive staff, Josh McDaniels and the offensive staff, Scott O’Brien (and) special teams, those guys did a great job of putting the gameplan together, preparing for this game for our team while I was doing some other things. I was able to catch up. I couldn’t have done it without those guys, for sure. I just can’t say enough about the job that our coaching staff did as well as the players. I guess the last thing I’ll say before I open it up is the last time I won and I got Gatorade(d), my dad was here. I was certainly thinking about him tonight, and I’m sure he was watching. I hope my mom is watching too, so, ‘Hi Mom.’”
(on his defensive strategy on the goal line at the end of the game and if he considered letting them score or using timeouts)
“We would have used our timeouts if that had been a running play on the interception. We might have done that. We put in our goal line defense with just corners. It wasn’t true goal line because they had three receivers in the game. So we were in our goal line with all eight guys stacked on the line of scrimmage and we were man-to-man on the three receivers. We prepare for that situation as part of our goal line package—three corners, two corners, one corner, no corners if they have all tight ends and an offensive line in there. That’s what they were in for that play.”
(on how he would explain the success of the last offensive drive with nine consecutive completed passes)
“I’ve been in a few of these games and we’ve been on the other side of it. It’s just hard to rush the passer for four quarters in a game like this. You just expend so much energy. Our offensive line did a great job, but I think as the game wore on, that probably helped neutralize the pass rush a little bit. I’ve been on both sides of this one, so I know what that’s like, but I felt like in the fourth quarter we just kind of pressed it and stayed with the passing game. We kind of got away from a little bit of balance there, running regular people and two tight ends and that kind of thing. We just put our two-minute-type personnel out there with Shane (Vereen), three receivers and Rob (Gronkowski). I thought that was our best opportunity there from let’s say about the 10-minute mark or so. It worked out well and our offensive line did a great job. Tom (Brady) did a great job. Our receivers made a lot of tough catches and tough yards. That’s what you’ve got to do against a team like Seattle. They don’t give anything easy.”
(on if he was surprised that Seattle did not run on the goal line play)
“No, when you’re on defense, you defend whatever they do.”
(on the interception by cornerback Malcolm Butler on the goal line)
“He was a rookie tryout guy. We had already had our draft. We had already signed our free agents after the draft. He was part of what we like to call, ‘The few, the proud, the free,’ that came in and did a great job in that rookie minicamp. We kind of created a roster spot by juggling some other guys around and then signed him and he had a good training camp. He has competed every day. He plays against a lot of good receivers and quarterbacks in practice. He’s had his moments. That’s a big jump from West Alabama to the NFL but Malcolm competes hard and he works hard. We had gone into this game expecting to play all of our corners: Logan (Ryan), Malcolm, Brandon (Browner) of course, Kyle (Arrington) and (Darelle) Revis, and we ended up doing that. We’ve done that in other games before too. That was kind of the plan, that’s the way it worked out, and certainly looked like Malcolm kind of had a hot hand in the fourth quarter—broke up a couple passes, so we stayed with him.”
(on with the parity in the NFL, if four Super Bowls is as close to a dynasty as the league gets now)
“I don’t know. That’s up to you guys to write about.”
(on tying legendary coach Chuck Noll with four Super Bowl victories)
“Coach Noll is a great coach. I have all the respect in the world for Chuck Noll, but really, this isn’t about me right now. It’s about our football team and I’m proud of the coaches and players that I’m with that come to work, work hard every day, prepare hard every day, compete hard every day. That’s really what this win is about. It’s about our football team. It’s not about some other record or some other year or whatever. It’s about these guys, and what we’ve accomplished as a group, that there is a lot of people that never thought we had a chance to accomplish. So it’s a great feeling to be able to do that. It’s really my appreciation for our team more than it is some other record or something.”
(on if he would’ve called a pass play on the goal line at the end)
“We were on defense.”
(on if he was, hypothetically, on offense, he would’ve called a pass play on the goal line)
“I don’t do hypotheticals. We have a different team than they do. We have a different quarterback, different receivers, different linemen—it’s two different teams. We were on defense.”
(on if he had ever seen a catch downfield like that from Seattle wide receiver Jermaine Kearse)
“Yeah, I’ve seen two of them.”
(on his thoughts on Kearse’s reception)
“I thought it was incomplete and then he ended up with the ball. I saw the replay and it was a tremendous catch, great concentration. It was a tremendous catch, kind of like two other ones I’ve seen.”
(on if the controversy in New England makes this victory sweeter)
“I’m not really concerned about that. I’ve already spoken on that, so I’m not going to have anything to add to it. I’m happy for our team. We won. I think our team deserved to win. We were the number one seed in the AFC. We played the number one seed in the NFC. We won tonight in a tough game. I don’t know what more we need to do. This team deserves to be champions and that’s why they’re up here.”
(on at what point this season did he know that this Patriots team was something special)
“At halftime at Kansas City.”
(on what happened at halftime in Kansas City that convinced him this was a special team)
“We weren’t having a good day, but we kept fighting. We showed a lot of toughness and a lot of fight. We didn’t have good results, but, to me, if there was ever a time to not compete as hard, that would’ve been it. It wasn’t going well on the road, Monday night, great crowed, good team, but we battled them all the way to the end of the game. We weren’t close to winning, but the fight and the competitiveness was there. That gave me a lot of confidence going into the next week’s game against Cincinnati. I would say, to me, that was probably a key point in our season.”
(on what went through his mind when cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted the ball on the goal line)
“Ecstasy. Still, at that point, the ball was inside the 1-yard line and we had a celebration penalty. A lot can happen. Snaps get fumbled or if the ball is on the half-yard line and we don’t get it out and it’s a safety. Another play that we kind of went through that in the Baltimore game a couple weeks ago, where we weren’t able to run all the time off the clock. We had to punt and then defend a Hail Mary. You know, Seattle, there is no team better, more resourceful than they are. You saw what they did last week against Green Bay. I watched the Tampa game this morning, where they were down 21-0 against Tampa Bay last year and they came back and beat them in overtime. Nobody plays better situational football than the Seahawks and Coach Carroll, they do a great job on that. They are in every game, unless they’re way ahead, but they’re in every game and they had great situational football at the end like they did at the end of the first half against us. As happy as I was for the interception, there was still 20 seconds left on the clock and they had one or two timeouts left. It wasn’t done yet.”
(on the goal line situation and having had situations go against him before at the end)
“We were ahead 24-20, so everything wasn’t going against us. I’d rather be ahead 24-20 than behind 24-20. That’s just me.”
(on celebrating this championship with his son Steve, one of New England’s assistant coaches)
“We sure will—Steve, Brian and Amanda. We will celebrate it. We will celebrate it hard.”
(on what the difference was having a healthy tight end Rob Gronkowski in the Super Bowl)
“Rob was, once again, I think a big factor in the game. I thought we created—Coach (Josh) McDaninels created some good matchups with him. He put him on (K.J.) Wright a couple of times and (Kam) Chancellor. I thought the over right on the last drive, when they were in a five-man rush or man-to-man coverage, Rob got across the formation on a second-and-15 or maybe it was the penalty offensive interference, so second-and-11. Somewhere in there, he caught that over route and that was a big play for us, got us a first down. It put us into field goal range. Rob was a big factor in the game, but you can’t say enough about (Brandon) LaFell, (Julian) Edelman, (Shane) Vereen, (LeGarrette) Blount, the offensive line, it was a great team effort. I’m proud of everybody.”
