Patriots vs Steelers: Bill Belichick’s Post Game Press Conference
(PHOTO: Stew Milne - USA TODAY Sports) 🕑 Read Time: 6 minutes
Posted Under: Patriots News
(PHOTO: Stew Milne - USA TODAY Sports) 🕑 Read Time: 6 minutes
New England Patriots > Patriots Blog
(PHOTO: Stew Milne - USA TODAY Sports) OPENING STATEMENT:
I thought that it was a good win for us tonight. I thought our players really competed well, obviously Pittsburgh’s a very good football team, very explosive offensively and I thought we hang in there we we made enough plays that we needed to make. Certainly wasn’t perfect, but it was … it was good enough and we’ll take that. Certainly a lot we can learn from this game situationally and just overall execution. We had a lot of young players play three offensive lineman, a couple of defensive lineman and receiver, DB, and long snapper so you I thought those lineman, looked like we hang in there. I’m not saying it was perfect and we’ll look at the the tape and I’m sure they’ll be a lot of corrections to make but I thought those guys competed well and it was a battle all the way down to the wire. Pittsburgh’s never out of the game with the explosiveness they have offensively. So I thought we were able to take advantage of some scoring opportunities, get the ball into the red area and you know, held them to some field goals and you know, missed field goals certainly helped. But our red area offense was good and that was, in the end, probably the difference in the game. Heading into the division now but it’s good to be 1-0.
On the play of the new secondary and how he would assess their play after Ben Roethlisberger threw for over 350 yards:
That’s about the way it’s been when we’ve Ben [Roethlisberger]. He seems like he always throws for 350-400 against us the last 3-4 times. He’s a great quarterback. They have a great offense, a lot of good receivers. Certainly things we could do better but I thought we competed well and we made some plays. The interception was a big play. It was a big turnover. Some of our 3rd down stops in the red area were important. But they’re good…they’re good. There’s not much margin for error with him and that offense.
On his thoughts on Tom Brady’s performance whether there was there any concern the outside situation would affect him during the game:
Yeah, well I mean, again, the 28 points was good. Were there plays that could have been better? We could have coached better, we could have played better, there’s things we could have all done better. So there’s certainly a lot of room for improvement but we’ll take the production that we had. Good to be 1-0. Good to score 28 points. We left some plays out there on the field. We just have to do a better job of coaching and playing and keep getting better each week.
On the reports of the headset malfunctions and if it affected them as well:
It did, yeah. We had a lot of problems. We had to switch headphones a couple times. the communication system wasn’t, you know, very good. I mean, we deal with that, seems like, weekly. But yeah, they told us they were on the verge of shutting it off but then I guess they got it working. So I don’t know, but it was a problem the whole game. We almost had to switch helmets with Brady there at the end, couldn’t get the plays into him. So it was a problem all night.
On if he ever got an answer to what the problem was
Well, no. That’s not, we never get that answer. They just try to fix it and they tell you it’s up or it’s down or whatever so I don’t know, that’s not really my, not really a very strong area for me is, technology
On the big stop they made with the goal line defense to hold them to a field goal when the score was 22-11:
That was a big play for us. You know, to get them into a third down and goal and then we stunted into a tight look and it looked like they false started on that so we were able to make the stop on 3rd-and-6 and hold them to a field goal. So that was huge. Anytime they get the ball down at the 1yd line, if you can just come out of there with three points, it’s really a four point play for us. The third down stop, I think that was when they were trying to run the trap, right? Tried to run the inside run if I remember right. So yeah, that was a huge play in the game. Huge.
On the fact they had a lot of youth on the offensive line and his thoughts on how they performed:
Yeah, we talked about that earlier. I thought they hung in there, the offensive lineman and on defense with Geno and Malcom. I know there were some errors, but I think they competed well. I think we hung in there. Hopefully we can build on that and, you know, get better. David [Andrews], you know, pretty much went all the way at center. And then Shaq [Mason] and Josh and Trey, kind of … all three played some guard, So you know, we had overall, I’d say pass protection was okay. We had some running plays that weren’t great. Some that were okay. I thought [Dion] Lewis ran the ball well. I don’t know if we blocked as well as we’d like to. So we’ve got a of work to do, but I thought they competed well and they hung in there. You know, we had eight rookies play and they all contributed. So hopefully they’ll get better.
On all the lot of substituting tonight, whether it was game plan specific or if he does that sometimes just to see what they’ve got to try some guys out at new positions:
Yeah, I wouldn’t say we were trying anybody out. We were trying to win. The Steelers had several different match-ups they hadn’t really shown much dime defensive at all this year they did some of that last year with [Troy] Polamalu but they didn’t do it all really in preseason, they stayed pretty much nickel and then tonight they mixed in dime, nickel and some of their base defense. So we had, you know, several different personnel groupings out there and they sometimes matched them the same, sometimes they changed it up a little bit in the second half they changed the matches so you know that just trying to … a little bit of that just trying to work it out. Just seeing who they were matched up with, what we want to try to do against one group vs another group but you know that’s kind of what we do. We get everybody involved and use different groupings so that’s not really uncommon on our end. But we were doing with the same thing. You know, they were using Archer a little bit at running back. Williams obviously ran well. 46 was in there really playing tailback even know he’s a tight end but then they used him as a running back and protection situations as well as their 12 and 11 personnel. So a little bit of that going both ways. Just trying to, you know, get it matched up and it’s hard at this time of year where, you know, you have a lot of guys running on and off, you’re trying to play, probably played more players than you would normally play just because it’s early in the season to you know kind of manage the playing time little bit and then on top of that you a lot of substitutions in the kicking game and so forth. So we need to clean that up but that was definitely a part of the game, was just the organizational part of the getting on and off the field, getting the right guys out there.
On his thoughts on what he saw from Chandler and Gronkowski and how much freedom they have to adjust depending on the coverage:
Not much. I mean we call the play, we need him to run the route that we tell him to run. We really try to go out there and execute the plays that we have called. We’re not really on that program where everybody goes out and does whatever they feel like doing. We try to run the plays that are called and run them with good technique and execution so the quarterback knows where those guys are going to be in and we can time it up. Rob did a nice job on that fade route of kind of, stemming the defender in at the goal line and creating some separation. On the first touchdown, Rob’s slant, the linebacker had to go over the top and it was a close play. But Scott was able to get in the end zone. But I thought they were both fairly well executed.
On an update on Dominique Easley:
Um, no. I know you expected one.
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