Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Brady Previews the Bengals Game

Courtesty of the New England Patriots

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK TOM BRADY

LOCKER ROOM INTERVIEW

September 26, 2007

Q: As far as mechanics, is this the best you’ve ever felt in your career?

 

TB: I think this is the most comfortable I’ve felt with it. For eight years [I’ve] put a lot of time and effort into trying to get things the way [I] want them. There’s a lot that goes into throwing, the mechanics of it. It’s not just coincidence that you complete certain passes that maybe you struggled with in the past. It’s probably just better technique.  And obviously there are a lot of other great things in the passing game too, like great protection, which allows for good technique, and [the receivers] doing a great job of getting open and catching the ball.

 

Q: Do you want to make sure the offensive line doesn’t go unnoticed in how well they’ve played?

 

TB: Should they go unnoticed? They should never go unnoticed. Really, they set the tone for the entire offense. The more that those guys are into it and playing great, the more that we can establish running the football, which opens up play action passes. Anytime you can get ahead and you can run it and throw it, it puts pressure on the defense. We’re just going to continue to try to improve in areas where we haven’t done so well in the last three weeks. This week is going to present, as we all know, some new challenges.

 

Q: How much did the running game help you last year in Cincinnati?

 

TB: We had a bunch of big runs last year. The backs ran great. That was probably Laurence [Maroney’s] best game to date. That’s key every week, to really keep the defense off balance. When you can break off those long runs like we did, it takes a lot of pressure off the passing game. That was a big point of emphasis going into last year’s game. Especially when you play an offense like we’re facing, too, that has so many weapons that can really control the tempo and style of the game with the way that they play and the way that their offense can put up points in a hurry. You want to be able to control the clock and control the tempo a bit yourself.

 

Q: Is there an urgency to convert every time you are in the red zone because of Cincinnati’s offense?

 

TB: Yeah. You don’t want to kick a lot of field goals. And that is something that we haven’t been doing very well. Getting the ball inside the 5 [yard line] three times and kicking three field goals, once not scoring. And a few other times inside the 10 and not scoring. This isn’t the game where you want to just want to get down there and score points. You really need to score touchdowns. The red area is going to be a huge point of emphasis this week.

 

Q: Is it different this year knowing that you have some of the same weapons to match Cincinnati?

 

TB: Yeah, and we’ve had good weapons every year. It’s not like this passing game never existed before this season. I mean, we’ve done some pretty good things. The new guys, Randy [Moss] and Wes [Welker] and Donté [Stallworth] and Kelley [Washington] have done a great job. And there are different ways that you find ways to be successful. Coach pointed out to us this morning that in 2002 we scored, I guess, 115 points over the first three games and went on to lose four straight, and this year I think we’ve scored 114. So, whatever we’ve done the past three weeks doesn’t make a whole lot of difference going into this week, especially playing a defense that is really a ball-hawking defense, is always up there leading the league in turnovers and this year is really no different for them.

 

Q: One thing Matt Hasselbeck said last week in preparing for the Bengals is forget about the points that they’ve been giving up – a lot of it is special teams. What about their speed on defense? He said that is probably the one thing they had to prepare for the most.

 

TB: Yeah, they have great speed and I think the entire scheme is set up to force offense into bad plays. They have a bunch of players who take advantage of that – Deltha O’Neal, he has a bunch of picks off of me. Dexter Jackson is very instinctive back there. Madieu Williams is a great athlete playing back there in the secondary. Leon Hall, [a] rookie, had a pick last week. Johnathan Joseph is a very – he’s coming along great, so they have some talented guys back there. They put pressure on the quarterback and I think that’s why those turnovers are so high, because they’re forcing quarterbacks to get rid of the ball quickly because of their pass rush. And if you throw it up to those guys on defense, they don’t drop it too often.

 

Q: You were getting your arm massaged a little bit at the end of the [Bills] game. Is that a reward for getting 10 touchdowns or is it…?

 

TB: I’m just trying to stay on top of it. It’s feeling good. I’m sure it will be listed somewhere on the injury report.

 

[laughter]

 

I’m trying to get off that thing, so it’s a little extra treatment.

 

Q: Can you talk about the accomplishments of Sammy Morris?

 

TB: Sammy has been a surprise for everybody and I think he’s done everything that we’ve asked him to do. He’s been very powerful and explosive, he reads the field very well as a back and he catches the ball very well, so he’s a threat in the pass-game, he’s a threat running the ball. He’s been a great addition and he has a knack for the goal line. There doesn’t need to be much room there for him to make yards. He’s powerful enough to move the pile, so if he sees anything he kind of [lowers] his head and dives down there and always comes away with positive yards. He’s always falling forward, too, so he’s been great. He has a great attitude as well.

 

Q: After three games has Wes Welker been everything you thought he’d be?

 

TB: Wes is doing great. Wes is doing great. He’s fun to have around. He’s very excitable. He has great skill. I think when he first got here, for one, you look at his size and think ‘How does this guy play football?’ But he’s as good a football player as I’ve been around. He reminds me a lot of Troy [Brown]. They have the same style. They get open with their quickness and their awareness, they have great hands, they’re very competitive and they play the same position, so they’re doing great. I think Wes has learned a lot from Troy, so it’s been a great fit.

 

Q: Has your relationship gotten any closer to Randy Moss off the field?

 

TB: You know, we’re around the same age so we have a lot in common and we know a lot of the same people. We’ve always had a connection for as long as I’ve known him. I’ve always been the most concerned with our relationship on the field and I hope that continues to get better.

 

Q: Has anything surprised you about his personality so far?

 

TB: Not really. Not really. He’s fun to be around. I don’t psychoanalyze him too much. He’s a great teammate.

 

Q: Does Coach Belichick keep you focused on the game ahead as opposed to what your record is?

 

TB: Sure. And every team is dangerous. There’s no question every team is dangerous, and 1-2, 2-1 – at this point in the year nobody has really identified themselves and what they do. Teams are going to watch us and say, ‘Okay, how have these last teams tried to stop the Patriots?’ And that’s probably more of what we’ll see, and we have to find ways to do things better that we haven’t been doing, because the teams that we’re going to play are trying to attack those weaknesses that they’ve seen consistently. And we’re trying to do the same thing. So, early in the year we need to make improvements each week. You just can’t lose ground and no matter who you play you have to have three great days of practice of out here -this week it will be four- so we can get ready to play and continue to get better.

 

Q: Are there teams that are always on the top and do you pay attention to that?

 

TB: I watch all the teams and you always know the teams that are well-coached. You play against these guys for so long. Like Pittsburgh, you always know they are going to be good [because of] the history of that organization and the type of players we’ve competed against. Indy, we all know about them. There are a lot of teams. Cincinnati is a great example of that. Every time we play them it’s a high scoring game. We’re trying to make plays; they’re trying to make plays. Those games are tough. And they know us very well. It seems like we play them every year. I hope this is a game that we go out there and play the best we have played. Even last year, we beat them but we left a lot of plays out on the field. Even these first few weeks, we’ve left a lot of plays on the field.

 

 

Belichick previews the Bengals Game

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK
PRESS CONFERENCE

September 26, 2007

BB: We’ve had a few days here to brush up on the Bengals.  Once again, this is a very talented and explosive team.  Offensively, I think we know who all of the playmakers are.  Certainly [Carson] Palmer and T.J. [Houshmandzadeh] and Chad [Johnson] and Rudi [Johnson], they’re a very explosive group.  They have kind of an interesting situation on the offensive line.  They really play with eight linemen.  They have a rotation with them very similar to what a lot of teams do defensively with their defensive linemen; you just don’t see it too much on the offensive side of the ball.  They’re all pretty good.  They move the ball with whoever is in there.  It’s just a little bit unusual to see that many guys playing on the offensive line, but they play them all and they’re all pretty good.  Defensively, this is a turnover driven team.  Cincinnati has been at the top of the league in turnovers the last few years.  They’re up there again.  They’re very conscious of getting the ball out one way or another, whether it be by scheme or by technique or by the style of play that their players use.  They have good players in the kicking game as well.  Obviously [Shayne] Graham is about as good as it gets on field goals.  They do a good job on plus 50 punting.  Skyler Green is a quick guy on the returns, on the punts.  They run hard on those kickoffs regardless of who is back there.  They’ve had big returns on the kickoffs consistently through the years and that’s shown up again already this year.  Again, a very talented team, a team that is explosive that can score in a hurry whether it be on offense, on defense like they did against Baltimore with the strip sack and ran it in for a touchdown, and make plays in the kicking game.  They have a field goal kicker that’s very, very accurate.  We have a lot to get ready for this week.  Today is going to be kind of a regular Wednesday for us.  We’re going to go through our normal preparations today and see if we can start gaining some ground on the final product that we’re headed toward on Monday.

 

Q: When cornerbacks are working against players like Wes Welker and Randy Moss, can it help elevate their game?

 

BB: I think cornerbacks work against a lot of different types of players.  Receivers have different skills sets, so as a corner you learn how to defend all of those different skill sets whether it be speed, quickness, technique, individual route running type of skills or combinations of, and that of course transcends into the actual routes and schemes that a particular offense or a particular team uses.  On an individual basis, I think every receiver kind of has his own way of getting open, even though it’s kind of the same route maybe.  Everybody runs a comeback route.  Everybody runs an in-cut.  Everybody runs a slant, but the specifics of how each individual player runs that based on his body frame, his quickness, his speed, sometimes his catching technique and things like that, it’s a little bit different for each guy.  I think that corners have to understand that and deal with it.  It’s no different than offensive linemen having to block a 350-pound defensive lineman, having to block an athletic 260-pound linebacker, having to block a real quick 205, 210-pound defensive back who comes in on a safety or a defensive back perimeter blitz in sub, that type of thing.  You have to learn how to deal with different players and their skills and their skill sets in a one-on-one matchup.  That’s true for everybody.  That’s what eventually it comes down to and you have to block or tackle or defend or get open against guys who use different techniques and different skill sets.

 

Q: So practicing against a guy like Moss can help you?

 

BB: It helps you playing against a guy like Moss, right.  Covering a player like Welker is hard.  He’s different than Moss.  Covering a player like [Donté] Stallworth is hard.  He’s different than Welker.  Covering [Jabar] Gaffney is hard.  He’s different than Stallworth.  Kelley Washington is different than them.  Bam Childress and Troy Brown are different than Wes Welker.  Each guy has his own style and technique and that type of thing.  It’s not all the same, but I think it’s good experience for all of them.  There’s a general category - bigger receivers, quicker receivers, speed guys and that kind of thing, but each guy kind of has his own way of doing things.  That’s a challenge for the defensive back.

 

Q: With Cincinnati, have you seen any inconsistencies in their running game?  There has been talk that it hasn’t been up to some people’s expectations.

 

BB: Well, it’s been so productive for them that I guess anything less than six yards per carry and 130 a game might be less than what they’re used to.  But, no, I think they’ve run the ball well.  Rudi looks like Rudi.  As I said, they’ve mixed in some different combinations on the offensive line, but I think that all of those players have been…a couple of them had an injury situations.  Levi [Jones] missed some time.  [Eric] Ghiaciuc missed the last couple of games.  He got hurt against Baltimore, but no matter who has been in there, they’ve done a good job and I think they’re still a good running football team, absolutely.

 

Q: What makes Palmer so good at running the no-huddle?

 

BB: He’s just a good quarterback.  He does everything well.  He can make all of the throws.  He’s a strong guy in the pocket.  He reads coverages well.  Very accurate.  He’s a good quarterback.

 

Q: How are [Johnathan] Joseph and [Leon] Hall coming along for them?

 

BB: Again, they’re a very talented group.  Joseph has been slowed down a little bit and Hall has replaced him some at corner, but when Joseph has been in there, then Hall has played the nickel back and has played in the slot.  Hall is instinctive.  He’s quick.  They’re both good tacklers.  They’re both strong players, physical guys that get up and bang the receivers around a little bit.  They both have good hands and good ball skills.  Madieu [Williams] is a very athletic guy at safety.  Dexter [Jackson] is a kind of a ballhawk back there.  He has great feel and read on the quarterback and gets his hands on a lot of balls.  [Deltha] O’Neal has had a lot of good games against us.  He’s another very athletic guy with great hands and good ball skills.  They’re all ball hawks back there.  It’s the same thing with [Keiwan] Ratliff when he’s played.  They do a good job of jumping the quarterback and getting their hands on the ball and breaking on it and turning it over.

 

Q: Obviously you studied their game against Cleveland.  Was that just an aberration with the score and Cleveland putting up 51 points against them?

 

BB: As I said before, I think early in the season you get some games and some matchups and some situations that are not really what they are.  They’ll play each other again and I doubt that the game will go the way this first one did.  We’ve seen those games before.  One week it’s 51-50.  The next week it’s 7-3.

 

Q: You talked about Kyle Brady being an example of someone who came in and was able to pick up the offense fairly quickly and be productive for you.  Is it fair to put Sammy Morris in that category as well?

 

BB: Sure.  Sammy has done a great job for us.  Sammy has been a player that has contributed on all four downs for us.  He’s played in the kicking game.  He’s played on third down.  He’s played on first and second down.  He gets asked to do a lot of different things and he does them and he does them right.  He’s versatile, smart, a tough kid, plays strong, has some speed and quickness to be able to play in the kicking game, play on third down, be a receiver.  He’s been out of the backfield some.  He’s a good player.  He’s worked hard at it.  He’s been here the whole offseason.  He hasn’t missed any time.  He’s been on top of his job and his assignments and he’s performed them well, in the preseason games, practices and so far in the regular season.  He’s a good guy to work with and he’s really a dependable guy.  No question.

 

Q: How important has he been to helping Laurence Maroney in the running game and helping carry some of the load?

 

BB: I think we’ve had production from all of our backs.  I think it’s a good group.  They work well together.  They help each other out.  They’re all smart, tough, work hard, unselfish.  I think it’s a good group to work with.

 

Q: Is this the best and most explosive offense you will face this season?

 

BB: They’re pretty explosive.  They score a lot of points.  They’ve been right at the top of the league in points every year.  What are they now?  30 a game? Something like that, or close to it.  They can score from anywhere and they can score in a hurry.  They’re productive in the running game.  They have a great quarterback.  They have great receivers.  The tight ends are good.  They have a good blocking fullback, a good offensive line.  It seems no matter who they put out there, they score.  They use a lot of different people in their receiver combinations.  Rudi missed most of the second half last week against Seattle.  [Kenny] Watson ran the ball well.  He was very productive.  It almost doesn’t seem to matter who is out there.  If that ball is moving down the field, it’s usually moving pretty fast.

 

Q: Do you see T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Chad Johnson as the same type of receiver or are they a little bit different from one another?

 

BB: I think that there are a lot of similarities.  They use them in different spots.  T.J. plays mainly in the slot, not exclusively, but mainly.  Chad plays mainly outside, but not exclusively.  I think that if they wanted to switch them they probably could, but I think they have them where they think they’re most productive.  There’s a balance there.  They’re usually on opposite sides, so it’s hard to get them both.  It’s hard to get either one of them, but it’s unusual to see them together.  They do it a little bit, but not a whole lot.  I think they don’t want you to be able to go and load up over on that side.  Different but kind of similar to the Indianapolis program where [Marvin] Harrison and [Reggie] Wayne usually aren’t together.  They’re on opposite sides and that makes it harder to get both of them.  But they’re both quick.  They’re both fast.  They’re both good after the catch; real good hands.  They’re good route runners.  The interesting thing about those guys a lot of times when they catch the ball, there’s nobody within five yards of them, 10 yards of them sometimes.  They spin them around.  It’s not like they’re open diving for the ball trying to make a circus catch.  A lot of times they beat the defender so bad it looks like he’s out to practice early just standing right there by himself.  I showed the team a couple [of plays] today where they’re standing in the end zone pretty much fair-catching the ball waiting for it to come down where the guy falls down or he’s spun around.  They’re very good route runners, both of them.  Very good.

 

Q: Is this a game where field position isn’t that big of a deal?

 

BB: I think it’s always a big deal.  It’s always a big deal.  I don’t think you want to play these guys on a short field.  I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.

 

Q: After three games, is Asante Samuel back up to last year’s level yet?

 

BB: I think right now our job as a team, and Asante’s job, is to get ready for Cincinnati and the challenges this week, which are plenty.  That’s what we have to do, is take advantage of our opportunities this week in the classroom and on the practice field and film study to get ready and prepare for this outstanding passing game.  That’s what we’re going to do.  But ranking something compared to some other year or some other game, or whatever…I don’t know.

 

Q: How would you assess your offensive line’s efficiency?

 

BB: I think the line is doing a good job for us.  It’s not perfect, but it’s been solid.  We’ve had a couple of different guys in there at right guard, but otherwise it’s been pretty consistent.  It could be better.  It’s been solid.  It’s helped our offensive production.  We haven’t had a lot of penalties.  We haven’t had a lot of negative plays, so that is good.

 

Q: What has Maroney done best this year so far?

 

BB: I think the biggest thing for Laurence is to keep working on his consistency.  I think we’ve all seen him make plays out there and do things well.  It’s like any other player, just being able to do it consistently, time after time.  A lot of plays.  A lot of things to do right.  Try to get them all done.  That’s the way it is with most players in this league.  Just about everybody can go out there and make plays somewhere along the line.  It’s just a question of how consistently you can do it and try to keep the bad ones out of there.  I think that’s true for him too.

 

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Brady Interview Post-Bills

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK TOM BRADY
POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE

September 23, 2007

Q: Your first two touchdown drives were set up with good returns from Wes Welker. How important is it for you guys to get that field position there?

TB: I think we got off to a bit of a slow start offensively, kind of like we did in practice this week. We picked it up there in the second half. But you’re right – Wes set up some great field position and I think the key to the game offensively [was] the offensive line, and the way they performed today was exceptional. It’s kind of what they’ve been doing all year, but they were doing such a good job run-blocking, we had a lot of holes in the run game and they did a great job of pass-protection. That allowed us to hold onto the ball a little bit longer. I don’t know if we had any sacks – maybe one – but I held on to the ball. They did a great job.

Q: On that 45-yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss, Coach Belichick thought it might have been incomplete. Did you think it might be too long?

TB: Nope. I haven’t overthrown him yet.

Q: Can you describe that play?

TB: They were playing a lot of cover-2, and they weren’t in cover-2 on that particular play. I just tried to lay it up there for him and he usually comes down with it.

Q: You mentioned the slow start. Was that because of things the Bills were throwing at you or is it just a matter of having to get into a rhythm?

TB: I think it’s a good defense, and I think they did some things. They’re a very fast, physical defense and they have some play-makers over there with Aaron Schobel. I think they played very hard. I think we just capitalized when we had the opportunities – when we got the ball in the red zone on the fumble, missed the fourth down and six, so there’s things that we definitely need to improve on and I’m glad we won, but we have a big week this week.

Q: You made that look easy out there—To throw that ball the distance you threw it, in-stride, on the outside shoulder—How hard is it to make that kind of play?

TB: I just throw it up as high as I can and try to put it out there where only he can get it. Like I said, I think his length allows him to even when the DB is on his hip; just he can extend and make the play. It was a great catch. It was a great call by [offensive coordinator] Josh [McDaniels]. My job is easy. You just have to throw it up there.

Q: You had a slow start this week. Do you think it has to do with an emotional letdown after last week, which was so charged up? How hard is it to maintain that type of energy each week?

TB: [When] you play on Sunday night, you get home at 2:00 in the morning and believe it or not, those things affect you. They carry over for days. You go to bed at 3:00 in the morning and then you’re starting on Monday at the same time as normal. Wednesday afternoon it still kind of feels like late Tuesday night and it just…We have a bunch of old guys on this team and it takes a little longer to recover.

Q: The quarterback is not as young as he used to be.

TB: Yeah, he’s definitely not as young as he used to be. I don’t bounce back quite as fast. You want to have all of that energy all of the time, but some days you just wake up at 6:00 a.m. and say, “Ugh, it’s going to be a long day today.” You have to fight through it, because you can’t lose days. You can’t lose days of preparation. This team knows that and I think Coach recognized it and really came down on us pretty hard – probably harder than he ever has. The team really responded on Friday, Saturday we were focused and today we came out and we made enough plays.

Q: How encouraging does it become that a fumble at the 1-yard line can almost become a momentum builder, given the defensive stop and Wes Welker’s return?

TB: Sure, and it was great that the defense was able to hold them and keep them back there. The fumble was a bad play and you’d rather punch it in there and kick it off to them, but fumbling the ball there on the one and then gaining that field position definitely set us up.

Q: Not that you’d ever fumble on purpose, but did you sense that something was needed at that moment to snap you out of it, because it wasn’t right, and they found the moments to do it?

TB: Like I said, you’d rather have the good plays be the momentum builders than a play like that. I think the defense has given us momentum all year. The punt return that Ellis [Hobbs] gave us in the Jets game, the interception return Adalius [Thomas] gave us last week and then some of those stops and punt returns this week were huge for the offense and setting us up in field position, which is what we’re going to continue to need. I [take] pride [in] that 99-yard drive that we had out there in the fourth quarter. That was pretty good. I hope to continue that.

Q: Were you surprised at the lateral that Wes Walker threw?

TB: I don’t know what they were doing, those two. Maybe Wes learned that in Miami. I’ve never seen it around here. I’m sure Coach is going to [yell at] us for that. It’s just another one of those things that makes tapes. It turned out this time. I don’t know how well it turns out most of the time.

Q: Your first three touchdown throws inside the 10 yard line were to three different people. Are you consciously trying to spread the ball around?

TB: I think this particular time it was just that the coverage really dictated that it go to certain people. We got down there on the first drive and we were inside the five or six yard line and we didn’t get it in. We kicked the field goal and we came back with a good approach the next few times and really pounded the ball in there when we could and then took our shots when we got man-to-man coverage. I thought it was a nice play by Ben [Watson] reading the zone. The second one to Randy was an all-out blitz and the guy had no help in the middle of the field. Randy ran a great route. The third one, Jabar [Gaffney] found a hole. [They] ended up doubling or tripling Randy and Gaff kind of pulled ahead of there and made a catch. I think that’s all set up by great offensive line play, to tell you the truth. For us to hold the ball and sort through that kind of stuff, and with the blitz pick-up like they did, they performed extremely well. And that was a [darn] good defensive line we faced, too, Schobel and [Ryan] Denney and the big guys inside, too, who are excellent. The way they protected and the way they run-blocked for us today – a lot of us do a lot of things offensively.

Q: Don’t you love to throw when Randy is covered and know that the play is still going to be made?

TB: He’s a mismatch every time he’s out there when it’s one-on-one, so if they’re doubling him then you try to find other guys to go to. And if they single him, you have an opportunity even when he’s covered to put the ball in a position [where] only he can make the play because of his height and his length. That’s what happened today. He had pretty good coverage on him. He just made an outstanding catch.

Q: Do you find yourself making throws maybe you wouldn’t have in the past because of who you have out there?

TB: Like I said, we’ve had different styles throughout the years and that style has worked extremely well. This offense is going to just continue to morph into the players that we have. I thought there was a drive there where it was run, run, run, play-action and I hit Wes on that lateral play, but that was fun because we were pounding it in there and finally they had a cover-2 defense, we play-action fake and all three linebackers step up and Wes is wide open. That’s tough on the defense, and the more that we can run it effectively in a play-action pass and then when they give us man coverage you try to throw the ball to your mismatches, that’s a pretty good way to go.

Q: What is it with 38 points?

TB: 38? I don’t know. Coach didn’t want to kick a field goal to get to 41 at the end, so…I don’t know. It’s a good number. I think it’s going to be a tough one this week playing on the road on Monday night, so we have a big challenge. I’m glad we have an extra day to prepare.

Q: You gave credit to your offensive line. Going up against the pass-rush and the success Schobel has had, to not hear his name called for the first three quarters must have made you feel good.

TB: Sure, and Matt [Light] did a great job over there on my left side. At the same time, I think we’re trying to scheme things up so he’s not coming off the edge all day, and you always try to keep those pass-rushes accountable for those pass-rushers, because they can ruin a game. That’s where the best guy usually is, right over on the offense’s left side. They did a good job with him. He’s a great player, a Pro Bowl player, but our offensive line is shutting it down this year.

 

 

 

 

Belichick Interview Post-Bills

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK
POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE

September 23, 2007

BB: I thought it was a good win for our team out there today.  We got off to a little bit of a slow start, but I thought that in the end all three phases came back and we made some plays.  We had some good coverage plays on special teams and finally got the punt return going a little bit.  Defensively after that long drive there in the first quarter, we played better after that.  Offensively we kind of sputtered around a little bit there, but then we started scoring some points in that second and third quarter, even though we moved the ball earlier we weren’t able to convert and get the kind of points that we would like to get off of those drives.  In the end, we made enough plays to win.  That was good.  I thought the players played hard, especially after we got past that first quarter, quarter-and-a-half there.  We just didn’t do a good job.  Buffalo ran some new schemes on us and we had a little trouble adjusting to those, but I thought the players did a good job in the end.  Now we’re moving on to Cincinnati.

Q: You mentioned the punt return game.  Can you maybe expound upon that a little bit?  It seemed like that sparked a little bit of a turnaround.

BB: We haven’t really done anything with the punt return game all year, including preseason.  We’ve worked hard the last couple of week and we usually work on it one day a week.  We’ve worked on it two, and one time even three days just to put more emphasis on it and try to improve.  I think it all starts with getting those guys held up on the line of scrimmage.  Wes [Welker] made some good decisions, good ball handling, it was a tough ball he handled on the long one.  I don’t know how far it went.  It seemed like it went about 70 yards.  What was it?

Q: 75 yards.

BB: 75.  That guy is a great punter.  It was just a combination of things.  No penalties.  That’s the best way to get a punt return, is to not get it called back.  That was good.  It was something that we’ve worked hard on and I’m glad that we can reinforce that with some positive results.

Q: It looked like your offensive line had a pretty good day, especially keeping [Aaron] Schobel out of the backfield.  Can you talk about their performance a little?

BB: We tried.  We certainly put enough guys over there to try to block him, but they still got us a few times and then they moved him inside and stunted him.  He’s a tough guy to block.  He’s really a good player.  He’s quick.  He’s explosive and strong for his size.  He’s very instinctive and he has a great motor.  He’s a hard guy to stay with.  We got him a few times, but he got us too.  He’s a guy you have to game plan for.  He’s tough.

Q: Is it good to see your team come back after an emotional game last week to put up another win?

BB: We try to put all of the games behind us as soon as we can.  By tomorrow afternoon, we need to get on to Cincinnati, correct the mistakes from this game, watch the tape and move on.  It doesn’t really matter whether we win, lose, lose a tough one, win a big one, whatever.  We have to get onto the next game.  We only have 16.  They’re too important and we can’t let one game carryover into another one.  I think the guys are pretty good about trying to do that.  This will be an important week for us to get off to a good start against Cincinnati, especially defensively.  We know what they’re capable of doing from a production standpoint.  They can score a lot of points.

Q: Does anything Randy [Moss] does surprise you or do you think you’ve seen enough of him?

BB: There’s a lot of things he can still work on.  He hasn’t had that much time in the offense, but his production has been good.  Tom [Brady] has been able to find him when he’s been open and Randy has been able to convert.  It was a really nice play down there in the red area on the slant pattern.  It was really good coverage by [Jabari] Greer.  There was almost no space to get the ball in there.  It was just well executed and that’s what it needs to be down there.  It was good.

Q: Did you see Randy’s second touchdown catch at all from where you were?

BB: Are you talking about the one down the sideline in front of their bench?

Q: Yes.

BB: When Brady let it go, it looked to me like it was going to be an incomplete pass.  It didn’t really look like there was much room for the ball to get in there and if it did, the defender would probably get it and somehow it would drop just beyond the corner, just inside the sideline right into Randy’s hands.  I was a long way away from it.  I didn’t really get a good look at it, but when the ball left his hand the last thing I was thinking was, ‘This is going to be a touchdown.’

Q: You’ve seen a lot of great things from Tom over the years.  These past couple of weeks, has this been as good of a stretch that he’s played that you’ve seen?

BB: I think he’s played well.  He’s had some other games that were pretty good games.  It doesn’t really matter.  We have a long way to go.  We just need to keep improving each week.  I’d like to see him handle the ball a little bit better and not fumble it down there on the goal line.  I’m sure he’d like to have that play back.  There’s always going to be plays like that that every player would like to have back, calls that every coach would like to have back.  We have a long way to go and I hope that we can continue to get better.

Q: It seemed like Laurence [Maroney] ran with some more authority today and he was decisive in his cuts.  Is that accurate?

 

BB: I think Laurence has done a good job for us.  He’s done a good job for us.  I thought the line blocked well.  The way that Buffalo plays defense sometimes it’s a little bit of if there’s a good hole there that you can get through or there’s nothing and we saw some of both.  I thought the backs ran hard, but I think they’ve been running hard.

Q: How do you feel about the balance of your offense?  Do you feel at all that the efficiency of your running game has been overlooked?

BB: Well, the most important thing to me is scoring points on offense.  I don’t really care how we score them.  We’ve thrown the ball a lot. We’ve run it a lot.  We’ve been balanced.  I think in the end, you have to be able to execute the plays that are the most advantageous to you based on your personnel and what the defense is doing.  As long as we’re moving the ball and scoring points, then we’re doing well offensively.  If we’re not, then we’re not.  It doesn’t make any difference what we’re doing.  That’s the only reason that unit goes out on the field, is to score.  If we just wanted to run three plays and punt, we could find a lot of guys to do that.  Their job is to move it.

Q: What was your reaction when Wes Welker lateraled the ball to Randy? 

BB: I don’t think that was the best play that I’ve ever seen; let’s put it that way.  When the players have the ball out there, they have to make the plays and it’s their job to do what they think is best.  Being aggressive and trying to make plays is good.  Being careless and not taking care of the ball is bad.  I’ll talk to Wes about it and see exactly what he saw.  I don’t think we want to make a habit of that.  In that case, it worked out for a few extra yards.  It’s hard to get on him, but we’ll try.  We’ll get on him anyway.

 

 

 

 

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Jarvis Green Fundraiser

By Frank Carpano

I have to fill you in on a great event I was a part of this past weekend. On Friday night I was the emcee for the first Jarvis Green Foundation Fundraiser. It was a wine tasting to help raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims. Jarvis, the New England Patriots defensive end is from the New Orleans area, many of his friends and family were affected by the hurricane and now more than 2 years later are still struggling to get back on their feet.

Proceeds from this benefit also went to a scholarship fund for Green’s late teammate Marquis Hill. Hill drowned this past Summer. He left behind a young son. And partial proceeds from the event went to Hill’s son’s trust fund.

Despite the serious matters we were raising money for, it was quite a festive atmosphere.
The event took place in the ballroom at the Johnson & Wales Inn in Seekonk, Ma.
Over a dozen wine distributors were scattered around the outer walls of the large room providing samples of their products. The J+W staff provided the appropriate food while a New Orleans jazz band played to entertained the 400 guests.

Many of Jarvis’ teammates were on hand to support their teammate and the causes for the evening. Several of the Patriots came to the stage to auction off signed game jersey’s that were beautifully displayed in a wood and glass frame. It was during this part of the evening that I discovered 2 things about the Patriots that I already knew. One; Even off the playing field are extremely competitive and , two; these guys genuinely like each other. The competitive thing surfaced when the players were auctioning off their jersey’s. Every player who came up to ther stage had to get more money for their jersey then the guy before them. Rosie Colvin, Ty Warren and Adalius Thomas playfully prodded the crowd to up the ante. Thomas tipped the scale in his favor when he added a pair of game spikes to his auction item. As much as these guys wanted to be the one to raise the most money for his shirt, it was more important to raise money for the event. That explains why the players ended up bidding on each other’s shirt.

The highlight of the evening was the video tribute to Marquise Hill. Hill’s fiancé and mother of his son was in the room. When the video was over, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

That was followed with the auctioning of a limited edition trading card tribute to Hill’s football career. The bidding was hovering around $1200 dollars when, from across the room, Adalius Thomas put up his arm with 5 fingers raised. I thought he was signaling to raise the bid to $1500. No, he said, he was raising the bid to $5000. The room burst into applause. That money went directly to Hill’s son’s trust fund. A generous gesture by Thomas who, as one of the Patriots newest players, never played with Hill. It capped a fantastic night

My hat is off to Jarvis Green. I’ve met and worked with a lot of professional athletes, and I have to admit Green is truly one of the nicest. He is a caring individual who’s heart is in the right place. His fundraiser is proof. Congratulations on a job well done.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Brady Previews the Bills game

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK TOM BRADY
LOCKER ROOM INTERVIEW

September 19, 2007

Q: What’s your impression of this offense so far this season? Do you feel like you’re clicking on all cylinders yet?

 

TB: Too soon to tell. We’ve only had two weeks of evaluation and we’ve done some things but I think we still left quite a few plays out there. I know last week we had the ball on the 26-yard line, first-and-10, the 24-yard line first-and-10 and didn’t come away with any points. We had the ball on the 5-yard line on third-and-2 and only came out with three points, so I certainly think we can do better and continue to make improvements. It’s so early in the year right now. What’s really happened in the last few weeks is going to have zero impact on this week and it’s an entirely different team and scheme and it’s a very disciplined defense that we’re facing. It’s very well coached. They have a very disciplined secondary that has it’s own strengths and weaknesses so I hope we’re ready for the challenge. 

 

Q: Do you at all feel like a pitcher right in that you have a lot of different pitches that you can go to throughout the season?

 

TB:  Well, I think any time that, as an offense, you can run the ball efficiently and then play-action pass, hit screens and three-step drops, and then take some shots down the field and put your big guys on the field and then throw the ball, hopefully, we can continue to be creative and to mix things up. As long as the different players are all capable of making the plays when they’re in one-on-one coverage, then it’s going to be a tough offense to stop. When you start double-covering people, then we go to other people and we can use the running game a little bit more. I just think that we’ve got to continue to make improvements and take advantage of whatever they do because every defense has a strength and a weakness and hopefully we can figure out what those are and kind of match our strengths against the weakness of their defense.

 

Q: Randy Moss seems to have added a dimension that you hadn’t had in the past.

 

TB:  We’ve had some good ones in the past.

 

Q: Yes, but he’s certainly a different type of receiver than you’re used to.

 

TB:  He has a lot of his own type of skill set. He’s a very big guy and, in that sense, there hasn’t been anybody that’s been as big as he is. He’s got great speed and he catches the ball extremely well. I think the thing about this offense is that we always try to morph into what the guys on our team are good at. Deion [Branch] is entirely different than what Randy is and we’re not doing the same things with Randy that Deion did. I just don’t think it’d be fair to them. We’ve found ways over the years to be successful and I think this year that we’re finding new ways as well. I wish that we were all together for longer, in terms of this training camp, so we could be even that much further down the road, but we’re still learning on the fly. We’re still learning with each practice. Coach always says our long-term goals and expectations are for this practice. That’s a great way to put it because we don’t want to overlook these day-to-day type goals that we have.

 

Q: How well has the offensive line played so far?

 

TB:  I think they’ve done a great job. There’s no question that they’ve faced two, very big, physical, powerful defensive lines. I think this D-line is a little bit different. They have speed and they move on every play. [Aaron] Schobel is as active as any defensive end in the league and he’s got 11 sacks on us in his seven years so he’s a very explosive player at that position. I think the line has a challenge this week in this group that’s very different from the group they’ve faced over the last few weeks. You’ve just got to be prepared for the different stunts they run and the different blitzes and the different moves that these guys have. They can rush the passer. They create a lot of negative plays in the running game with their movement and they’re able to spring guys free in the passing game, too, so we’ve got to expect those things and be able to counter them with whatever we have called.

 

Q: You haven’t thrown very many incompletions. Do you feel particularly sharp and would you ever be satisfied unless you completed in everything?

 

TB:  Those guys are doing a great job of getting open and they’re doing a great job of getting open in man-to-man coverage and the offensive line has been protecting great. Really, my job is to evaluate the field and pick the guy that I think is most open and make a good throw. Hopefully, at this stage of my career, making a good throw is not much of a problem because that’s what we work on. We try to work on technique and that’s what a lot of that comes down to:  the evaluation of who’s open and it comes down to making good decisions and with the experience, hopefully, you make good decisions. There are not a whole lot of things that end up surprising me. Now, I still do get surprised out there and things don’t always turn out how you anticipate them before you snap the ball. That’s just part of reacting and trying to do well when it doesn’t really go how you’d thought it would go.

 

Q: The comfort level with your new receivers, at least to the naked eye, has to be maybe more than you’d expected, no?

 

TB:  The passing game, over the years, we’ve done some good things. I mean, I hate to think that we were crap for the last seven years. We led the league in passing for a few years so it’s just a matter of whether it’s a different style and I think, this year, we’re expanding the field a little bit more vertically, but everything has its strengths and weaknesses. I’m happy that we’re completing at a high percentage and a high-yards-per-attempt because that’s how you become efficient in the passing game, a high completion percentage and there haven’t been a whole lot of third downs which has been good. It’s only been two games, so like Coach said this morning, ‘I hope our goal isn’t just to win two games this season,’ which is a great point.

 

Q: Is it nice to be able to deal with football this week without any distractions for the first time?

 

TB:  Well, we’ve been dealing with football for three weeks so I don’t know what everyone else has been dealing with, but we have been focused on football and playing some very tough opponents in the Jets and the Chargers. That has been our focus and I think that’s why we’ve come out ahead. I think it’s no different this week.

 

Q: Do you think in what happened to Coach Belichick last week that will be a season-long motivator or is that just a one-week thing?

 

TB:  I’m sure we’ll drum up something to motivate us this week. You know, we always seem to find a way to pull something from nothing and give us a little extra motivation

 

Q: We’ve seen the way Randy Moss has adjusted on the field, can you tell us the way he’s adjusted off of the field?

 

TB:  I’ve spoken a bunch about Randy and what he brings and I think he’s a veteran player who has provided leadership in his attention to detail and his awareness on the field. He’s always in here on days off, working out and he’s around the team. He loves to play football and he’s got his locker there next to mine so we get to share some pretty deep conversation as well. Everybody’s happy to have him. Certainly, the way he’s performing, we’re very lucky to have him.

 

Q: Randy’s seemed to have a team-first attitude; can you talk about the ways he’s tried to keep that up?

 

TB:  He’s just like every other player around here. He comes in, he does his job, he speaks for himself and he just comes in and works hard. I don’t know what he was like before, but he’s the only Randy I know. But that’s what we all try to do. I think that’s the nice thing about being here is that you just have to worry about yourself and worry about what you do and the rest takes care of itself because you realize you have a bunch of teammates who are doing the exact same thing.

 

Q: You spoke about the discipline of their defense. Do you spend extra time trying to devise things to keep them guessing?

 

TB:  Yeah, I think you’re always trying to disguise things that you’re good at. You don’t want to come in every week and put in an entirely new offense. It just becomes too complicated, but you try to figure out what you’re good at and then find ways to do that. Against a team like this, they try to do that on defense. I wouldn’t say it’s an overly complicated scheme that they do, but what they do, they do very well and the players in their zone coverages, they’re aware of the quarterback and they’re all dropping to the right depths and reading the play and they all play well off of one another. They do pressure a little bit in their pressure schemes. They have everybody accounted for so you’re not going to see guys cut free from coverage or make mental errors out there. They’re always in the right spot and if you want to move the ball, you’ve got to run a good route and make a good throw or make a good catch and protect against a [darn] good D-line. It’s the same thing running the ball. You’ve got to get out on a hat, but they create a lot of disruption with their movement which forces a lot of negative plays in the times we’ve struggled against these guys. You know we’ve barely won two of the last three times we’ve played them. I think we’ve had seven or eight negative plays per game. It’s just hard to win when 10 percent of your plays are for a loss.

 

Q: Randy has said that he likes playing with a quarterback who can throw the football—

 

TB:  Like I said, I think he likes playing football and he likes being part of a team that puts football first and is most concerned about going out and trying to perform well. You know, Junior [Seau] said it best at the Kickoff Gala when he said there’s a culture around here of doing your job and the players that come into this organization, they see it and that’s the way it ends up going. It’s not like you need any speeches about it or any of that.

 

Belichick Previews the Bills game

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK
PRESS CONFERENCE

September 19, 2007

BB: First of all, on Buffalo, our thoughts and prayers go out to Kevin Everett, his family and friends, of course many of whom are on our team that played with him or knew him from the University of Miami, the Bills organization as they deal with that difficult situation.  Just in getting ready for the Bills, this is a game that is a lot different from the first two that we played.  They have a style of play that is very distinct.  They will be hard for us to get ready for in a short period of time.  We’re going to have to work awfully hard at it this week.  Their style of play defensively and offensively, and as good as they are in the kicking game, it’s just different from what we’ve seen the last couple of weeks and it’s different from the way we are.  We really haven’t had a lot of exposure to those types of things.  We’re going to have to spend a lot of time getting ready for them.  Defensively they have an awful lot of quickness.  They rotate those defensive linemen and they keep them pretty fresh in there.  They’re fast.  They’re very active.  Headed by [Aaron] Schobel, we’ve always had trouble with him, the 2-3 techniques, [John] McCargo and [Larry] Tripplett are both very quick and active players in there, along with [Kyle] Williams on the nose.  The linebackers are fast.  [Donte] Whitner is of course developing into a good player for them in the secondary.  We know they’re very good on special teams.  They have the best return game in the league with [Terrence] McGee and [Roscoe] Parrish.  They do a great job blocking and covering with [Sam] Aiken and [Josh] Stamer in particular, [Brian] Moorman the top punter in the league.  They have a lot of really good players on special teams.  They play very well.  They’re an explosive team there.  Offensively they have very good skill players.  [Marshawn] Lynch has been extremely impressive, of course we saw a lot of him coming out of Cal this year in the draft.  I think he’s certainly lived up to everything that everybody said about him and maybe a little bit more with his opportunities this year.  Their receivers are outstanding.  [Lee] Evans, of course.  Parrish.  [Josh] Reed.  Peerless Price.  Aiken in the kicking game.  It’s a very, very good group.  The tight ends are solid.  [JP] Losman is a very active and athletic quarterback.  They’ve upgraded their offensive line with the addition of [Derrick] Dockery and Langston Walker.  [Brad] Butler has come along for them inside.  That’s a pretty solid group there headed by [Jason] Peters who is one of the most athletic tackles in the league.  He’s developed into a really good player, one of the best tackles that we’ve seen.  It’s a good football team.  A team that had Denver beat, lost a tough game there on the last play.  Last week against Pittsburgh, I thought defensively their ability to play well in the red area and keep Pittsburgh out of the end zone kept the game very competitive and Pittsburgh scored right there at the end and kind of moved it away from them.  It was really a pretty competitive game and their red area defense was very good.  It will be a big week for us in terms of preparation this week and trying to get some things practiced and looked at that are, like I said, a lot different than what we do and a lot different than what we’ve seen in the first couple of weeks of the regular season, even going back into preseason.  It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a team with this kind of speed and quickness.

 

Q: It seems like your offensive line has put together a couple of good weeks here.  Have they really pulled it together?

 

BB: Yes, I think our entire offensive unit has played with some degree of consistency.  There are a lot of things that can be better.  I think they’ve pretty consistently been together here for quite a while and it is the same guys that were on the team last year.  They’ve handled some tough situations in the first two games, relative to looks and pressure defenses and things like that.  For the most part, we got most of them picked up.  It’s a hard working group and they have a hard working coach.  They come to practice everyday and usually leave the field a little bit better than when they started.  So that’s positive.

 

Q: When Randy Moss first came here, what did you tell him you expected from him?

 

BB: We didn’t really talk too much about it then.  We were just too busy trying to get the whole thing done.

 

Q: What about later?

 

BB: Randy and I have talked quite a bit.  We’ve talked football.  I have a lot of conversations with the players.  Those are player-coach conversations and we keep those between the player and the coach.

 

Q: Is there anything you can tell us?

 

BB: I always keep them between the player and the coach.  We talk about things that are important.  That’s the way it is with all of the players.

 

Q: A lot of people, not just here locally, but across the country are talking about this team having a perfect record this season of 16-0.  Is that something that you welcome or strive for?

 

BB: That’s so ridiculous.  Seriously, is there anything else?  We need to go out and have a good practice today.  That’s what we need to do.  That’s what I just got through saying.  We need to get ready for Buffalo.  It’s a lot for us to handle.  It’s something we haven’t seen much of and that’s what we need to do.  We need to go out and have a good practice and get ready for Buffalo.

 

Q: What makes the Buffalo special teams so good year after year?

 

BB: I think they’re well coached, they have good players and they execute well.  They have very good specialists.  It always starts there.  You can’t really be good on special teams if you don’t have good specialists – kickers, returners, snappers, and holders, all of the key positions.  They have a good group of core players to go with them.  They’re well coached.  They play consistently well.  They show up every week.  They return kicks against everybody.  They cover them well.  Obviously all teams when they punt the ball they have the two outside guys and they’re the gunners.  Sam Aiken is like having a third gunner.  It’s like you’re playing three gunners.  You really need to double-team him but you can’t because you just don’t have enough guys or if you double him then you let too many guys in the middle run free.  Guys like Stamer.  Guys like that.  It’s hard to get them all blocked in the return game. They’re aggressive.  The returners handle the ball well.  They’re hard to tackle.  Parrish and McGee have two completely different running styles, but they’re both very, very effective with the styles and the skills that they have. They’re tough.  They create a lot of field position.  They’re right at the top of the league in field position where they usually are in terms of their starting point and where they back you up to.  Moorman can change field position with one kick.  He’s easily of capable of 55, 60-yard net punts with the coverage they have.  They’re tough.  They’re very tough.

 

Q: Can you give an example of where Randy has shown leadership?

 

BB: Randy, I think he’s a very good leader.  I think he does a good job on and off the field.  He works hard.  He’s smart.  He’s on top of everything.  He wants to do well.  That’s what it is all about.

 

Q: Is there anything you can describe?

 

BB: I think having that kind of attitude – working hard, trying to get everything right, doing things the way they’re supposed to be done, to me that’s what leadership is.

 

Q: You mentioned Buffalo’s offensive line and their new personnel.  What kind of challenges does their offensive line present?

 

BB: Well, they brought in a couple of experienced guys in Walker and Dockery.  [Brad] Butler is a young kid that is playing well for them to go with [Melvin] Fowler and [Jason] Peters.  Like I said, Peters is really an anchor, a stalwart on that line.  They’re very big.  This is probably physically as big as any line in the league.  I can’t imagine them being any bigger, and they’re athletic, as Peters is, as Walker is.  They’re big.  They’re strong.  They have a back who doesn’t need much room and a quarterback who is very mobile, very athletic.  Sometimes, even when they get pressure on Losman, he can get away from it.  He’s fast. He’s quick and he throws well on the run.  He’s made a lot of big plays scrambling out of there.  That will be a challenge for us.

 

Q: You talked about Adalius Thomas’ interception return for a touchdown and how it reminded you of a Lawrence Taylor interception return for a touchdown.  Do those two players have similar traits?

 

BB: Thomas is playing inside linebacker for us for the most part.  Taylor was almost exclusively an outside linebacker.  I think Thomas has a lot of good skills.  He’s strong. He’s a very powerful guy.  He’s explosive.  He runs well.  We all know that.  He’s smart.  He works hard.  He studies.  He won one of our offseason awards coming in here.  We don’t have too many guys that do that.  [Wes] Welker did it too, but I’m just saying for the most part, the guys that are here work pretty hard and they’re very competitive and it’s unusual to have a guy come in and do that.  I think that speaks a lot to his work ethic, his dedication and also his skill.  That has shown up on the field from day one.  He’s very attentive.  He’s team oriented.  He understands defenses well.  He understands not only what he’s doing but what other people are doing and how that all fits together and how he can do things to help other people out in the scheme of the defense.  He’s a smart player.  He’s instinctive.  He’s been great to work with.

 

Q: After the game, Rosevelt Colvin said that he felt like that was his best game production wise but he felt like he was capable of much bigger things.  What are you looking to get out of Rosevelt at this point?

 

BB: I’m looking to have him prepare well this week and go out and play well against Buffalo.

 

Q: Do you think he’s capable of more than what he showed on Sunday?

 

BB: Well, I think a lot of our production on defense sometimes it depends on the circumstances and the plays that are called.  I think the most important thing for us defensively is to play good team defense and be in position and then take advantage of those opportunities when the plays come to us and we have an opportunity to make plays.  When you play defense the way we do, it’s not designed for this guy to have a lot of production, that guy to have a lot of production.  It’s designed for everybody to do their job and to play good team defense and then where the plays happen, then the people that are there at the point of attack need to make them.

 

Q: He talked specifically about what he did this past week to work harder on his dropping into coverage.  Did you see that improve?

 

BB: No question.  He played a lot better in the passing game.  He worked hard on some of the things from the Jets game that we talked about.  I think he worked hard in practice to correct them and I think they showed up in a more productive and positive manner in the San Diego game.  That will be a new challenge this week because certainly the skill level of the Buffalo receivers, and their passing game is a little bit different than the San Diego or the Jets passing game.  It will be a new challenge this week and, I don’t even want to say just as hard, we’ll have to work harder on it this week because of the skill level and the ability of the receivers and I don’t just mean the wide receivers, but the receivers - tight ends, the entire passing game that Buffalo puts out there.  They have a lot of really good players.  We’ve all seen [Steve] Fairchild’s offense and how explosive they can be getting the ball down the field.  Evans last year, with whatever it was, 1,300 yards or whatever he had.  They’re tough.

 

Q: Has Losman made strides in your mind from what you’ve seen from last year?

 

BB: I think he’s a good quarterback.  He has good athletic ability as I said.  He has a good arm.  He has a good touch on the ball.  He has good quickness in the pocket to do things like bootlegs and run plays like that.  Yes.

 

Q: You mentioned the guys here that know Kevin Everett.  Have you talked to them at all about him?

 

BB: Like I said, our prayers and thoughts are with him, his family and the entire Bills organization as they go through the process.  We have a lot of players on this team from the University of Miami and even if we didn’t we’d still feel the same way.  It’s an unfortunate situation.  As much as we can mentally and emotionally support them, that’s what we do.  Obviously it’s a competitive game that he’s not going to be a part of, but still we care about him as a fellow competitor and a player in the league or another coach in the league.

 

Q: What has impressed you the most about Tom Brady’s performance in the first two games?

 

BB: I think Tom has thrown the ball well.  I think he’s made good decisions.  I think there are always plays that he would like to have back, that we’d all like to have back.  So I know he’ll work hard to keep working toward perfection and improving and that’s the way it should be.  He’s made good decisions.  Put the ball on the money.  That’s what a quarterback has to do.

 

Q: With all of the changes in your receiving corps, are you a little bit surprised that it seems to have come together so quickly?

 

BB: I don’t have a lot of expectations one way or the other.  We just try to go out there and take the players that we have in the system we have and run the plays and do them better on a day-to-day basis.  The things that were wrong yesterday we try to correct them and get better today.  There will be mistakes out there today, whatever those are we try to correct them and move forward tomorrow.  That’s the way we look at it.

 

Q: In your experience, do you think it’s rare to have that many guys come in for it to click so quickly?

 

BB: I think we’ve had some productive plays out there.  We’ve had some plays that haven’t been all that hot, but it isn’t like Moss and Welker and Watson, Brady and [Kevin] Faulk and [Donté] Stallworth, some of those guys, have never played before.  They’ve played a lot of football.  It’s not the first pass they’ve completed or the first pass that they’ve caught and I hope it won’t be the last.

 

Q: Aaron Schobel has had some success against you in the past.

 

BB: He’s killed us.  He’s killed us.

 

Q: What is it about him that’s so hard to defend him?

 

BB: He has a lot of things going for him.  He has a great motor.  He works hard on every play.  He’s never out of a play.  He has several good moves.  He can get up field.  He has a good up and under move.  He has a good spin move.  Even though he’s not the biggest guy, he has explosive power, so he just has a lot of… he’s hard to block.  He’s hard for everybody to block.  His speed is a problem.  His quickness and change of direction are a problem.  His explosive power is a problem.  His motor is a problem.  They move him a lot, so he’s never really, well I wouldn’t say never, but you can’t ever count on him being stationary, like, ‘Okay he’s there,’ but he could easily be going there or going there on the snap and then you’re trying to block a guy in a large amount of space who is very quick and athletic.  He’s tough.  He’s killed us.

 

Q: What does it mean to be balanced on offense and defense?  Is it a good thing at the end of the game?

 

BB: It’s great.  That’s where you want to be, not necessarily in number of plays or number of yards, I’m not saying statistically.  I think you want to be, as a football team, you want to be balanced.  You want to feel like you can run it or throw it.  You want to feel like you can stop the run, stop the pass or you can run inside or run outside, throw long, throw deep, rush the passer, cover, play the inside runs, play the outside in space kind of runs.  You want to be balanced as a football team because if you’re not, then you’re never going to see the stuff that you’re really good at, or you’re not going to see very much of it and you’re going to see a lot of the stuff that you’re not very good at.  This league really forces you to be balanced and if you’re not balanced by your players, then you have to adjust your scheme somehow to compensate for that.  There’s just too many good players in this league.  They will wear you out.  You’re always striving to balance.  Every team in the league needs balance or, like I said, all you do is end up playing on your weaknesses and it’s hard to get to your strengths.  In any game it’s good to have that.  It’s really hard to maintain it over the course of the season, but you try and you try to have it from game to game.

 

Q: Is the best thing to keep a defense off balance the ability to pass the ball or hand it off at any given point?

 

BB: Well, the best thing to do offensively is to execute whatever play you have called as well as you can execute it and sometimes a 3-yard gain is just as important as a 10-yard completion.  Offensive football is about execution.  It’s assignments.  Everybody has an assignment and everybody has to take care of their jobs.  If everybody does it, then hopefully, and you don’t have any negative plays in there like penalties and tackles for loss or fumbled exchanges or losses in the running game and stuff like that, then you can move forward and stay on the field.  If you have those kinds of plays and you don’t execute it properly or you have a missed assignment or you drop a ball or you have a false start or stuff like that, then you end up in long yardage situations and it’s just too hard to convert those in this league.  Every play is not an 80-yard touchdown and realistically it’s never going to be that.  It would be great, but it’s never going to happen.  You have a lot of other plays in the game that have to be well executed and, like I said, a three yard gain, a four yard gain, a five yard gain on first-and-10, a three yard gain on third-and-two, those plays are just as important, or can be just as important, as some other plays.  It just comes down to execution.  It comes down to situational football.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Belichick interview post Chargers

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK
PRESS CONFERENCE
September 17, 2007

BB: After watching the tape this morning, I feel a lot like the way I did last night.  The players made a lot of good plays last night and that’s why we won.  I just give them a lot of credit.  We were productive in all three phases of the game – the running game, the passing game, the kicking game, not that it was perfect, far from it, I’m not saying that.  There were plenty of things that we need to work on and improve in.  I thought the players really stepped up and played with a lot of energy and we got a lot of good plays from a lot of people.  It wasn’t just one guy or one thing or one side of the ball or anything like that.  I give them a lot of credit for the way they prepared and the way they played last night.  Again, just to feed back on last night’s comments, I thought the fan support was terrific.  You could really feel them behind us in this game.  I was touched by some of the support that they gave.  It was a good feeling.  I think that this team has a lot of confidence in our fans and I kind of feel like the fans have confidence in us.  That’s a good situation.  Right now, we’ll put this one behind us and get on to Buffalo.  We’re back in the division.  Buffalo presents some unique challenges, things a lot different than what we’ve seen from the first two opponents.  That will be a big challenge for us.  Even though the players have a little bit of extra time today, part of my feeling on the San Diego game is it’s so different from what the Buffalo game is going to be, we really could use more time to prepare for Buffalo rather than spend an excessive amount of time going over things from the San Diego game, some of which really won’t have too much application in Buffalo just because the styles of play are quite a bit different.  That’s where we are for this week.

Q: Tedy [Bruschi] had some emotional comments after the game yesterday.  You talked about the fans support and what it meant to you, what does the players’ support mean to you?

BB: It meant a lot.  Nobody has more heart on this team than Tedy Bruschi and I mean that figuratively.  We have great players on this team, guys that work hard, guys that put everything into the game and that I totally respect.  The team was very supportive, the entire organization, starting with Mr. [Robert] Kraft going all the way down to the players and everybody else.  Tedy, he’s one of our emotional leaders.  He’s one of our best players.  We have players who are well respected, I don’t think there’s anybody who has any more respect on this team than Tedy does.  I think there are a lot of other people right up there with him.  I don’t think there’s anybody that has any more.

Q: Do you have any reaction to the commissioner’s request for additional video tapes?

BB: No, I think that’s a fair question and I’m sure there are other questions out there as well.  I’ve made my comments on that and, as Mr. Kraft said last night, we’ll handle it as an internal matter, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Q: Why do you feel like you don’t have any obligation to offer some kind of explanation?

BB: Well, it’s been done.  We’re moving on.  I think what we have to do is move on.

Q: It hasn’t been done.  You haven’t actually said anything about it.

BB: We’re moving on.  Right now we’re moving on to Buffalo.  That’s what is important to this football team, getting ready for the Buffalo Bills.  They’re a division team and it’s a big game coming up.  So we’ll put the San Diego game behind us and move forward.

Q: So you’re not going to say anything at all?

BB: What I’m going to do is I’m going to work as hard as I can to get our team ready to play Buffalo.  That comes with a couple of days of preparation here on Monday and Tuesday.  When the players come in on Wednesday, it will be putting it all together out there on the field and try to make sure that we can competitively be at our best on Sunday.  That’s what I’m going to put my time and energy into and that’s what I expect the other coaches and players to do as well.

Q: Do you plan on complying with the commissioner’s request?

BB: Of course.

Q: Are there more videos?

BB: I think that right now we need to spend our time watching a lot of video on Buffalo and we’ll do that.  We’ll get their game in from Pittsburgh.  We saw the opener against Denver.  I think they do a lot of things well.  We have a lot to get ready for and we’ll spend a lot of time watching them and we need to, including our games last year.

Q: Tedy took it as a personal what some other teams from the past were challenging the team’s past accomplishments.  Do you feel for your players in that regard?

BB: I think whatever Tedy said he’s can stand on and he’s perfectly capable of speaking for himself.  I have respect for our team and our players and the work they do.  I respect each one of our opponents.  We have a challenge every week no matter who we play or where we play them.  It’s always tough in this league.  I feel that way about all of the teams we’ve played.  I feel that way about all of the teams that are on our schedule that we’re going to play in the future, starting with Buffalo this week.  I don’t think that’s ever going to change.  Every team is different.  Every challenge is different.  We just do our best to meet them.

Q: What did it mean to you when Mr. Kraft presented you with the game ball?

BB: I appreciate it.  It was a nice gesture.  The most important thing is for us right now to put all of that behind us, as good of a win as San Diego was, it’s time to move on to Buffalo.  As good of a win as the Jets was, a division game down there, it was time to move on.  So right now, we’re moving on.

Q: Do you think that the controversy last week gave the players some kind of incentive and got them more juiced up and maybe play a little bit harder?

BB: I think San Diego is a real good football team.  I think we all know that.  We know they’re a tough team.  They do a lot of things well.  We had a lot to get ready for, so that’s what we worked on.  I think you’d have to ask the players.  If you have a question to them, you should direct it to them.

Q: Given how well San Diego played and you also mentioned how well your players prepared last week, were you surprised at putting up 38 points against them?

BB: There were some things that went our way in the game last night and that was good.  We got off to a good start.  We had a good first drive, had a couple of turnovers, was able to take advantage of one of those for some points, played well on defense in the first half, especially on third down and got off the field.  If we played them again, I don’t know that the score would be the same.  I doubt that it would.  It was good that it happened the way that it did.  I think it was in our favor to be able to play that team from ahead.  They lost some opportunities to run the ball at the end of the game because of the score.  That hurt their pass protection and gave us an opportunity to be a little bit more balanced offensively and not play them from behind like we did last year.  We were a little more in control of the game.  I think that’s the way this particular game went.  Next time we play them, whenever that is, or another time we’ve played them in the past, the game goes differently.  Sometimes that changes the course a little bit.  Each game is its own entity.

Q: What did you notice that San Diego did differently on either side of the ball from what they did in January?

BB: As we talked about last week, Norv [Turner’s] system is a little bit different than what Cam [Cameron’s] system was.  So some of the plays are different, although there is a lot of carryover and continuity, I think that Norv has some of his own unique things and they present some problems.  They hit us down the field on several passes.  Defensively what Ted [Cottrell] did was a little bit different than what Wade [Phillips] did.  Some of the pressure packages that they used in kicking the front over and stuff like that, was more than what we had seen in last year’s game. 

Q: Did they use [Shawne] Merriman any differently than you expected?

BB: He plays the positions that he normally plays.  He’s an end in their dime package.  He’s an outside linebacker in their 3-4 package and they have a variety of things they do with him from those packages.  They hit a couple of wrinkles on us.  They hit us on that loop stunt on the play action pass where they sacked us there in the second quarter.  Look, they have good players.  They have good coaches.  They have some good plays.  They did some things that gave us some problems.  There’s no doubt about it.  We gave them a few problems.  That’s the NFL.  [Antonio] Gates gave us some problems.  Merriman gave us problems.  [Randy] Moss gave them some problems. It’s the NFL.  There’s definitely problems out there, don’t get me wrong.

Q: Getting back to the tapes for a second.  Is there any concern on your part?

BB: I think we’re at the same point on that.  Any questions on the game, on us…

Q: Bill, going back to Randy for a second.  His second touchdown came out of a one wide receiver set.  Is that something that you can do more because of him, having a guy like Randy out there?

BB: I don’t know.  You’d have to talk to another team that defends that kind of formation.  I think that our wideouts have different skill sets.  Wes [Welker] is a productive player for us.  Donté [Stallworth].  Randy.  [Jabar Gaffney].  Kelley [Washington].  They’re all productive players.  They all have different skill sets, so how you defend one versus defending another, that’s the decision that another team has to make.  I think that what we tried to do last night, what we tried to do in the first game of the year, is to use all of our skill players.  Sometimes we have multiple receivers out there, sometimes we have multiple tight ends.  Sometimes we have a couple of backs in the backfield.  Sometimes there’s one back.  Sometimes there’s no backs and we’ve tried to keep the defense off balance by using a variety of personnel, a variety of formations and plays that compliment those players and those formations that fit into the situations that come up.  I think you’re going to see a little bit of some of those.  You’re also going to see some other things.  Some matchups, we feel like we have a favorable one.  Sometimes they’re in a defense that we don’t feel like we have that much of an advantage.  Again, that’s the NFL.  They have good players and good coaches over there and they do a good job against us, you just have to try to find somewhere where you can chip out a few yards.

Q: Was that max protection on that play?

BB: No, it was seven-man protection.  It just looked like Drayton [Florence] thought it was one thing and it was something else, or maybe there was supposed to be help over the top.  We’ll never know.  They may know, but I don’t think we know.

Q: How good was Bam Childress on the scout team as LaDainian [Tomlinson]?

BB: I think one of the things that we had last week was an exceptional look from the players who were on the scout team.  Bam did a real good job.  We had guys that were Gates and [Marlon] McCree and guys like that.  We had Merriman and Phillips.  We had a lot of different players who…and the Chargers have a lot of great players, we had a lot of guys who had to simulate or imitate them as you’d be.  I thought we got a real good look out of a lot of those guys and that’s something that I mentioned to the team earlier in the week and I’ll mention it to them when they come back on Wednesday about how important that was, how much that helped us prepare for the game and then how important it will be this week going forward into Buffalo.  It was a good team effort all the way around in terms of the preparation, each side of the ball getting the other side ready and also going out there and practicing it and playing the game.  It was a good week.

Q: You mentioned last night that it was a team defensive effort to contain Tomlinson.  Did you try to force him out wide? 

BB: No, I wouldn’t say we were really trying to force him anywhere.  You have to defend the outside plays.  You have to defend the off-tackle plays and you have to defend the inside plays and then you have to defend the cutback plays and the misdirection ones.  One of the things San Diego did last night was they ran some misdirection plays with [Lorenzo] Neal where they would start him out on one side of the formation and either run away from him or cross him over to the other side of the formation to be the lead blocker in addition to their normal put him in and then lead with him.  Lorenzo is a key point on the running game.  He’s very often at the point of attack, but that’s the type of thing that Norv does, is he gives you different looks but kind of runs the same plays to make it harder to key in on or harder to anticipate where they’re going to go.  Again, defensively, you don’t want everybody in one spot.  Like even if you knew the play was going in a four hole, you put two guys in the four hole, well Tomlinson is going to read it out and go into the six hole or the five hole.  That’s not really the answer.  The answer is to play good team defense across the board, everybody taking care of their gap responsibility, controlling their area and making sure he doesn’t get outside and pushing him to where our help is.  That’s what team run defense is – and tackling.  Defense is nothing if you can’t tackle the guy with the ball.  That’s what defensive football is, is getting the guy with the ball on the ground.  We had a number of situations where there was some space and we had to make open field tackle or had to make tackles that weren’t really clean shots and the guys did a pretty good job of wrapping them up and getting them down and it’s not easy.

Q: Do you recall a player as large as Adalius Thomas out-sprinting a pair of wide receivers and running 65 yards like he did last night?

BB: The last play that really comes to mind on that, it’s not quite the same image that you’re talking about thought, no.  I thought it was an impressive run.  I thought he showed a lot of speed there and didn’t look like he was losing a lot of ground.  It reminded me of the play against Detroit when I was with the Giants when Lawrence Taylor intercepted a pass on the goal line.  It was a goal line pass and he went down the sideline.  Now they were chasing him for a while, but they didn’t chase him all the way because everyone was on the goal line, it was kind of a packed-in formation, but Lawrence kept looking over his shoulder and he saw the shadows of himself and he thought it was another player chasing him.  So even though he was out in front of the whole team by probably 40 or 50 yards on the second half of the run, he was running like there was a guy that was about to dive and trip him up by the ankles.  He was a big guy that was pulling away from a lot of people on that run too.  That play was a long touchdown return by a linebacker.  You don’t see a lot of those, but it was nice to see it last night.

 

 

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Belichick Statement on NFL Ruling

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

STATEMENT FROM PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK

 

“I accept full responsibility for the actions that led to tonight’s ruling. Once again, I apologize to the Kraft family and every person directly or indirectly associated with the New England Patriots for the embarrassment, distraction and penalty my mistake caused.  I also apologize to Patriots fans and would like to thank them for their support during the past few days and throughout my career.

“As the Commissioner acknowledged, our use of sideline video had no impact on the outcome of last week’s game. We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress.

“Part of my job as head coach is to ensure that our football operations are conducted in compliance of the league rules and all accepted interpretations of them. My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect.

“With tonight’s resolution, I will not be offering any further comments on this matter. We are moving on with our preparations for Sunday’s game.”

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Belichick questioned on Spygate

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK
PRESS CONFERENCE

September 12, 2007

BB: First of all, I think everybody has a copy of the statement that I made a little bit earlier this morning.  Really, until we get a ruling from the league, I don’t think there is anything more that I have to add to it.  We’ll just move on to San Diego.  Watching the tape on the game from Chicago and going through the preseason, and back to our game last year, I think there’s a lot of similarities from the team that we faced in January, but there are also a lot of differences and a lot of things we have to get ready for.  A lot of their key personnel is back but with a different coaching staff, a little different system, some different emphasis points, but they’re a very explosive team in all three phases of the game.  They’re a very physical team.  So that will be a big challenge for us this week.  I think we have some familiarity with at least playing against a 3-4 defense, but they play it very well.  They led the league on first down last year.  They’re very hard to run against.  They had a lot of turnovers against the Bears and I’m sure that [Ron] Rivera is part of that coming over from Chicago with that type of mentality.  We know they can put a lot of points on the board.  They’re good in the red area and they’re explosive on special teams.  A big week ahead of us and they’re a good football team.

Q: Do you worry at all if this incident is going to be a distraction?

 

BB:  We have a big week here with the Chargers.  We know that.  That’s what we’re working on.

Q: When you spoke with Roger [Goodell], did he give you an indication of when the decision would be made?

BB:  I don’t have anything to add.  I’m sorry; I’ve said all I can say about it for right now.  When something comes in, I’ll have another comment on it.  Until then, I don’t have anything to add.

Q:  Are you making any contingencies in the event that you are suspended and unable to coach the game on Sunday?

BB:  I don’t have anything else to add.  I’ve said all that I can say for right now.

Q:  Are you embarrassed by it?

BB:  Are there any questions about the Chargers?  Do you want to talk about the football game?  That statement pretty much covers it for me.

Q:  Do you think you put the players in a tough situation?

BB:  I think we’re getting ready for San Diego, that’s what we do on Wednesday.  That’s what we’re doing today.  Okay, any questions about the game?

Q: How are you going to shut down LaDainian Tomlinson?

BB: It’s not just him.  It’s [Michael] Turner.  It’s [Darren] Sproles.  They have a great running game, a good offensive line, he’s a very explosive guy, not just in the running game, but also as we saw, and the Bears saw, and everybody else has seen, screen passes, passes out of the backfield, so he’s tough.  He’s a tough guy to stop.  You just hope you can slow him down.  He’s tough.

Q: Were his comments a concern as well?

BB: I think the Chargers are a concern.  Their football team is a concern.  That’s what we’re concerned about.  Whatever happens out there Sunday night out there on the field, that’s when everybody will make their statement.  We’ll try to put our best game out there.  I’m sure they’ll put their best game out there and we’ll see what happens.

Q: Every week obviously making the proper fits in the running game is important, but is it heightened this week with a guy like LaDainian Tomlinson?

BB: Of course.  Absolutely, because he has great vision, he can see them all and of course when he cracks the line of scrimmage, he has the ability to go all the way.  Some weeks it could be a six or an eight yard run.  This week it could be a touchdown, it could be 80 yards.

Q: Is that something that you’re going to really stress to the guys?

BB: Absolutely.  It has to be team defense.  It’s all 11 players.  Everybody has to do their job and he has the ability to find that weakness, find that crack in the armor, if he gets into the secondary, if we don’t play proper leverage on there or tackle him well in the secondary, he’ll take it all the way to the house.  It’s all 11 guys. They’re going to be really challenged this week in the running game.

Q: Do you have to guard against over pursuit because they are so aware of LT and they want to get to the spot where they think they’re supposed to be?  Do you just tell guys, ‘Listen, just play your fit.  Don’t try to do anything outside of the ordinary to bring this guy down?’

BB: Well, believe it or not, that’s what we usually try to do.  We try to get everybody to take care of their job.  That’s right.  If you try to get to somewhere where you think he’s going to be, then that’s when he cuts back into your gap.  Again, I don’t want to underestimate Turner or Sproles or anybody else they have carrying the ball.  If you look at the end of the Chicago game when they were ahead, they just gave it to Turner and Turner put the game away.  They have a great running game no matter who the back is.  Certainly Tomlinson is the marquee guy, I’m not saying that, but they’re all hard to stop.

Q: How are the Norv Turner Chargers any different from what they were last year?

BB: Are you talking about offensively or defensively?

Q: Across the board.

BB: Well, defensively, it’s a new coordinator obviously with Wade [Phillips] in Dallas and Ted Cottrell and Ron coming over from the Bears.  They’ve had a lot of turnovers in preseason.  They turned the ball over against the Bears.  Again, a lot of the fundamentals of the 3-4 are the same, but I think the way they run some of their zone blitzes and a couple of their coverages and all of that, there are some subtle changes from what Wade and Ted do.  Norv’s offense is Norv’s offense.  We’ve seen that at Dallas, at Washington, at Oakland.  He has a very comprehensive style of play.  He’s well balanced.  They run the ball.  They throw it.  They throw it deep.  They challenge you in the deep part of the field. All of those elements are there that he has.  It’s a little bit different from what Marty [Schottenheimer] did, although there’s certainly some carryover, but it’s different.  The kicking game, it’s the same coach, Steve Crosby is there and a lot of the same cast of characters, [Kassim] Osgood and Sproles and so forth.  There’s some subtle changes there too.  Overall, this is a good football team.  They beat the Bears, who we know are a good football team, were last year.  I’m sure they will be ready for us.

Q: The Chargers were pretty agitated after last year’s loss.  You must imagine that they would come in very much on an emotional high.  How do you prepare your team for a team that would potentially come in here going 110 miles per hour?

BB: I think that’s what you expect every week.  I think every week you go into a game you expect the opponent to be at their best, playing their best football and charged up to beat you.  That’s the way we try to be every week.  I think that’s what you’re ready for every week.  I’m sure both teams will go out there and try to play their best and put their best game out there, but that’s what we expect on a weekly basis. That’s what we want to try to do.

Q: At times like this, do you think your team’s ability to focus and eliminate distraction would serve it well?

BB: I think every week we have our own challenges.  Each game is a challenge and each team is a challenge.  Certainly San Diego is one of the best teams in the league.  They’re good in every phase of the game.  I think we’re challenged to prepare for them and to do as much as we can between now and Sunday to be ready to go and then Sunday to play our best game.

Q: Is there more emphasis on the game San Diego just played than other games because there is a new coaching staff?

BB: That’s a tough question.  It really is.  It’s something we’ve talked a lot about as a staff – how much will they do the things that they were successful doing against us last year this year, or how much do they not really care about last year because they have their own program.  I think we have to be respectful of all of that, certainly what they did in preseason and in the Bears game is very important because that’s this coaching staff, it’s their system, it’s their plays.  Were there some things that worked well against us in the last game, yes, so I think we better keep our eye on those things too because it will be very easy for them to say, ‘Hey, let’s go back and do this, that looked pretty good.’  To me it’s not quite like opening day, but it’s the second week.  There are still a lot of balls in the air - how much have they held back that they didn’t use against the Bears that will show up in the second week, how much of what we saw in preseason was really them, how much of that was just their basic stuff but their going to modify it, how much will they go back to last year.  As you go through the first month of the season, I think there’s progressively less of that each week, but I think that element is still there until you get to about that first quarter of the season.  Then you have four regular season games to go with and I think that’s pretty solid.

Q: The stuff that San Diego was successful at against you last year, is that stuff that Norv Turner usually used?

BB: Well some of it is the same.  I think some of the things that San Diego hurt us with last year that they’re doing this year, there’s no doubt we’re going to see those and a lot of other things that they’ve had success with in preseason and in the Chicago game.  I think there are other plays and formations and some matchups that the Chargers hurt us with in the playoff game that I could see them looking at them and say, ‘Hey that looked pretty good, let’s do that this year,’ or they might look at it and say, ‘Yes, that was good, that’s what they do, but that’s not really what we do.  We have some other ideas.’  I’d say a little bit of both.

Q: When you signed Adalius Thomas, I know a huge part of it was his versatility, but was it also in particular his ability to cover guys in the conference like [Antonio] Gates and [Dallas] Clark because you’ve had some trouble with those guys in the past?  Was that big for you?

BB: I think it was the total package with Adalius.  It wasn’t for one game or one player.  His work ethic, his toughness, his versatility defensively and in the kicking game, he has some pass rush skill, he has some coverage skill, he can play the run.  He’s a good pursuit player.  He has a lot of strengths and I think you take the total package of the player and that’s what you get.

Q: With his size-speed combination and you have all of these tight ends in the league now, you have [Tony] Gonzalez and Gates and Clark that have a size-speed combination that’s really tough to matchup, maybe he’s the type of player who can do it and maybe is as capable of doing it as anyone in the league.

BB: Well, I think Adalius is competitive against a lot of players.  I think one of the problems with Gates, particularly in Norv’s offense this year, is finding him.  You don’t know where he’s going to be.  A lot of times he’s split out of the backfield, he can line up as the ‘x’, he lines up as the ‘z’, sometimes he lines up as a second tight end, sometimes he’s on the line, sometimes he’s in the backfield, sometimes he shifts and motions.  Maybe by the middle of the game, it will be a different story, but I think at this point it would be hard to sit there and say, ‘Okay, this is where Gates is going to be.  This is how we’re going to handle him.’  We don’t really know where he’s going to be because they move him around quite a bit and they have different personnel groups and he moves around within each group too.  It’s not just like, ‘Okay, they have two tight ends on the field.  Here’s where he’s going to be.’  They have two tight ends in there and he could in any one of three spots.  They have three wide receivers in there and you have to find him.  You kind of have to find him no matter who they have in there.  They make you work for it.

Q: Is there a lot of carryover because the two of them worked together between Norv’s offense and Cam [Cameron’s] offense?

BB: I think there are some similarities.  I think there is some carryover, but I think there are some differences too.  How much they’re the same and how much they’re different I really think you would need to see four or five regular season games to know the answer to that question for sure.  I think they know, but I don’t think we know.

Q: How is what a linebacker dropping into coverage to cover a tight end different and the same from a cornerback covering a wide receiver?

BB: The leverage is completely different.  When you’re defending a receiver on the outside part of the field, you’re a lot further from the ball, you’re leverage is a lot different than when you’re defending a receiver in the middle of the field where basically he can go to his side of the field or he can go to the other side of the field and obviously he can run deep so you’re defending much more of the field.  If the guy is split all the way out to the outside, he’s not going to get all the way to the other side of the field very often.  I think you have a different type of route tree and combination of patterns that can come up in there, but sometimes you have more help.  A lot of pass defense is you taking away the pattern that you can take away and then use your help to help you on the other patterns as opposed to thinking you can cover everything.  There are a few guys in the league, the Champ Baileys or whoever that can maybe do that, but for the most part if you’re in a competitive situation, you have a good defender and they have a good receiver, you can take away certain things, but then you’re not going to be able to take away those complimentary routes.  You just can’t get on the other side of them or if you play underneath the route you can’t get on top of it.  If you play on top of it, you can’t get underneath it.  Whatever leverage you take, you give something up.  At the same time, if there are other players that you can kind of push that route to and use his help, then that’s a little better way to defend it, even though they’re not maybe necessarily doubling the guy, but at least you have somebody in the proximity to help you.  It’s about playing leverage.  It’s about playing the proper position and every once in a while you’re going to have guys covered and a good quarterback and a good receiver are going to make the play anyway.

Q: Are you going to look at the Bears and what they did against Tomlinson?  They did a pretty good job.

BB: The Bears did a real good job.  The problem with the Bears is their scheme and their system is a lot different than ours is.  I’m sure they see that when they watch us play.  It’s just different.  I think there are some things that maybe we can take from that, but there are a lot of things…they’re in a four-man front, they stunt a lot, we’re in a three-man front and we don’t stunt nearly as much as they do.  Their linebackers play different.  It’s just a different system.  I’m not saying good or bad, it’s just different.  In a lot of cases, it’s hard to take what they do and then apply it to our players.  It’s like when we were watching that film this morning with the players.  You’re kind of watching the Chargers, and you’re not really watching the Bears so much because we don’t lineup where they line up, we don’t stunt like they’re stunting on that particular play and so you’re kind of just watching more of the Chargers.

Q: What was your interpretation of the NFL rule to Commissioner Goodell?

BB: When we get a ruling, we’ll make a comment on it.  This is all I have so far.  That’s all.

 

 

 

 

Monday, September 10, 2007

Belichick Interview 9/10/07

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK
PRESS CONFERENCE

September 10, 2007

BB: It was good to come out of New York yesterday with a win.  I thought that was a good win for our football team.  I’m proud of the players.  I thought in all three phases of the game we played competitively.  There are some things to work with and build off of.  We have a long way to go.  I think there are a lot of things that came up in the game that we need to correct and talk about and work on.  Some of the things that we had problems with I’m sure we’ll get from other opponents that we face down the road.  That will kind of be our focus today is to go over the tape and make sure that we get all of the things corrected that we need to and just move along.  It’s one game.  For our first game, there were some positive things and we’ll certainly try to build on those and try to keep moving in the right direction.  We have a lot of work ahead of us.  We have a long way to go.  We know we’re going up against another really good team this weekend.  We know it will be tough against San Diego.

Q: Did you feel like some of your success yesterday was based on it being the first game and you guys doing things that maybe the Jets hadn’t seen?

BB: I don’t know.  I think there was probably plenty of that on both sides.  We were scrambling on a lot of adjustments there, even in the first quarter on both sides of the ball and on special teams for that matter.  They used several different alignments in the kicking game.  Like I said, I think that’s part of opening day.  We were doing plenty of it, maybe they were doing it too, I don’t know.  You would have to ask them.  They were a number of things that we saw yesterday that were new that were a little bit different, but that doesn’t surprise me that that showed up.  We just had to talk everybody and make sure that we got on the same page and try to adjust to them.

Q: Do you send the message to your players not to read too much into how dominant they were yesterday?

BB: We have plenty of things we have to work on.  I think that’s obvious.  As we go through the tape, it’ll be more obvious.  There were some things right on the play.  There were other things that weren’t right and sometimes those things got exposed, sometimes they didn’t, but in the end, we need to tighten them all up, so that’s what we’ll work on.

Q: On the punt, can you explain what Willie Andrews did wrong to warrant the flag?

BB: He went out of bounds.

Q: He was the first person to touch it?

BB: He was.  They changed that rule now where instead of it being a five-yard illegal touching penalty, if it’s inside then it goes back out to the 20.  No, I thought the play was ruled correctly.  That’s the way they explained it during the game and then after watching it on the film…

Q: Did they explain it to you, because I didn’t hear them explain it on television?

BB: Yes, Jeff [Triplette] came over and explained the call, I think it might have been in the next series or whatever, but that’s what I thought happened.  No, I thought after looking at it, it was the correct ruling on the play.

Q: Where were the breakdowns in communication in terms of getting the different packages on the field yesterday?

BB: There were a couple of different situations, but ultimately it’s getting the right people on the field for the call and sometimes if you’re trying to matchup with them, understanding who they have out there, which sometimes isn’t totally clear as to what grouping they have out there, and then depending on whether you’re trying to substitute a group or whether you’re just trying to substitute a player for a player and not a whole group, then sometimes there could be a little miscommunication on that.  There’s a number of things involved there and that’s something that we need to tighten up on.

Q: What went into the decision to play Ryan O’Callaghan at tight end and what kind of athletic skills does he have?

BB: Well, he’s a tackle and plays on the end of the line anyway, so that puts him closer to that position.  We thought it was the best way to set up that part of our attack for the Jets.

Q: That was Jets specific?

BB: Well, that’s who we played this week.

Q: Is that something going forward you’ll do?

BB: We’ll do that on a week-to-week basis, maybe.  Maybe not.

Q: Was it more of a case of having him just be an extra blocker in certain situations or was there possibly he might catch a ball?  I know he has to check in as eligible. 

BB: Well, he’s an eligible receiver, so yes, he’d be eligible in the passing game.  I’m not saying he’s a guy we’d want to feature in the passing game, but he’d be an eligible receiver and somebody that they’d potentially have to cover.

Q: Right, like when Mike Vrabel comes on the field, most of the time the ball is going to come to him or he’s out there to be a decoy that the ball might come to him.

BB: I think if you talked to him, he wouldn’t agree with that.  [Laughter]  Yes, he’s an eligible receiver, just like anybody else is.  Certainly he’s more of a blocker than he is a receiver.  Could we have plays where we could throw him the ball too?  I suppose we could.

Q: Does he have hands?

BB: He has two, yes.

Q: [laughter]

BB: They’re not game tested yet.  We haven’t game tested them.

Q: Going forward, will [Chris] Hanson be holding for Stephen [Gostkowski]?

BB: We’ll maybe talk about that.

Q: Had he done a lot of that in the past?

BB: Yes, Chris has held before.

Q: What separates [Randy] Moss from a lot of the receivers in the league as far as what he does that makes him so good?

BB: I think Randy’s skills have been pretty well identified.  He’s a smart player.  He runs well.  He catches the ball well.  He makes good route adjustments.  He has a number of things going for him.

Q: How did Adalius Thomas acclimate himself to the defense?

BB: Well, I’d say the same thing about Adalius that I would say probably about all of the players on defense.  There were some plays that were good, some plays that could’ve better.  Again, the Jets gave us some different looks on some things.  Some things we reacted to and identified probably the way we should have.  Other things we either didn’t identify correctly or maybe the call defensively we could’ve been in something a little bit better than what we were in, so it’s a combination of things.  I think overall, he did some good things.  Some things were okay.  There’s other things that we need to work on, but I would say that for every player on both sides of the ball for that matter.

Q: So he didn’t look out of place out there?

BB: I certainly wouldn’t say that, no.

Q: When you saw Ellis [Hobbs] catch the ball eight yards deep in the end zone, were you thinking knee?

BB: Well, I’d say it doesn’t really matter what I’m thinking.  The players are out there playing and they make the decisions when they’re out there on the field.  I think Ellis made the decision that he thought was the best one at that time.  It worked out okay, so that’s good.  I think he was trying to make a play.  What I always encourage the players to do is try to make a good play and it turned out good.

Q: You were a special teams coach, was there a rule that you used as far as a kick return – ‘If you’re this deep, don’t take it out?’

BB: Well, I think you have general guidelines on everything.  I don’t think there’s necessarily a hard and fast rule.

Q: Is there a case where a guy could make a decision that turned out well like that, it could be pointed out to him that it turned out to be a bad decision even though the circumstances worked out okay?

BB: Again, I think every play is a little bit different, every kick is a little bit different.  I think if you ever coached special teams in this league, you’d know that just because a ball comes down in a certain place that all kicks aren’t the same.  Hang time is involved, which I’d say is a big factor.  You tell me whether you’d rather handle a ball that is three yards deep in the end zone with a 3.7 hang time or handle a ball that comes down on the goal line with 4.2 hang time.  It’s not the same.  It’s not the same.  There’s a yardage difference, there’s also a hang time difference in kicks and each one is different and the coverage is different, the return is different.  There’s a guideline for plays like handling the ball inside the 10 yard line.  You can say don’t catch the ball inside the 10 yard line, but if there’s a five second hang time and you have four guys standing behind you on the goal line and the ball comes down on the six, I don’t know how smart it is to let it hit and bounce down to the two.  You might be better off catching it on the six.  I think that every situation is a little bit different and players make decisions because they think they’re the best decisions they can make.  I’m not saying they always do, I’m not saying all of the coaching decisions are the best ones, but you do what you think is in the best interest of your team and for that play at that particular time based on circumstances in that instance.  That’s how I would answer every question.  That kickoff.  Ones that are downed.  The ones that are returned out.  Just like Kevin [Faulk] fair-catching that first punt on, what was it, the nine?  I don’t know.  I thought it was a good decision.  Some people might disagree with that.  Those are the decisions that players have to make in that situation and they’re all different.  I think if you’ve been around the kicking game in this league long enough, you know it’s hard to have a hard and fast rule and be right every time.  You could have a rule, but I don’t think you’re going to be right every time.

Q: Would you say it’s different from punts to kickoff’s then, because I know sometimes on punts they say you can’t put your heels on the 10 and don’t back up?

BB: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.  Yeah, you can put your heels on the 10 and you can have a hard and fast rule.  I’m just telling you that if the ball comes down on the nine yard line with five seconds hang time and there’s four guys standing on the goal line waiting to down it, I think it would be dumb to get away from the ball, let it hit on the nine and roll down to the one.  I don’t think that would be a good play.  You can have a hard and fast rule, whatever you want.  You can tell your returner on kickoffs, ‘If the ball is here, run it out.  If it’s there, keep it in.’  I’m just telling you that all kickoffs aren’t the same.  If you want to have a hard and fast rule, you can have it.  I don’t think it’s necessarily the best one to have, but I’m sure that there are some people that have it clear cut like that and that’s fine if that’s the way they want to do it.

Q: You said that you thought that Kevin’s decision was good.  So you also think that Ellis’ decision was good?

BB: I said that every decision that the player makes is based on the situation and the circumstances on that particular play.  That’s what I said.  I said I think there are general guidelines that they follow, but I think that each play is different and every situation is different. I think that the player should do what he thinks is best on that play.  I think that’s what Ellis did.

Q: So you thought it was a good decision?

BB: I said I thought that Ellis makes that decision, just like Kevin makes it.  If it’s a gray area, a situation that could kind of go either way, then you count on the player to make the decision that he feels like is the best one.  I wasn’t standing back there catching it.

Q:  On the Heath Evans play that was challenged, was that your challenge or was that up in the booth?

BB: No, it was my challenge.

Q: What did you feel was the benefit of challenging that play at that time?

BB: Well, I wasn’t planning on using the timeouts for the rest of the game.  It looked to me and it looked like to the coaches upstairs, that he was in.  I think, looking at it on the film this morning, it’s really close.  I think he still might have been in.  But, I wasn’t going to use the three timeouts.  I thought that there was really nothing to lose.  The clock had run down to the two-minute warning anyway, so instead of having three timeouts, we had two or two and one, whatever it was.  I can’t remember how many I had at that point.  But I didn’t feel like we were going to need them.  When the coaches saw the play, and after I saw the play, I thought there was a chance he might be in, so I took a shot at it.

Q: Is there a benefit to that, like everybody going through the process, the coaches upstairs relaying to you and everybody knowing what they have to do on a challenge?

BB: Well, it may be, but that wasn’t the reason for it.  The reason for it is you’re just coaching the game competitively and trying to make good decisions, whatever they are and whenever they are.  Like I said, I just didn’t think there was anything to lose in that situation. It was a safe call to make.  We didn’t get it.  We lost a timeout.  Given the score and the situation in the game, I don’t think those timeouts were that important, but it wasn’t done for practice for another game.  It was done because we thought it was a challengeable situation.

Q: What did Junior [Seau] say when you told him you wanted him to lineup at fullback?

BB: Really, he told me he wanted to lineup at fullback long before I told him that.  He wanted to lineup at fullback.  Junior and I talked about that last year, but then in the spring, we were talking about goal line.  I forget how it came up, but I think he actually brought it up, that he had played fullback and if we needed a fullback on the goal line he was available.  We’ve used those guys before.  We’ve used Bryan Cox or Russ [Hochstein] as an offensive lineman, Richard [Seymour].  We’ve used other guys back there.  I think that Junior is kind of a natural fit because that’s kind of what the linebacker has to do on defense, is you kind of have to see the hole on the goal line and get in it.  That’s sort of what the fullback has to do – he’s trying to see the hole and get in it and probably most likely meet the linebacker there.

Q: Is that a way that coaches kind of replace the traditional fullback at this point?

BB: I think it just depends on how much you’re going to use that player in a game.  You think about, well how many plays on the goal line are you going to have?  If you can find a player that can do that, rather than carry a 45th player to the game, just for that one specific situation, then that allows you to bring somebody else.  It’s the same thing with the tight end.  We only carried two tight ends in this game with Ben [Watson] and Kyle [Brady].  If we were ever going to be in a three tight end set, whether it’s on the goal line or out on the field or whatever, then rather than carry a third tight end, we, in this game, used Mike and Ryan in those roles. That enabled somebody else to play somewhere else for us.  Heath can play fullback in our regular stuff and he could also play it on the goal line, which he did, he did some in short yardage too, or we can use him as the back and use somebody else if he’s not the fullback.  No matter what you do, you have to have another guy anyway because if you lost a player, you’d still have to find a way to do it.  No matter who your fullback is, you have to have somebody else.  No matter who your three tight ends are, you’re going to have to have a fourth guy there somewhere so that you would be able to move whichever three are left to be able to run the plays that you want to run there, unless you just want to junk it, but that’s not really a good way to go into the game where you have a formation and you have no backup for it.  Then if one guy has an equipment problem, then you’re out of the whole thing.  I don’t think that’s usually where you want to be.  Somebody has to back it up anyway.

 

 

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Pats post Jets notes and Quotes

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

GAME NOTES—PATRIOTS at NEW YORK JETS
Week 1 – September 9, 2007

LONGEST KICKOFF RETURN IN NFL HISTORY

Ellis Hobbs returned the opening kickoff of the second half 108 yards for a touchdown, recording the longest kickoff return in NFL history and tying for the longest play in NFL history. The kickoff return for a touchdown was the second of Hobbs’ career, with his other coming on Dec. 17, 2006 on a 93-yard return against the Houston Texans. Hobbs’ 108-yard kickoff return surpasses the previous NFL record of 106 yards, achieved three times, last by Roy Green of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1979. Hobbs’ play ties two 108-yard missed field goal returns for touchdowns as the longest play in NFL history. Nathan Vasher and Devin Hester of the Chicago Bears returned field goals 108 yards for touchdowns in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

MOSS’S TOTALS

In his Patriots debut, Randy Moss caught nine passes for 183 yards, achieving the third-highest single-game receiving yardage total in Patriots history. Moss’ 183 yards were the most by a Patriots receiver since Terry Glenn’s franchise-record 214 yards at Cleveland on Oct. 3, 1999. His 183 yards also were the third highest yardage total of Moss’s 139-game regular season career, trailing only his 204-yard performance at Chicago on Nov. 14, 1999 and his 190-yard total at Green Bay on Oct. 5, 1998. Both of those performances came while playing for the Minnesota Vikings.

RANDY MOSS’ TOP RECEIVING PERFORMANCES

Yds       Rec       Date             Opponent

204       12         11/14/99         at Chicago

190       5         10/05/98         at Green Bay

183       9         09/09/07     at N.Y. Jets

172       8         09/28/03           San Francisco

171       10         11/19/01           N.Y. Giants

168       7         10/01/00         at Detroit

163       3         11/26/98         at Dallas

158       7         12/09/01           Tennessee

TOP SINGLE-GAME RECEIVING PERFORMANCES/PATRIOTS HISTORY

Player               Yds     Rec     Date           Opponent

Terry Glenn           214     13       10/03/99     at Cleveland

Terry Glenn           193     9       12/06/98     at Pittsburgh

Randy Moss         183   9       09/09/07   at N.Y. Jets

Stanley Morgan       182     5       11/08/81         Miami

Troy Brown           176     16       09/22/02         Kansas City

Stanley Morgan       170     5       11/26/78         Baltimore Colts

MOSS SCORES

Randy Moss scored his first touchdown in a Patriots uniform on a 51-yard reception from Tom Brady in the third quarter, giving the Patriots a 28-7 lead. The touchdown catch was the 102nd of Moss’ career and was his 20th career touchdown reception of 50 yards or longer.

150 FOR BRADY

Tom Brady’s 51-yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss in the third quarter was the 150th touchdown toss of his regular season career. He joins Steve Grogan (182) and Drew Bledsoe (166) as the only quarterbacks in Patriots history to total 150 touchdowns.

BIG DAY FOR BRADY

Tom Brady completed 22-of-28 passes (78.6 percent) for 297 yards and three touchdowns, good for a 146.6 passer rating. His passer rating of 146.6 was the third highest of his career, and his completion percentage of 78.6 was the fourth highest of his career.

BRADY’S TOP PASSER RATINGS
Rating   Date           Opp.      W/L     Score

148.3     10/21/01         at IND       W       38-17

147.6     11/03/02         at BUF       W         38-7

146.6     09/09/07     at NYJ     W     38-14

143.9     11/25/01         vs. NO     W       34-17

140.4     10/09/05         at ATL       W       31-28

130.5*    01/23/05         at PIT       W       41-27

*-AFC Championship Game

BRADY’S TOP COMPLETION PERCENTAGES
Pct     Cmp-Att   Opp.      Date         W/L     Score

84.6       22-26     at BUF     11/03/02       W         38-7

81.5       22-27     at ATL     10/09/05       W       31-28

80.0       16-20     at IND     10/21/01       W       38-17

78.6     22-28     at NYJ   09/09/07   W     38-14

76.3       29-38     at BUF     12/11/05       W         35-7

75.6       31-41     at PIT     09/25/05       W       23-20

74.3       26-35     at IND     11/30/03       W       38-34

SEASON STARTS WITH A TOUCHDOWN DRIVE

The Patriots scored a touchdown on their first offensive possession of the season for the first time since 1997. The last time New England reached the end zone on its season-opening possession was on Aug. 31, 1997 against San Diego at Foxboro Stadium. In that game, the Patriots received the opening kickoff and marched 73 yards on seven plays, ending in a 4-yard touchdown pass from Drew Bledsoe to Ben Coates. The last time the Patriots opened the season with a touchdown drive in a game played on the road was in 1989, when New England opened the season with a 93-yard touchdown drive on 16 plays against the Jets ad Giants Stadium, ending in a 20-yard touchdown pass from Tony Eason to Irving Fryar.

STARTING STRONG

The Patriots’ first offensive possession of the season was a 91-yard, 12-play touchdown drive that ended in an 11-yard touchdown pass from Tom Brady to Wes Welker, giving the Patriots a 7-0 lead. New England gained seven first downs on the drive and did not face a third down until the final play of the drive, on which Brady found Welker for the score.

BRADY-TO-WELKER

Wes Welker scored his first touchdown in a Patriots uniform on an 11-yard scoring grab from Tom Brady in the first quarter. The scoring catch was Welker’s 100th career reception and the second touchdown catch of his career. He also reached the end zone on a kick return in 2004 with the Miami Dolphins. Welker was acquired by the Patriots from the Dolphins on Match 5, 2007 in exchange for a second-round pick and a seventh-round selection in the 2007 draft.

PATRIOTS DEBUTS

Ten players made their Patriots debuts against the Jets: TE Kyle Brady, P Chris Hanson, DB Brandon Meriweather, S Mel Mitchell, RB Sammy Morris, WR Randy Moss, WR Donte’ Stallworth, LB Adalius Thomas, WR Kelley Washington and WR Wes Welker

VRABEL WITH MULTIPLE SACKS

Linebacker Mike Vrabel totaled 2.5 sacks, marking the second highest single-game sack total of his career and his highest since totaling a career-high 3.0 sacks against Cleveland on Oct. 26, 2003.

BIG BENJAMIN

Benjamin Watson gave the Patriots a 14-7 lead with a 5-yard touchdown reception from Tom Brady with 1:07 remaining in the first half. The scoring grab was the eighth of Watson’s career. Last season, Watson finished second on the team with 49 receptions, the highest reception total by a Patriots tight end since Ben Coates caught 67 passes in 1998.

QUICK HITS

Ø Laurence Maroney recorded an 11-yard run on the Patriots’ first offensive play of the season.

Ø Tom Brady made his 95th consecutive start at quarterback for the Patriots.

Ø Mike Vrabel and Ty Warren combined to sack Chad Pennington for a 9-yard loss on third down in the first quarter, forcing a New York punt on the next play.

Ø Vrabel and Jarvis Green combined to sack Pennington for a 7-yard loss in the second quarter.

RECORD UPDATE

Ø Tom Brady improved to 7-0 as a starter on the road against the Jets.

Ø Brady improved to 22-1 as a starter on artificial turf in the regular season.

Ø Brady improved to 18-2 in the regular season when throwing for three or more touchdowns.

Ø The Patriots improved their all-time record to 24-24 on opening day.

MILESTONE FOR BELICHICK

With the Patriots’ win, Bill Belichick recorded his 125th career regular season victory as a head coach, becoming one of just four active NFL head coaches with 125 or more career wins. He joins Joe Gibbs (162 wins entering today), Mike Holmgren (159 wins entering today) and Mike Shanahan (139 wins entering today).

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Pats elect team captains

Courtesy of the New England Patriots

PATRIOTS ELECT SEVEN TEAM CAPTAINS FOR 2007 SEASON

      FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - The New England Patriots have elected seven players as team captains for the 2007 season. Quarterback Tom Brady and running back Kevin Faulk will serve as offensive captains; linebacker Tedy Bruschi, linebacker Junior Seau, linebacker Mike Vrabel and defensive lineman Ty Warren will serve as defensive captains; and linebacker Larry Izzo will serve as special teams captain. The Patriots captains were elected by their teammates this week.

      Brady will serve as an offensive captain for the sixth straight season, having first been elected in 2002. The two-time Super Bowl MVP enters the 2007 season with a record of 82-26 (.759) as a starting quarterback in regular season and playoff games, the best record of any NFL quarterback in the Super Bowl era (since 1966) with at least 40 starts.

      Faulk, in his ninth professional season after being drafted by the Patriots in 1999, will serve as a captain for the first time in his career. He holds the Patriots’ franchise record for receptions by a running back (276) and is the Patriots’ all-time leading return specialist, having gained 4,641 career yards on kick returns and punt returns.

      Bruschi has been a captain every season since first serving in the role in 2002. He led the team with 124 tackles in 2006, and his total of 461 stops since 2003 mark the highest total on the team in the last four seasons. Bruschi has totaled 28.5 sacks in his 11 seasons in New England and the Patriots are 23-2 in the 25 regular season games in which Bruschi has recorded at least one sack.

      Vrabel will serve as a captain for the third straight year after first earning the honor in 2005. His versatility has allowed him to play inside and outside linebacker on defense and on offense he has recorded eight career receptions - all for touchdowns.

      Seau, an 18-year veteran in his second year with New England, will be a Patriots captain for the first time. During his 13 seasons in San Diego, the 12-time Pro Bowler served as a team captain in each season during which the Chargers named permanent captains. He was awarded the Chargers’ Most Inspirational Player Award in 1997 and 2002, and was honored with the Miami Dolphins’ Leadership Award in 2003 and 2004.

      Warren, in his fifth season with the Patriots since being drafted in 2003, will be a defensive captain for the first time. He finished second on the team with a career-high 117 tackles in 2006 and has played in all but one game in his first four NFL seasons. Warren was the AFC Defensive Player of the Month in December 2006, totaling four sacks as part of a 43-tackle performance in the final month of the regular season.

      Izzo will serve as the Patriots’ special teams captain for the seventh straight season. He has been elected as a captain each year since joining the Patriots in 2001. The three-time Pro Bowler has led the Patriots in special teams tackles or tied for the team lead five times in his six seasons in New England and has totaled 144 special teams tackles in his Patriots career. He has missed just one game in the last eight seasons, playing in 127 of 128 total games over that span.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

PC basketball Schedule complete

Courtesy of Providence College

PROVIDENCE COLLEGE ANNOUNCES 2008 MEN’S BASKETBALL BIG EAST SCHEDULE
Friars’ Home League Schedule Includes Louisville, Connecticut, Georgetown And Villanova

      PROVIDENCE, R.I.—The Providence College Friars announced their 2008 men’s basketball team’s BIG EAST matchups on Wednesday, September 5. 
      After having each team play 16 league games for the last eight seasons, the BIG EAST will increase its conference schedule to 18 games per team.  The 18-game format will allow each team to play every opponent once and three teams twice.  PC’s home league schedule will feature games versus Rutgers on January 9, South Florida on January 12, Seton Hall on January 24, West Virginia on February 2, DePaul on February 5, Louisville on February 16, Georgetown on February 18, Connecticut on March 6 and Villanova on March 8.
      The Friars will open their BIG EAST schedule with road games at Marquette on January 3 and at DePaul on January 5.  PC’s other BIG EAST road games are at Connecticut on January 17, at Syracuse on January 27, at Notre Dame on January 31, at St. John’s on February 9, at Pittsburgh on February 12, at West Virginia on February 23, and at Cincinnati on March 2.
      Tickets for all home games, as well as other road contests can be purchased Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the PC Ticket Office in Alumni Hall or by calling (401) 865-GO PC.

NOVEMBER

2     Fri.        Carleton University (exhibition game) at the Ryan Center     7:30 p.m.

15     Thur.  vs.    Temple (Coliseo de Puerto Rico) $    ESPNU   2:30 p.m.

16     Fri.  vs.    Arkansas/College of Charleston $    ESPNU   5:30/8:00 p.m.

18     Sun.  vs.    Houston, VCU, Marist, or Miami $      ESPNU/ESPN2   TBA

24     Sat.        HARVARD       7:30 p.m.

27     Tue.        MAINE       7:30 p.m.   

  DECEMBER

1     Sat.  vs.    Boston College (TD Banknorth Garden) #  ESPN Classic   6:00 p.m.

4     Tue.  at     Rhode Island         7:00 p.m.

6     Thur.  vs.    South Carolina (Wachovia Center) ^    ESPN 2 7:00 p.m.

9     Sun.        BROWN       7:30 p.m.

19     Wed.        SACRED HEART         7:30 p.m.

22     Sat.        FLORIDA STATE       7:30 p.m.

31     Mon.        SAINT PETER’S       2:00 p.m.

JANUARY

3     Thur.  at     Marquette *        TBA

5     Sat.  at     DePaul *          TBA

9     Wed.        RUTGERS *          TBA

12     Sat.        SOUTH FLORIDA *      TBA

17     Thur.  at     Connecticut * (Hartford Civic Center)        TBA

24     Thur.        SETON HALL *  ESPN or ESPN2   7:00 p.m.

27     Sun.  at     Syracuse *          TBA

31     Thur.  at     Notre Dame *  ESPN or ESPN2   7:00 p.m.

FEBRUARY

2     Sat.        WEST VIRGINIA *      TBA

5     Tue.        DEPAUL *          TBA

9     Sat.  at     St. John’s * (Carnesecca Arena)      TBA

12     Tue.  at     Pittsburgh *        TBA

16     Sat.        LOUISVILLE *  ESPN   2:00 p.m.

18     Mon.        GEORGETOWN *  ESPN2   4:00 p.m.

23     Sat.  at     West Virginia *      TBA

MARCH  

2     Sun.  at     Cincinnati *        TBA

6     Thur.        CONNECTICUT *  ESPN or ESPN2   7:00 p.m.

8     Sat.        VILLANOVA *        TBA

12     Wed.  at     BIG EAST Championship   ESPN

13     Thur.  at     BIG EAST Championship   ESPN

14     Fri.  at     BIG EAST Championship   ESPN

15     Sat.  at     BIG EAST Championship   ESPN

* - BIG EAST Game
$ - O’Reilly ESPNU Puerto Rico Tip Off at San Juan, Puerto Rico
# - Hall of Fame Challenge at Boston, Mass.
^ - BIG EAST/SEC Invitational at Philadelphia, Pa.
HOME GAMES IN BOLD CAPS

Big East Basketball TV schedule

Courtesy of the Big East Conference

The Friars will have every game televised this coming season. Only the Natuionally televised games are noted on this schedule.

Any Big East game not televised nationally will be on one of the other ESPN platforms. That is ESPNU, ESPN Regional, ESPN 360 or ESPN Classic.

Friar games televised by ESPN regional are picked up locally by Cox sports television.

Here’s the release from the Big East

FC

 

BIG EAST MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

INCLUDES EVERY LEAGUE GAME ON TELEVISION

 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The 2007-08 BIG EAST men’s basketball schedule includes more telecasts on national networks than ever before.  As part of the BIG EAST’s new agreements with its television partners, all 144 regular-season league games will be televised.

        The league also announced its schedule of non-conference games that will be on national networks.

        Forty-three conference contests will be carried by ESPN or ESPN2.  CBS will televise five BIG EAST league tilts.  ESPN remains the home of The BIG EAST Championship Presented by Aeropostale and will televise all 11 games from Madison Square Garden in New York.  In total, 59 of the 155 games (or 38 percent) played between BIG EAST teams will be on national television.

        All remaining league games will be aired by ESPNU, ESPN Regional, ESPN Classic or ESPN360.

        “We’ve been looking forward to the day when we could announce our television schedule for the upcoming season,” said BIG EAST Commissioner Michael Tranghese.  “To be able to say that every conference game is on television, in addition to so many more non-league games, is great for our schools, our coaches and our fans.”

        For 2007-08, the BIG EAST will feature an 18-game conference schedule after playing a 16-game slate for the last eight seasons.  The 18-game format will have teams play each opponent once and three opponents twice.  So, not only will every league game be televised, there are more conference games being played than ever before in the history of the BIG EAST.

The BIG EAST has always been considered a leader in television.  Twelve of the 16 BIG EAST institutions are located in the top 34 media markets in the country. 

The television schedule is so extensive and so regular that the league can almost claim it has four “Nights of the Week.”  ESPN and the BIG EAST always have been partners in the Big Monday format and that will continue.  The BIG EAST also will be featured on Thursday nights with 11 games over 10 weeks. 

On Wednesdays, BIG EAST games will be seen on eight of 10 weeks on ESPN or ESPN2 beginning on Jan. 2.  On Saturdays, 10 BIG EAST games will be televised on ESPN with six of the 10 tipping off at noon, Eastern time.

Some of the highlights of the 2007-08 schedule include:

·                  For the first time, the league schedule begins with an ESPN telecast on New Year’s Day when Cincinnati plays at Louisville.

·                  The BIG EAST continues to lead off ESPN’s Big Monday with nine different teams making appearances.  The first Monday contest is Georgetown at Pittsburgh on Jan. 14.  A “bonus” Monday game has been added on Feb. 18, Presidents Day, when Georgetown travels to Providence for an afternoon contest.  That evening, Syracuse plays at Louisville.

·                  For the 13th straight season, ESPN will televise the entire BIG EAST Championship Presented by Aeropostale at Madison Square Garden.  The dates are March 12-15. 

·                  CBS will televise nine games involving BIG EAST squads, including five league games.  The CBS slate starts with Louisville vs. Purdue at the Wooden Tradition in Indianapolis on Dec. 15.  The first league contest on CBS will be Pittsburgh at Connecticut on Feb. 2.  The BIG EAST/CBS regular-season schedule concludes with Louisville at Georgetown on March 8.  CBS and the BIG EAST have been formal television partners since 1985, the longest relationship of any collegiate conference and national broadcast television network.

·                  The BIG EAST will be featured six times during ESPN’s Rivalry Week (Feb. 4-10).  The games are: Louisville at Marquette (Feb. 4), Connecticut at Syracuse (Feb. 6), West Virginia at Pittsburgh (Feb. 7), and three games on Feb. 9: Marquette at Notre Dame, Georgia Tech at Connecticut and Georgetown at Louisville.

·                  The extensive ESPN/ESPN2 Thursday schedule tips off with a pair of games on Jan. 3.  West Virginia plays at Notre Dame followed by Villanova at DePaul.  Eleven different teams will appear on the Thursday schedule.

·                  Weekends will be loaded with national telecasts.  All nine of the CBS games are on Saturday or Sunday.  ESPN or ESPN2 will carry 23 BIG EAST games on weekends.

·                  ESPN and ESPN2 will televise the first BIG EAST/SEC Invitational on Dec. 5-6.  On Dec. 5, Georgetown plays Alabama and West Virginia meets Auburn in Birmingham, Ala.  On Dec. 6, Providence battles South Carolina and Villanova meets LSU at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pa.

·                  The BIG EAST will be featured in a special Friday night game on the NBA All-Star Game weekend.  Marquette hosts Pittsburgh on Feb. 18.

·                  ESPN Regional Television again will produce a weekend Game of the Week package that will be syndicated to BIG EAST markets and beyond.  The BIG EAST Game of the Week package reaches approximately one third of the nation’s homes.

       

 

2007-08 BIG EAST CONFERENCE COMPOSITE MEN’S BASKETBALL CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Tuesday, Jan. 1

        Cincinnati at Louisville                     2:30 p.m.        ESPN

Wednesday, Jan. 2

        Rutgers at USF                             7 p.m.        ESPN2

        St. John’s at Syracuse

Thursday, Jan. 3

        Providence at Marquette

        West Virginia at Notre Dame                 7 p.m.        ESPN2

        Villanova at DePaul                         9 p.m.        ESPN2

        Connecticut at Seton Hall

Saturday, Jan. 5

        USF at Syracuse

        Marquette at West Virginia               3:30 p.m.        ESPN2

        Connecticut at Notre Dame                 9 p.m.        ESPN

        Providence at DePaul

        Georgetown at Rutgers

        Cincinnati at St. John’s

Sunday, Jan. 6

        Pittsburgh at Villanova

Tuesday, Jan. 8

        St. John’s at Connecticut

        Georgetown at DePaul

        Seton Hall at Marquette

Wednesday, Jan. 9

        Pittsburgh at USF                           7 p.m.        ESPN2

        Syracuse at Cincinnati

        Rutgers at Providence

Thursday, Jan. 10

        West Virginia at Louisville                   7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

Saturday, Jan. 12

        Notre Dame at Marquette

        Seton Hall at Pittsburgh

        Connecticut at Georgetown                 2 p.m.        ESPN

        Villanova at Cincinnati

        USF at Providence

        DePaul at St. John’s

Sunday, Jan. 13

        Louisville at Rutgers

        Syracuse at West Virginia

Monday, Jan. 14

        Georgetown at Pittsburgh                   7 p.m.        ESPN

Tuesday, Jan. 15

        Cincinnati at Notre Dame

Wednesday, Jan. 16

        Rutgers at Syracuse

        DePaul at Villanova

Thursday, Jan. 17

        Marquette at Louisville                       7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

        Providence at Connecticut

        USF at Seton Hall

        St. John’s at West Virginia

Saturday, Jan. 19

        Notre Dame at Georgetown

        Villanova at Syracuse                         Noon         ESPN

        Rutgers at DePaul

        Pittsburgh at Cincinnati

        Louisville at Seton Hall

Sunday, Jan. 20

        Marquette at Connecticut

        West Virginia at USF

Monday, Jan. 21

        Syracuse at Georgetown                   7 p.m.        ESPN

Wednesday, Jan. 23

        Connecticut at Cincinnati

        Villanova at Rutgers

        Pittsburgh at St. John’s

        Louisville at USF

Thursday, Jan. 24

        Seton Hall at Providence                     7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

Saturday, Jan. 26

        Notre Dame at Villanova

        Georgetown at West Virginia               7 p.m.        ESPN

        St. John’s at Louisville

        DePaul at Marquette

        Rutgers at Pittsburgh

Sunday, Jan. 27

        Cincinnati at Seton Hall

        Providence at Syracuse

Monday, Jan. 28

        Louisville at Connecticut

Tuesday, Jan. 29

        USF at Marquette

Wednesday, Jan. 30

        Villanova at Pittsburgh                       7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

        Syracuse at DePaul

        Seton Hall at Rutgers

        Georgetown at St. John’s

        Cincinnati at West Virginia

Thursday, Jan. 31

        Providence at Notre Dame                   7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

Saturday, Feb. 2

        Seton Hall at Georgetown

        Syracuse at Villanova                         Noon         ESPN

        Pittsburgh at Connecticut                   1 p.m.        CBS

        Marquette at Cincinnati

        Rutgers at Louisville

        DePaul at Notre Dame

        West Virginia at Providence

        St. John’s at USF

Monday, Feb. 4

        Louisville at Marquette                       7 p.m.        ESPN

Tuesday, Feb. 5

        USF at Georgetown

        DePaul at Providence

Wednesday, Feb. 6

        Connecticut at Syracuse                     7 p.m.        ESPN

        St. John’s at Rutgers

        Notre Dame at Seton Hall

Thursday, Feb. 7

        West Virginia at Pittsburgh                   7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

Saturday, Feb. 9

        Marquette at Notre Dame                   Noon         ESPN

        Providence at St. John’s

        USF at DePaul

        Georgetown at Louisville                     9 p.m.        ESPN

        Cincinnati at Rutgers

        Seton Hall at Villanova

Monday, Feb. 11

        Villanova at Georgetown                     7 p.m.        ESPN

Tuesday, Feb. 12

        Louisville at DePaul

        Providence at Pittsburgh

        Marquette at Seton Hall

Wednesday, Feb. 13

        Notre Dame at Connecticut                 7 p.m.        ESPN2

        St. John’s at Cincinnati

        Syracuse at USF

Thursday, Feb. 14

        Rutgers at West Virginia                     7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

Friday, Feb. 15

        Pittsburgh at Marquette                     9 p.m.        ESPN

Saturday, Feb. 16

        Connecticut at USF

        Georgetown at Syracuse                     Noon         ESPN

        Louisville at Providence                     2 p.m.        ESPN

        Villanova at St. John’s

Sunday, Feb. 17

        Notre Dame at Rutgers

        Seton Hall at West Virginia

Monday, Feb. 18

        Georgetown at Providence                 4 p.m.        ESPN2

        Syracuse at Louisville                       7 p.m.        ESPN

Tuesday, Feb. 19

        DePaul at Connecticut

Wednesday, Feb. 20

        Marquette at St. John’s                     7 p.m.        ESPN2

        USF at Cincinnati

        West Virginia at Villanova

Thursday, Feb. 21

        Pittsburgh at Notre Dame                   7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

Saturday, Feb. 23

        Cincinnati at Georgetown

        Connecticut at Villanova                     Noon         ESPN

        Rutgers at Marquette

        DePaul at Seton Hall

        Providence at West Virginia

Sunday, Feb. 24

        Louisville at Pittsburgh

        Syracuse at Notre Dame                     2 p.m.        CBS

Monday, Feb. 25

        Marquette at Villanova                       7 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 26

        Connecticut at Rutgers

        Seton Hall at USF

Wednesday, Feb. 27

        West Virginia at DePaul                     9 p.m.        ESPN2

        St. John’s at Georgetown

        Cincinnati at Pittsburgh

Thursday, Feb. 28

        Notre Dame at Louisville                     7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

Saturday, March 1

        West Virginia at Connecticut

        Pittsburgh at Syracuse                       Noon         ESPN

        Georgetown at Marquette                   2 p.m.        CBS

        USF at Rutgers

        Seton Hall at St. John’s

Sunday, March 2

        Notre Dame at DePaul

        Villanova at Louisville                       4 p.m.        CBS

        Providence at Cincinnati

Monday, March 3

        Pittsburgh at West Virginia                   7 p.m.        ESPN

Wednesday, March 5

        Syracuse at Seton Hall                       7 p.m.        ESPN2

        St. John’s at Notre Dame

        USF at Villanova

Thursday, March 6

        Connecticut at Providence                   7 p.m.        ESPN/ESPN2

        DePaul at Cincinnati

Saturday, March 8

        Louisville at Georgetown                     Noon         CBS

        West Virginia at St. John’s

        Marquette at Syracuse                     2 p.m.        ESPN

        Cincinnati at Connecticut

        Villanova at Providence

        Notre Dame at USF

Sunday, March 9

        DePaul at Pittsburgh

        Rutgers at Seton Hall

Note: All conference games not listed with CBS, ESPN or ESPN2 above will be televised either by ESPNU, ESPN Classic, ESPN Regional, or ESPN 360. Games listed as ‘ESPN/ESPN2’ will be selected to either ESPN or ESPN2, but the start time will not change.

 

2007-08 BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN’S BASKETBALL NONCONFERENCE GAMES ON CBS, ESPN AND ESPN2

Monday, Nov. 19

        Marquette vs. Chaminade                 2:30 p.m.        ESPN2           Maui Invitational

Thursday, Nov. 22

        Villanova vs. Central Florida                   7 p.m.        ESPN2           Old Spice Classic

Saturday, Dec. 1

        Connecticut vs. Gonzaga                 3:30 p.m.        ESPN           Hall of Fame Classic

Tuesday, Dec. 4

        Notre Dame vs. Kansas State               7 p.m.        ESPN           Jimmy V Classic

Wednesday, Dec. 5

        Georgetown vs. Alabama                   7 p.m.        ESPN           BIG EAST/SEC Invitational

        Syracuse at Virginia                     7:30 p.m.        ESPN2

        West Virginia vs. Auburn                 9:30 p.m.        ESPN2           BIG EAST/SEC Invitational

Thursday, Dec. 6

        Providence vs. South Carolina               7 p.m.        ESPN2           BIG EAST/SEC Invitational

        Villanova vs. Louisiana State               9:30 p.m.        ESPN           BIG EAST/SEC Invitational

Saturday, Dec. 8

        Dayton at Louisville                         2 p.m.        ESPN2

        DePaul at Kansas                           2 p.m.        ESPN

        Marquette at Wisconsin                     6 p.m.        ESPN2

Wednesday, Dec. 12

        Cincinnati at Xavier                         7 p.m.        ESPN2

Saturday, Dec. 15

        Oklahoma State at Pittsburgh                 Noon         ESPN

        Louisville vs. Purdue                     3:30 p.m.        CBS             Wooden Tradition

Sunday, Dec. 16

        North Carolina at Rutgers                   8 p.m.        ESPN

Wednesday, Dec. 19

        Memphis at Cincinnati                       7 p.m.        ESPN2

Thursday, Dec. 20

        Pittsburgh vs.  Duke                       7 p.m.        ESPN           Aeropostale All-America Classic

Saturday, Dec. 22

        Georgetown at Memphis                     Noon         ESPN

        Oklahoma at West Virginia             4 p.m/6 p.m.        ESPN2

        Pittsburgh at Dayton                       8 p.m.        ESPN2

Saturday, Jan. 5

        Louisville at Kentucky                       4 p.m.        CBS

Saturday, Jan. 26

        Connecticut at Indiana                     1 p.m.        CBS

Saturday, Feb. 9

        Georgia Tech at Connecticut                 4 p.m.        ESPN

Saturday, Feb. 23

        St. John’s at Duke                         4 p.m.        CBS