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September 3, 2007

Tom Brady transcript

Hey all --

Tom Brady chatted with the media for the first time P-JET (that's pre-John Edward Thomas, his baby boy), and here is the transcript of that, as supplied by the Patriots' media relations department:

Q: Tell us about the birth of your child and what it’s like to be a father.

TB: I’d like to just say that there are a lot of those questions and I’m sure you want answers, but I’m really here to talk about football and that’s why I’m here. That’s why I come in here every week. I hope you guys respect that. I have a lot of great thoughts on it, but I’d really prefer to share those with my family and my loved ones. It’s a wonderful thing as I’m sure all the parents out there know already. I’m ready to talk football.

Q: What’s it like preparing for the first week of the season?

TB: It’s exciting. It’s exciting to finally be back on the way for real and after eight long months of the offseason and training camp to finally have our focus directed back on a regular season opponent. It’s exciting for all of us. We had a very good day of work yesterday. It’s an extremely difficult team to prepare for and at the same time we know this team better than we know any other team in the league. This is the fourth time we’ve played them in 20 games so we’ve seen every game for the last 20. They’re very well coached and I think it’s another year in that system for those players. It’s a difficult scheme and I think all the players really understand what their coach is trying to get across. It’s on the road and it’s opening day. It’s going to be a great environment for football so our players should be prepared. Like I said, I think we’re all excited about it.

Q: Do you feel the absence of Randy Moss from practice will affect his performance during the regular season?

TB: He’s going to be a big part of this offense so the more we have him out there, the better it’s going to be for this team and he’s been working extremely hard to get back. We’ll see what he can do. I think all those guys in there need to be prepared and be prepared to go as long as they can. We’d love to have everybody out there, it’s just we have to see the circumstances.

Q: There are a lot of similarities between your defense and the Jets’ defense. Does playing against your defense help you to prepare for the Jets’ defense?

TB: Well, I don’t know if that’s really the case. I think maybe in style they’re kind of the same, but what they do and what our defense does is very, very different. This is a pressure defense when you watch our game from last year. In the last 22 plays of the game, they pressured us on every play. Almost for every play of the first quarter-and-a-half, they pressured us. It’s a pressure defense. They get after the quarterback. They try to confuse you scheme-wise and they blitz everybody. It’s a 3-4 defense so that’s a similarity, but in terms of the way they call the game it’s a little bit different than what we saw in training camp. But at the same time, we’ve played these guys a bunch to know what they do and what they want to do.

Q: Is it tough to prepare for a defense like the Jets who do so many different things?

TB: Definitely. Any time that you face a team that can do as many different things are they do schematically, you have to be prepared for everything because really you don’t know what they’re going to do and you try to prepare for everything. I’m glad it’s the first week of the year and we’ve had a few days of practice to get out there and try to practice everything but you really don’t know how it’s going to play out until you’re out there. You want to have enough in each phase of the game that if something’s working you stick with it and if something’s not working you can get away from it. That’s a big part of it so there’s probably extra preparation that goes into a week like this, more so than other defenses that we face.

Q: Does the season opener mean something more to you?

TB: Oh yeah, the season opener. Once you get the schedule, you’re looking at that one, especially the Jets.

Q: Are you disappointed by the suspension of Rodney Harrison?

TB: I think everybody wishes that he were playing, but that’s not the case. He’s dealing with it and the team’s dealing with it and we’ve got to find a way to move past it. Any time you miss a good player like that it strains other parts of the team, but hopefully we have enough good players to make up for it.

Q: Are there unique challenges in trying to bring in so many talented new parts to the offense and having them fit into the system?

TB: I think that’s a challenge and really any time you bring together a team there are new things that happen, new things that you don’t account for. I was trying to put together this offense with the plays we want to run. You’d love to have the players out there that are going to be running them because you can get a pretty accurate assessment of what you’re trying to do. It really wasn’t the case and that’s because it’s just not the way it played out in camp with injuries and so forth so a lot of that is going to have to be on the run. We’re going to have to try to catch up as fast as we can. We’d love to have a lot of those kinks worked out in the first four weeks of training camp instead of the first four weeks of the season. I think one thing we’ve proved over the years is it’s a long time down the road, but as the season progresses, we do really identify what we do well and we stick to those things. There’s going to be a little bit of process to do that. As long as the guys are committed to coming out here and working hard and buying into what we’re trying to do, the process goes pretty well.

Q: Do you think Randy Moss needs time out there to learn the offense or has he been able to pick things up during films?

TB: It affects people differently. It depends really on the individual basis how aware you are as a player. A lot of guys can learn things on the chalkboard, some guys can’t. Some guys have to go out there and do things and see things in order for it to really stick. Randy, as a veteran receiver, he seems to pick up things pretty well. I’m sure there’s going to be mistakes that he won’t make twice. But as a veteran player and someone who’s been as successful as he has, it’s usually for a reason.

Q: There are a couple of tight ends and receivers that have missed substantial parts of training camp. Does being away from the practice field in training camp put guys behind schedule?

TB: I think the same sort of thing. These guys are going to have to take the game plan, to take it to the practice field, to have great awareness in the meeting rooms. You really try to work out the kinks as best you can before you get out there. But you’re right. It puts pressure on those guys because now there’s really no room for error. There’s not much time. I mean, we’re pressed now. We know when we’re playing and we’ve got a limited amount of time before that day comes. We’d like to make as many mistakes as we can in practice so the mistakes don’t come up during the game.

Q: Is there added pressure on an offense, knowing that you’re without players like Rodney Harrison and Richard Seymour?

TB: I think in a lot of ways as an offense it is. Coach always says, “We put you out there to score. We don’t put you out there to go three plays and punt the ball.” It’s your job to put points on the board so it’s always what we’re trying to do as an offense, to control the pace of the game, to control the tempo and then be productive when we get down into the red zone. You’re right, when you’re missing key players on defense you’d love to be, every time you’re getting the ball, we’d love to get out there and score. That’s what we’re going to try to do, which is no different from any other week, but it probably comes back to get you if you don’t when you lose Hall-of-Fame-type players on the other side of the ball.

Q: Do you think Donté Stallworth is ready to go?

TB: Donté is another guy who missed significant time and he’s worked very, very hard to get back and be healthy and understand what we’re trying to do and how we do things. I think he’s doing a good job of it. He’s another guy that we’re going to rely on to get the ball to this year and if he could just continue to make improvements with everybody else, it will be a pretty good offense.

Q: I heard you talked to Virginia Tech quarterback Sean Glennon after Saturday’s game.

TB: How’d you know about that? I think everybody looked at that situation at Virginia Tech. I was watching a lot of that game and the excitement of the fans and the school to be back on the field and represent Virginia Tech in a really positive. I thought [Glennon] did a great job leading the team and I just conveyed my thoughts in watching the game. It looks like he’s a great young quarterback.

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Comments

Posted by: Anon at September 4, 2007 3:39 PM