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Transcript: Bill Belichick's Monday press conference

[There’s] not really too much different from what I said yesterday after the game. It was good to win. [It’s] good to be 5-0 in the division. Hopefully we can be 6-0 in the division. We’ll get a chance to do that this week and that’s something that we haven’t done around here. I thought yesterday that the elements had a little bit of an impact on the game. I thought one of the things we did well was not putting the ball on the ground. Ball-security was pretty good on both the kicks and passes and handoffs and that kind of thing, the actual possession of the ball, so that was good. We had - We turned the ball over a couple times when they weren’t quite able to hang on to it, so those were big plays in the game. [The] blocked punts kind of evened out, but as usual, the kicking game plays a big factor at this time of year and that’s something that we need to work hard on, continue to work hard on and I’m sure it will be a factor in other games as we wind down here. So now we’re moving on to Miami. [That was a] good win for them yesterday. They’ve been in a lot of close games this year. I don’t think their team is in any way a reflection of their record. They’ve been in a lot of tight games. We played Baltimore a couple of weeks ago [and] we know what type of team they have, so we have a lot of respect for the Dolphins - always have. They really, especially in the second half down there, hurt us a lot running the ball. They have some good runners, good skill players, Jason Taylor and their guys on defense, and we have a lot of respect for them in that phase of the game as well. So we’re shuffling past the Jets here and getting ready to move in to Miami.

What did you think of the way Richard Seymour played yesterday?
Richard had a couple big plays for us. I thought defensively, overall the entire team did a good job. [They] were good on third down, good in the red area. Richard and the defensive line were a part of that - Ty [Warren], Vince [Wilfork] - and I thought they all did a good job. We got some good production from our linebackers as well. I thought it was a good defensive effort. Any time you can hold a team to three points in this league, defensively, you have to feel good about that.

A couple of players were talking about being prepared for what they did offensively. Did you have the scout team work on the option quarterback and all that, and who in particular played the part of Brad Smith?
Troy [Brown] did. Troy was Brad this week, as a receiver and as quarterback and he had the different roles that Brad played in, so that was Troy. Yeah, we worked on that. We didn’t play the first one very well on the pitch. They kind of split us on that. We just didn’t play it very well, but I thought overall we did a pretty good job on that. We had some trouble tackling Smith. It looked like there were a number of times we had him kind of hemmed in, it didn’t look like he was going to gain very much and he came out of there with four or five yards. But yeah, that was something that we had worked on. Whenever you play the Jets, you have to be ready for that. They put him in the backfield a lot, use him at quarterback and we’ve seen those kinds of things before from them.

Considering the elements, how tough was that for Tom Brady? Were there specific things he couldn’t really do?
No, I don’t really think there were too many things we took out of the game plan -- a couple of plays with some ball-handling. It’s just we didn’t feel like that was the best situation to run them in yesterday, but for the most part, everything we had - probably 95 percent of what we had in the game plan, we were prepared to run. I mean, you never run all of it, but the elements were… You were there. You saw them. It wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t a sunny day in September, but it wasn’t… We’ve all been in worse. It was the same for the Jets. Everybody dealt with the same things, so that’s… Look, we’re in Boston. It’s the middle of December. I don’t think any of us are surprised if it’s not clear, sunny and warm out there.

You’ve secured home field advantage for the rest of the playoffs. How does that make you feel and how much of an advantage is that for you?
It’s good. It’s good to have that, but right now that’s not really anything we’re going to dwell on. We’re just going to get ready for Miami and get ready to play the Dolphins. That’s what we’re going to do this week.

I know you talked about it a little bit yesterday, but could you talk about Laurence Maroney and the job he did?
He got a lot of carries. We ran the ball yesterday quite a bit, partially because of what the Jets were doing. They were playing - Sometimes they only had a couple defensive linemen in the game. We felt like we had some match-ups there and I thought our offensive line did a good job of sorting out some of those formations where they were moving people around and stemming guys in and out of the front late and dropping safeties down and pulling them out and things like that. I thought our line did a good job on that and Laurence got his hands on the ball. I thought he ran hard, ran well in short yardage and goal line, had some good runs on the perimeter in early down situations - I think he did a good job, like he usually does. He’s done a good job for us all year. He’s a versatile guy that can run inside, run outside, has got the speed and ability to make big plays like we saw in the passing game a couple of weeks ago. He’s got the toughness and power to pick up a tough yard on short yardage and goal line. He did a good job for us on blitz pickup, as did Kevin [Faulk]. I thought both of them played well.

Tom Brady had a few carries, too, but it was hard to tell whether those were designed plays or if something went wrong and he had to tuck it and run.
I think there was one play where we just missed - We had an audible on the line of scrimmage and we weren’t quite all on the same page on that one. [On] another one, he pulled the ball when he saw a safety blitzing off the edge. [He] would have handed it to Maroney. I think that was a very smart decision. I don’t know what would have happened, but [when] you have an unblocked guy running right at the line of scrimmage and he gets there about the same time as the handoff, it could be big trouble. The downside on him keeping the ball verses trying to exchange it into a blitzing safety… I think it was a smart decision on Tom’s part.

Can you elaborate a little on Richard Seymour? He said the last couple of weeks he hasn’t been 100 percent, in terms of his knee. Is he where you would like to see him?
From where he started - he missed the first six games of the season, or seven, whatever it was - Seven, I guess it was. So for any player to start playing then, without any training camp - Unlike, say, Rodney [Harrison], who had 30-some practices in training camp - that’s a lot of ground to make up and I don’t think you make it up in one or two weeks. It’s a gradual process. Richard’s worked hard. You all know what kind of player Richard is, and he’s gotten progressively more reps as the season’s gone on, from his first few weeks back. I think that accumulation of practice time and timing and game reps and conditioning and different situations playing against different types of players, different types of offenses and those kinds of things, that’s what rounds every player into really playing shape, is being able to handle all of the different things that come at that position, whatever the position is, over an extended amount of playing time in games. Practice is good, but it’s not the same as games. I think all of those reps, practice and games cumulatively have helped him, and that’s probably really the way it should be.

With him being at Cleveland, I know it kind of changes your relationship, but is it nice to see Romeo Crennel doing so well?
Sure. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that was a big game for them against Buffalo. Both teams [are] right in the fight there. I’ve talked to Romeo several times. As I said last year, I think he’s done a good job there. The record doesn’t always reflect the progress of the team, and I think that was probably the case last year. I know the fans and media don’t always want to hear that, but I think when you look at it objectively and really try to analyze a team that you can see that. When we played them earlier this year, I thought that that was a good football team. I said that at the time and they are. And he’s done a good job there.

Kyle Brady went down and you obviously had to insert [Stephen] Spach, the new guy, in there and Wesley Britt. Were you pleased with the play at that position?
We were scrambling a little bit at that position. We brought in Steve during the week and of course Ben [Watson] was inactive during the game, and Kyle I think probably missed the better part of three quarters. I thought that Steve and Wes did a good job filling in, with the amount of repetitions and practice time that they had, which wasn’t extensive this week. But we didn’t have any major breakdowns. There weren’t any catastrophes. There were certainly things that could have been better, but there were things that were good, so if that’s the situation we get into, that’s why you try to build that versatility in your roster all the way back in training camp, with having different guys plays different positions. You never know when those situations are going to come up, whether it’s Troy at corner or defensive players at goal line and short yardage and so forth and so on. We were able to manage the game that way. It wasn’t ideal; It’s not really what we’re looking for, but it was a way to manage the game and we were able to come out of it with a win. If we have to do something like that again, hopefully next time it will be a little bit better.

A couple of times yesterday Randy Moss was in the backfield with his hand in the dirt. Was that to confuse the defense? He’s not a classic blocker.
He never stayed there. He motioned out. The Jets are a match-up defensive team and we had a couple of formations where the match-ups probably would be a little bit new for them or different from what they’d seen. [We] just tried to keep them off-balance a little bit.

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Today's Sports cover highlights Laurence Maroney's efforts to keep the Patriots on track for a perfect season when yesterday's wind-driven snow grounded quarterback Tom Brady in the team's 20-10 win over the visiting Jets.

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