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December 9, 2007

Bill Belichick postgame transcript

BB: That was a good win today for us. [I'm] really happy for the players, proud of them, proud of the way they played. I thought we played a smart football game and did a pretty good job of taking care of the ball. [We] had a couple of stops in the red area on defense, which was good, and again, our offensive line really did a nice job of handling all of the pressure. They gave us a lot of pressure, a lot more than we've seen, especially last week. I thought our line did a good job. We threw the ball well, made some big plays and played better on defense. It was a good win and Pittsburgh is a good team.

Q: You mentioned last week that you were tired. Did you like the energy and the bounce-back…

BB: Now, hold it. What I said was on Monday night we were tired - midnight. And we were tired.

Q: Did you like the energy tonight?

BB: I thought our team had good energy all week. I thought we had good practice all week and I thought we played well today.

Q: Could you comment on the role of the passing game and big plays to help your team take control of the game in the third quarter?

BB: I thought that we threw it and caught it a lot better than we have the last couple of weeks. Josh [McDaniels] and the coaches and the players, they did a great job with the passing game. Our execution was pretty good and, of course, the protection was pretty good, too, for the most part. It was the number one-ranked defense and all of that. I thought we went out there and moved the ball and scored some points. Most of it was throwing and we felt like that was a good match-up for us, and I would say that it was.

Q: On the second red zone stop they came out with nothing. That was a particularly effective play. It ended the game, really.

BB: You're talking about where they ran the sweep to [Hines] Ward? Yeah, that's kind of one of the things they do down there. You know, they run a lot of trick plays with Ward at quarterback or hands-offs or halfback passes, stuff like that… kind of their two-point package, so it was a heads-up play. I thought Rodney [Harrison] made a great play on the fade pattern on the play before. He went out and played the ball perfectly. It was an outstanding play. It was back to the ball and then making the tackle on that fourth down sweep was heads-up, too. We were in goal line defense. It was good to make a stop down there. We know that hasn't been one of our strong points this year, but it was good that we came up big today, what was it, two or three times, whatever it was. So I thought it was good.

Q: On the lateral to Randy Moss, was he supposed to drop that on purpose?

BB: Yeah, that really sold it, didn't it? No, he wasn't supposed to drop it on purpose, but he did a good job with it. He did a good job of… I think that sold the play a little bit and everybody kind of was hustling over there and he made a nice throw back to Tom and you can't get him much more open than that. It was well-executed. It's a play that we've practiced a few times and it came in handy today. It was a big momentum play for us in the third quarter. It was a nice job by [Jabar] Gaffney, really selling it, and Moss by dropping the ball, I think that really gave it a little more draw. I wish I could take credit for that, but that wasn't part of the play.

Q: What was it about that situation that made you call that play? I would imagine there'd have to be a lot of factors that go in to deciding to use that kind of play.

BB: We had talked about it earlier. I think where the situation in the game [was] and the ball being on that hash mark… We actually were going to run it earlier and we ended up having to take a time out. We just couldn't quite get it worked out right. I think it just kind of worked out right that time. But the most important thing is execution. I don't think it was so much when it was called as how well it was executed.

Q: What was your feeling at halftime, and did you make a decision at that point that, 'We threw the ball a lot in the first half. We're going to even throw it more in the second half'?

BB: We tried to mix it up a little bit. We ran some no-huddle and then we also ran some of our regular stuff and tried to mix some runs in there and some play-action passes, so it was just trying to keep moving it around on them and keep them off-balance. We had some three-wide receiver sets, some four-wide receiver sets and ran some empty sets where nobody's in the backfield. We tried to give them some different looks. Again, I think the players did a great job executing the passing game. The receivers, the quarterback, the backs, the line, the tight ends - We did a good job with our spacing and our blitz pick-up and getting open in man-coverage when they tried to play man against us.

Q: What did you say to the team, if anything, about Anthony Smith's guarantee?

BB: You know, I think Rodney put it the best, so I'll just leave it at that. But we've played against a lot better safeties than him, I'll tell you.

Q: Did running that play have anything to do with Pittsburgh, or was it something you'd been looking to get in? Was it because of their aggressiveness?

BB: Well, again, the safety play at that position was pretty inviting.

Q: Randy's production today - the touchdowns, and every catch he made for first down - Is that good throws by Tom?

BB: [He's been] doing it all year. Good quarterback, good receiver. He's leading the league in receiving, right?

Q: If you reach a point where there's nothing left to play for - the bye, home field advantage - does it change the way you prepare?

BB: [We] treat every game… We'll treat the next game just like we treat the other ones. Right now all we're thinking about is one game and that's the Jets. We'll get ready for them just like we [got] ready for Pittsburgh this week and Baltimore the week before and Philadelphia the week before that. We'll do the same thing we've been doing for the last however many weeks it's been… 12, whatever it is: 13.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 9:57 PM | Permalink