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December 16, 2007

Transcript: Bill Belichick's postgame press conference

That was a good win for our football team. It was a game where all three phases of the game, there were some key plays in it. The kicking game turned out to be big, obviously, and we were able to make enough plays that we needed to make to win. It was certainly one of our goals at the beginning of the year, to win in our division, and next week we have a chance to go 6-0 in the division, and that’s a good way to get to that point and hopefully we’ll be able to play well enough to win next week. That was a good football game out there today. [I’m] proud of the way the guys played. [They] dealt with the elements [and] all the other things that go into a tight game like this. [They] made plays throughout the game – made some in the fourth quarter, made some in the second quarter and it’s good to win. It’s good to win and we’ll get on to Miami next week.

You’re 14-0. How significant is that, that you’re only the second team ever to do that?
We’re happy with our record, but right now it’s all one-week seasons. We’ll take a look at the Jets film, make the corrections from that [and] move on to Miami. That’s all we’re thinking about.

You have to be happy to have wrapped up home field advantage as well.
Yeah, that was good. That was good.

With the number one seed wrapped up, does the context of the games change the way you’ll utilize your personnel?
We’ll do what we always do.

You touched on the elements. How much of a factor was that?
Well, the rain was I think the biggest factor – you know, the wet ball, the wet field. The wind was somewhat… we’ve played in worse, but it was a factor. But ball handling, the ball was a little slick and so was the footing. I think that affected the tackling a little bit, too. It looked like both teams missed some tackles out there where they couldn’t’ quite get a hold of the guy or couldn’t quite get their feet under them– the tackler couldn’t really get his feet under to really secure the tackle. It felt like that was a little bit of a factor, too.

When you say, “Do what we always do,” does that mean . . .
It means we’ll prepare for the game. We’ll break down the film, we’ll prepare for the game, the players will come in, we’ll give them the game plan, we’ll get ready to go and we’ll go play on Sunday. [The] same thing we always do.

How about as far as what players . . .
That’s what we always do. We’ll play the same way. We’ll do what we always do. We’ll come in, we’ll prepare and we’ll play the game on Sunday. That’s what we do.

You talked during the week about things you looked at to improve with your team and get better at, and one was red zone defense. That played a pretty big role today.
Yeah, they did a pretty good job. We finally pulled ourselves out of the basement. We’ve been down there all year. I think we were 31st last week or something like that. The players were talking about it today -- maybe we’ll be 29th or something like that. It was good, though. It’s good to be able to keep a team out of the end zone, force them to field goals and if they don’t make them then you get out of there with no points. That was something we’ve done a little bit better the last couple of weeks. Hopefully we can continue that, continue in that direction. Those are big points, especially in a tight game like we had today.

Laurence Maroney had over 100 yards and 20-some carries. Were you happy with his performance?
Yeah. I think he carried the ball, ran hard. I thought he made some good runs, had some good balance. We’ll look at the film. I’m sure there’s things that he could do better, but it was a good performance for him on the ground and we needed that. It was one of those kinds of games where we had some opportunities to run the ball and he ran it, and I thought he ran hard and he took care of the ball, which was really important.

Did you expect to run as much coming in or was that weather-related adjustment?
I think it was more . . . it was sort of a function of . . . well, the weather certainly had something to do with it, but it was a little bit of a function of the defense, too. You saw the Jets standing around out there, walking around on the line of scrimmage, so we thought we had an opportunity to snap the ball, run the ball at some of those fronts, and we did that.

They caught you on a big play there after Kellen Clemens went out and they kind of ran the thread to the option. Was that something you expected?
Yeah, we’d worked on it. They put [Brad] Smith back there in the backfield a lot, run the dive, run the option, run the pitch and we just didn’t play it as well as we needed to. And there were a couple of times where it looked like we had them and we had a little trouble tackling. But again, it was one of those days where there were a lot of broken tackles out there on both sides.

On special teams, Kelley Washington made some big plays today.
Yes, he made some big plays. I’ll tell you, we really work a lot on punt blocks, believe it or not. I know we haven’t blocked a punt since I’ve been here, so it’s hard for me to say yeah, we’re good at it, but that was a great time for it. Then we were able to get the ball in on the goal line and that hasn’t always been the case against the Jets. We’ve been stopped down there in our goal line offense in some other games against them, but I thought we did a good job of running it in there and it was big for us to be able to convert that. I know [when] you get the ball on the three yard line you say, “Well, it’s in,” but it really isn’t, so that was big. That was a huge play by Kelley.

Did you see something from Maroney today that maybe you hadn’t seen earlier in the year?
No, I wouldn’t say so. Laurence has played good football for us all year – actually, since he’s been here. He’s tough, he runs hard, he’s patient, does a good job in blitz-pickup, he’s made some plays in the passing game, like he did a couple of weeks ago, so he does a good job for us.

Now that it’s over, how do you feel about being done with the Jets?
It’s just like the other games. It’s good to win. It’s good to win in the division. It’s good to sweep the Jets and we’ll move on to Miami.

Washington also had a big play early in the game. How important has he been on special teams?
He’s done a great job for us in the kicking game. He’s done an outstanding job -- covering kicks, both on kickoffs and punts, kind of the outside guy on those, downing them. I mean, the block obviously was a huge play. He’s given us some big plays in the kicking game this year throughout the course of the year, even going back to opening day on a couple of those sideline returns with Leon Washington. He’s been solid for us in the kicking game all year, both on the coverage teams, blocking, and on the punt return, so he’s done a good job. That was a big play today. That was huge.

With everything now wrapped up, why wouldn’t there be an advantage to letting up and maybe resting guys?
I think I already answered that question. Anything else?

Are there any extra or different emotions, given the backdrop of this game and also, to follow up on something you said on Friday about you not giving permission . . .
Yeah, I think we’ve covered all that.

Will you follow up with the league?
I think we’ve covered all that.

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