2005 quotes

"It is about having players. That's all it's about. That's who goes out there and plays the game.... Any success that we've had has been due, more than anything, to the performance of the players on the field under pressure situations against a high level of competition."
–When asked if it was about the players or the system

what he told the team after the loss
"Well, everybody, we were all disappointed.... When you put as much into it as we did, and work as hard at the game as the team has worked, of course it's going to be disappointing when the results are what they are. I don't think there are really any words that can provide that great a comfort to it. Denver played better than we did Saturday night. That's what happened. They played better than we did. I don't know that they're the better team but they played better than we did, they deserved to win, and that's why they're playing next weekend and we aren't."
if this has been a trying season
"I think that it's been really good for me to coach the players that I've coached. I mean, this team is a hardworking, focused, dedicated, football-is-important-to-them team. The most trying seasons for me have been to work with players who just really don't put as much into it as I feel like they should or they're capable of. If the guy's out there giving you everything he's got, doing everything he can do to try to be the best player and to give you the best chance to win as a team that he can, I can't argue with that. That's all I'm looking for. What's disappointing is when players don't put forth that effort, and have another personal agenda, or just non-team type players. And that doesn't really exist on this team. So from that standpoint it's challenging every week. There are good teams and good players out there every single time we line up on Sunday, or Saturday, whenever it is. But the way the team worked and their effort and their attention to detail and their unselfishness – I love that about this team. And I have a lot of respect for every single one of them because they all put forth that effort."
weei, january 16

controversial officiating decisions
"There were some real questionable decisions, there's no doubt about that. But the bottom line is we didn't play well enough to win, didn't coach well enough to win. Denver was the better team last night. There were some things that went against us, but I don't think that was the difference in the game. I think Denver deserved to win because they played better. But there were certainly some very questionable decisions in that game that...I don't know. I'm surprised that that was the playoff crew. But that didn't decide the outcome of the game. I think it would have been a lot worse if it had come down to one play and that play had been a questionable call or something like that. There really wasn't the case."
conference call, january 15

losing to Denver in the AFC Divisional Playoff
"Obviously that was a game of big plays tonight and Denver made more than we did. Congratulate Mike and the Broncos, they're a good football team. They earned the right to play here tonight, and they played well, so I give them credit for the way they performed, what they did, and for winning the game. Obviously, we're disappointed. We weren't able to make the plays that we needed to make to win, and that's why we didn't win."
postgame, january 14

about John Lynch
"They involve John in quite a bit of their pressure defense, so they probably blitz him out of the secondary more than any other player. So from that standpoint you've got to be aware of him. Now, he doesn't always blitz, he probably blitzes four or five times a game. Like in the San Diego game, if he blitzes and you don't account for him there are strip sacks and hits in the backfield and all that. Those can be huge plays. So, I think John's definitely a guy you've got to account for, but it's hard to get past Al Wilson. It's even harder to get past Trevor Pryce. You've got to be real careful with Champ Bailey. And all those linebackers, as blitzers, are very fast. I'm talking about Gold and D.J. and Al, when they blitz him. So they're all problems, too. I definitely don't think you can say it's just one guy. Lynch is a good player, he's certainly a problem with the things that he does. I think there are a lot of other guys that are a problem, too. And the way they play their defensive line, which is very unusual, really. A lot of people rotate five or six guys through there, they really rotate eight. They have two full sets of linemen. So not only are they fresher when they're playing fewer plays but the matchups from one player to the next is different. You take a guy like Trevor Pryce who literally can play all four spots across the line, he's an outstanding player. This guy is as good as anybody we've played. Can play end and tackle and plays both sides. He's a tough matchup for everybody, and they've all got to be ready for him to know exactly how that one's going to unfold, where he's going to be. But he's a problem no matter where he is."
press conference, january 12

Deion Branch about work ethic
"From the get-go it starts with Coach Belichick. He instills all that into us once the season starts. At the beginning of this season our slogan was 'to climb this mountain,' which we started way back in preseason when everybody was talking about 'defending champion' such and such. His main thing was that we're not defending anything because we don't have a title. We won that last year. When you're defending a title is when you have it, such as a boxer. When a boxer goes in to fight, he has the title. All 32 teams are fighting for one goal in the beginning of the season. That was his main slogan and for us to work at climbing that mountain, which we've been doing. We still have a pretty long way to go."
about Coach Belichick
"Everything that comes out of coach's mouth is a positive, and if you don't take anything from it then you shouldn't be around here. For a guy to be a head coach thirty years, he knows a whole lot about the game. He knows a whole lot more than I do, as well. And the guys that are around here."
deion branch press conference, january 11

Troy Brown about Coach Belichick
"We just had to keep rep-ing stuff. We just kept working. That was it. We weren't going to throw in the towel ... that's not going to happen around here. We kept plugging away at it. We just kept working. We'd go out and we'd have contact practices. We'd do whatever. Whatever it took to get us better, that's what we did. And the guys responded to it. I'm not going to say everybody was happy about it, but we knew we had to do something to get better. Like I said, we kept working hard, and I like the results that it produced. We have a chance now."
if it's a credit to the players
"That's a credit to the whole staff, the players and everybody. It's a team effort. It's just not going to be if the coach can implement it, but the players have to be willing to do it. That's what it came down to – it's a total team effort from everybody, and we gave ourselves a chance at the end of the season."
troy brown press conference, january 11

if communication breakdown was part of the problem during the second quarter of their week 6 loss in Denver
"I don't think it was nearly as much of a problem as just bad coaching and bad playing. A guy takes the ball and runs right up the middle...it doesn't get much worse than that. Unless they throw it straight over your head, uncontested. Twice."
if it took a while to adjust to the changing personnel on defense
"No.... There are always adjustments. I mean, that's what football is. It's not like baseball, where you've got a pitcher out there on the mound and a batter in the batter's box. I mean, you've got different formations, you've got different down and distances – every game's different. Every play's different. It's not static like that. So, that's part of it. If you can't do that then you're not going to be any good. Can you say, 'Did the changes, did that affect...' Well, of course. All changes affect you. Either you can deal with it and get it done, or you can't. It's as simple as that. But whatever happened, happened. We didn't do as good a job at times as we thought we should have, or I felt we could have, and that includes me. There's plenty of bad coaching to go in there with that bad playing, now. It's not all just bad playing. There's a lot of bad coaching. You just try to do a better job and hope you can eliminate as much of it as possible. There are times when we did okay and there are other times when we didn't. If it's not good enough then you'd better find a way to make it better."
press conference, january 11

what they did right and wrong against Denver in week 6
"Well, a lot more wrong than we did right. I don't think we have enough time here to go through all of that. It was 28-3 early in the third quarter. Bad coaching. Bad playing. Just bad football. And a lot of good football from Denver. When those two forces collide then that's what you have – 28-3."
the effects of turnovers & interceptions in the playoffs
"In terms of turnovers, the fewer the better, we all know that, that's what you strive for. I think Jake [Plummer] has done a great job this year of not only making big plays, but not turning the ball over. But more importantly, moving the offense. When you have a team like Denver that's had at least one 80-yard drive in every game, that's a lot of good football. It's not just one play, or one or two weeks, but on a weekly basis you can take the ball, move it the length of the field, that's a lot of good football, and it certainly runs through the quarterback. To be able to manage the team and make the plays – the passes and third down conversions and red area passes or whatever it is in that sequence of plays, as well as formationing and the cadence and the motioning and all the other stuff that goes with it – I think that's really a credit to him, as well. I mean, the quarterback's job is to get the ball into the end zone and score points. It's not to put up stats. Stats are...I mean, they're stats. But production is team production. If the quarterback can get the offense in the end zone, then he's done his job. Whether he's gone 3-for-4 or 9-for-10, he's done his job. And that's what Plummer does – he gets them down the field and he gets them in the end zone, gets points up on the board. That's how I judge a quarterback."
press conference, january 10

Denver in week 6
"They moved the ball very well and we just didn't do a very good job on anything – the running game, the passing game. What did they have rushing, 160? Rod Smith had his usual 130 yards against us, Lelie caught a big one. We just didn't really stop anything very consistently. When you give up 28 points early in the third quarter, it's hard to win. And we didn't."
the strength of Denver's defense
"They're pretty good in a lot of places. I think Champ Bailey's probably the best corner in the league. I think he's the premier corner. Their defensive line is very strong – they have eight guys, they rotate them in there, all eight of them play. They're extremely fast at linebacker with D.J. Williams, Ian Gold and Al Wilson. Those guys are almost like strong safeties, they're so athletic and fast. They're probably as athletic as a lot of safeties in this league. They cover a lot of ground. And they're good in the secondary with Lynch and Ferguson and Champ Bailey. But Bailey's kind of a shutdown corner – you don't see a lot of balls get caught on him, and he's intercepted seven or eight this year, run a bunch of them back for a touchdown, so he's a tough guy to deal with. But it's hard to block their front four, and a lot of times their front seven, because the linebackers are involved in a lot of their pressure defenses. So they're strong across the board. They put a lot of pressure on the offense in terms of blitzes and pressure calls, but they can cover, too. I think that's why they're right at the top of the league in defense – they're second or third. It's because they're good in everything."
weei, january 9

winning the AFC Wildcard Playoff
"That was a good win for our football team. I was really proud of our players, I thought they played hard tonight. And Jacksonville is a very physical team. Tough football team. And the first half, 7-3, was a hard fought half. Fortunately we were able to put a good drive together there in the third quarter to make some plays and play pretty competitively on defense. Did a decent job on the running game, got a couple turnovers. I thought it was a solid effort in all three phases. Certainly, we could play better, I am sure we could coach better, but it was good to win. And now we're on to whoever we play – already beat us pretty handily this year, whichever team it ends up being, so we have our work cut out for us next week. We're looking forward to getting started on that. But we'll enjoy this one for a while – it was a good, solid team win. I thought the players really had a good week of preparation and put a lot into this game. I thought it showed tonight."
postgame, january 7 (link fixed)

the enjoyment of game planning
"It's part of coaching. I like all coaching. It's understanding what they're doing, trying to prepare your team for what they do, trying to come up with what you feel like gives the players an opportunity to be successful, teaching them that, going through it either on the practice field or in the game. It doesn't always work the way you want it to, so you either change something that you're doing, or try to coach it better so that you can still do it, but help the players figure out the way to solve the problem that they're having with the play. And then you get into the game situations and it's more of the same process, just accelerated into a smaller time-frame and more critical situations. But I enjoy all of that ... It's very challenging, because you've got all the other good teams in the league, good coaches, good players and everybody's got a lot of things to work with, and they're trying to cause you more problems than you're trying to cause them. So you just have to try to figure out what the best thing to do is, what gives you the best chance given all the things that you're trying to take into consideration. I think it's hard in this league to just do the same thing every time – pretty much everybody can figure out a way to handle that, no matter what it is. So you've got to have enough variety to not be so predictable – unless you can just go out there and execute it flawlessly time after time. There may be some teams that can do that in certain aspects of their game, but certainly not in all three phases on a consistent basis. I think that would be pretty rare. But that's what a big part of coaching is. There are a lot of other things that go with it, too. We can talk about game planning, but that also leads into preparation and practice. You've only got so many plays out there in practice – which ones are you going to run? What are you going to run them against? What do you think the other team's going to do when you run those plays? If you end up practicing them against the wrong thing then it's really a waste of time, and then you end up never really practicing against what you're going to see out there on Sunday. So that's all part of it, too."
press conference, january 5

regarding Tom Brady's comments about the team not receiving much respect this season
"I think that opinion's been represented quite a bit this year. Yes, I agree with Tom. Sure. ... Everybody can write what they want to write, think whatever they want to think. Everybody's entitled to their own opinion. Nobody's holding any grudges on it. But I think that opinion has been expressed far and wide many times over, by all the people that he identified ... It doesn't really matter what anybody else thinks about our team or thinks about us – I don't really care about that. All I care about is how we prepare and how we play against Jacksonville. Whatever the results are Saturday night, that'll tell the story. Good or bad, whatever they are, that's what we're out there for. I don't think the rest of it's going to effect us too much – I don't think it should. I understand that everybody's interested in the game and they're going to write an opinion about it – I have no problem with that. That's why pro football's a great game – there's a lot of interest in it, a lot of excitement, everybody wants to try to see what's going to happen. It'll all come out there Saturday night. I'm comfortable with that – I wouldn't want to change any of it. But the only thing we can control is what we do and how we prepare for the game, so that's where we're going to put all our efforts and energies. It doesn't really matter to me what anybody else thinks or what anybody else's opinion on the game is – in the end none of that's going to matter. The only thing that's going to matter is how the two teams perform against each other in that arena out there."
if he uses it to motivate the team
"I don't think that's going to put any points on the board. And I don't think it's going to take any off."
press conference, january 4

about Jacksonville's lack of playoff experience
"I think that, to a degree, that's a little bit overrated. We heard all that in '01 when we went into the playoffs, about inexperience and all that, an inexperienced quarterback with Brady, and so forth. But I think really what it comes down to is playing well and executing well. If your team can do that, then you've got a chance. If they can't, it doesn't really make any difference what else you do have. If you don't have good execution and real precise, good, solid, smart football at this time of year, you're probably not going to be playing for too long. And I think that's the thing Jacksonville has shown – they've won twelve games. That's a lot of wins, so they're doing a lot of things well enough to put that kind of record up there. That experience – it's nice to have it, but I don't think it's as important as playing good football, and that's what they've been doing."
if previous success gives them a mental edge
"I don't think that anybody really has much of an edge. The '05 team is different than any other team we've had. We have different players and I think there are some things that we do maybe a little better than we've done on other teams, and there are things that we don't do as well. So the '05 team hasn't really accomplished anything this year, other than what it has accomplished in terms of winning the division, but in the playoffs we haven't won a game, we haven't done anything. It will be up to this team to set its own course on that based on its performance. So I think the edge goes to the team that plays better."
weei, january 3

competing with Cincinnati for the third seed while playing Miami
"We went into the game playing to win like we always do. We also wanted to give all our players an opportunity to play so that they could be ready to play in the playoffs and have some game experience. So we played everybody and we played to win. It came down to the final play, we weren't able to make the two-point conversion. But who we had out there played as well as they could and we got beat by a better team on Sunday."
conference call with jacksonville media, january 3

what he tells players who haven't been to the playoffs
"That we're moving up a level in intensity. I would say the overall intensity and the magnitude of each play. There are some games during the season that, let's face it, if you lose them, your season can continue. We're not at that point now. So every play, every situation, every decision, everything in every game, it truly is a one game season now. Everything is more important. Everything is critical. There's not one aspect of any part of the preparation for the game that isn't of utmost importance because it could determine not only the outcome of the game, but the outcome of their season. That's how I would explain it to them."
press conference, january 3

about Jacksonville being perceived as the "easier matchup"
It's pretty ridiculous. ... Talk to whoever thinks that. Go talk to the 12 wins that they've had – go talk to the teams that have lost to them and see what they have to say."
press conference, january 2

doug flutie's dropkick
"We had tryouts out there, and Doug shanked a couple, but he hit a couple pretty good ones so I thought if we had an opportunity to do it here in one of these last couple games that we'd give him a shot. I think Doug deserves it. He's a guy that adds a lot to this game of football, has added a lot through his great career – running, passing, and now kicking. He's got a skill and we had a chance to let him use it. I'm happy for him. First time since '41 ... It might be sixty years again, too. It's a lot tougher the way the ball is now. It's a lot tougher kicking than it was back then. Really, Doug's hit a lot of good ones in practice. We've done it a few times and he's banged it right through there."
postgame, january 1

losing to Miami in the final game of the regular season
"One of the things we wanted to do today was play competitively against a good football team, which Miami is. Obviously, it came right down to the last play. I was proud of the way the players fought. We got a lot of people an opportunity to play. You never know when that's going to be beneficial, and this was really our last opportunity to do it, so we tried to take advantage of that. I think we got everybody in and got some significant playing time for some guys that haven't had as much opportunity to play recently. Congratulate Miami, they've won six straight. They're a good football team. I think Nick's done a great job down there. Unfortunately he's in our division, and so is Miami. They played very competitively and made the plays they needed to make to win. Give them credit."
postgame, january 1

expectations this time of year
"I think the big thing is to just try to keep our team focused on a short-term basis. We can control what we do today, and that's where all our energy should be – our meetings, our film sessions, our practice. And try to be a better team and a better player today than we were when we walked out on the field yesterday. That's our big goal."
what has happened in the last month
"I don't see us doing all that much differently, I see us doing it better....I think it comes down to better execution, better preparation, better overall team defense, maybe better coaching – you can probably throw that in there, because there were a lot of games early in the season that I didn't think were very well coached. I didn't think that at the time and I don't think that looking back at them, either. I just think collectively we've done a little bit better job, but I think it's a lot more execution and staying with what we've got and what we believe in and what we think we can do well, rather than making a whole lot of changes and going into a whole lot of different directions that try to take care of it all with scheme. Try to take care of it with better play."
press conference, december 29

if progress has been made this year
"It's really pretty much week-to-week. I don't ever really look too far ahead – where things are going to be a month from now. To me, it's one-game seasons – where are we this week, how can we get better against Miami, what things can we do better, how can we play better, what techniques to work on, maybe things to modify, plays to call, so forth – and then deal with next week next week. That's what it was a month ago, two months ago, three months ago. It's just, try to take a short-term approach. Things that we're not doing well, try to find a way to improve them – whether it's change them, or do them more in practice, or sometimes it's change personnel to get a better combination in there, whatever it is, but try to find some way to correct it and make it better. And then see how that goes. Then sometimes you have to change it again the following week, or sometimes you feel like you're making progress even though you're not quite there yet, and you stay with it and hope that it will get better. It's kind of the same process every week, it doesn't really change. Where I thought we'd be a month from now, I didn't really think that, I was just trying to think of where we'd be a week from now. And that's the way I feel right now, today. I'm not worried about a month from now, I'm worried about Miami and how we can try to play better against them and make ourselves a better football team. I think that's our best chance."
"I think we've all improved and gotten better at doing a number of things on the defensive side of the ball. I would hope that we would after the amount of practices and meetings and walkthroughs and film sessions and all of that that we've had."
press conference, december 28

this week's priorities
"To continue to work on the things that are important to us, to perform well as a football team, and to prepare for the Dolphins and try to improve on some of the things that we didn't do as well against the Jets, or that we'd like to get better from recent weeks, and continue to try to be consistent on the things that have been fairly productive. I think that's really all we can do. Again, there are just too many variables going into the following week. It's different than in preseason, where you know who your opening opponent is and all that – you just have a lot more concrete information to work off of. Here, there are just so many variables. I know from past experience that if you put a lot of time into something two or three weeks ahead of time in anticipation of the way it's going to go, and then things change at the last minute and you end up playing somebody else, then in a way it ends up being more of a setback than it is getting ahead."
weei, december 27

beating the Jets week 16
"I thought we could play better than we played in the early part of the season. That wouldn't take much, though. We were last in the league in defense. It wouldn't take much to play better than that. But we just try to work hard, improve on the things we're not doing well, see if we can get them corrected and get them better. The players have done a good job of that. They've been very diligent and done extra film study, extra practice, extra meetings, just a lot of extra things to try to improve our performance and how we can play situationally and just our overall execution of a lot of different areas in the game, offensively and defensively and in the kicking game. I think that that hard work has paid off with some better results. It's a credit to the players that they've been able to turn some of those situations around."
postgame, december 26

about making a run for the Super Bowl
"Right now we're just trying to get ready for the Jets. I don't know about a run anywhere. I hope we can run the ball. That would be a change if we could. We're just trying to get ready for the Jets. It's a Monday night game. Herm always does a great job in getting his team ready to go. They play with a lot of emotion, a high energy level; they certainly have the last couple weeks. I think we've made some improvement over the last couple weeks in our play, but we're still lacking consistency in some areas. Hopefully, we can do a better job of that. We're looking forward to playing the Jets down there at home where they usually play well. Herm does a great job of getting the team ready to go. I'm sure they'll be at their best Monday night."
conference call with new york media, december 21

if there is more sophistication this late in the season
"Oh, no question. No question. It's not even close. That's why when you take a game against a team that you've played at the end of the season, like Pittsburgh last year for example, in the '04 season, where those two teams were, and 150 practices, and 17 regular season and postseason games, and the sophistication of what you can do as a team in every phase of the game – offense, defense, and special teams – and then multiply that times all the things that they can do at an accomplished level, and where that game is relative to now playing them in the second or third week of the season where you just can't execute those things. You could go out and say, 'Gee, this play looked great, that play looked great,' but you've had a third of those practices, you've played a fifth of that number of games – you're just not at the same level of execution, you just don't have the background. And yeah, you can call the play, but now stuff happens and you haven't gone over it as thoroughly, and you're not quite sure what to do and you have different people doing it, and so forth and so on. It's just not the same. So as the team progresses through the year you build your system offensively and defensively. You also have to deal with more on the other side of the ball, generally speaking – what they do – and the game kind of graduates up to a different level. I'm not saying the game's better or worse, but I think it's coached and played differently in the third week of the season than it is in the fifteenth week. No question about it. But it's hard when you take a game like, again, the Pittsburgh game's a great example. You take a game like that and you look at it in the offseason and you say okay, boy the next time we play them here's what we can do. But you're just not playing with the same team. Even if it's the exact same guys, you're not playing with the same team. Their execution level and their efficiency in September compared to where it is in January, it's just, if you can ever get that kind of execution in September, then you really have something. But it's all relative."
press conference, december 21

winning the last two games or resting players
"I think you want to go into the game playing good football, and of course you want your people as healthy as possible, so I think you try to balance those two things. I think one without the other probably isn't any good. I think you want to try to balance those two factors to as high a level as possible. Sort of like where you are at the end of preseason where you want to have your team executing well. You want to get them in there and have them playing well, and you want everybody as healthy as possible. But it's nothing you have any control over, so I think our approach this week against the Jets is just going to be like any other week. We're not going to do anything any differently just because of whatever the standings say, or don't say. We've got to improve in a lot of areas – we can improve, certainly, defensively in our third down conversions, and we're still last in the league in takeaways. Offensively, running the ball. And in the kicking game we can certainly improve a lot there in terms of our kick coverage. So there are things that we can keep doing a better job on. That's where the emphasis is going to be."
weei, december 19

if winning is more important after Thanksgiving
"It doesn't matter for any game. Every game is it's own game. I don't think it matters if you've won however many in a row or lost however many in a row. Last year, you guys had the stories written on Wednesday when we went down to Miami and how that game was going to turn out and then you had to rewrite them at the end of the game. It doesn't make any difference. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is how the team plays competitively against its opponent on that day. That's the only thing that matters. That's all that we can control, is our preparation and our performance for that game. The rest of it, in November, December, October, Monday night, Thursday night, when the temperature is below…, when the wind is out of the East. Honestly, I can't get into any of that."
if the team is lacking emotion
"No, I never thought that. I thought that we, as I said a couple weeks ago, I think that we have more confidence now. I don't think we ever lacked confidence, or maybe lacked intensity or emotion or whatever that word is, I just think we're at a higher level now, and I think that's come from having a little bit more success and from being more confident, really. Confidence is really, in the end, what drives your aggressiveness, your emotion, your spirit, your communication, your everything. If you're sure it's right, and you know it's going to work out right, it's a lot easier to hit it hard. You know, the nail's sitting right there and you can just lean back and crack it. [But] if the thing's moving, it's tilting, it's jiggling, it's vibrating, you just can't get the same...you just can't do it as aggressively. So I think that that confidence has grown in the second half of the season. I think that's a big part of it. I don't think it was ever not there, I'm not saying that. I do think we're at a higher point, though."
press conference, december 19

winning the division and making the playoffs
"We're happy that we've done that, and now we'll still take it one week at a time and do everything we can to keep improving as a football team. I think we've gotten better in the last month ... so hopefully we can keep it going in that direction. But the only way that'll happen is if we keep working hard at it. It won't happen just because we want it to happen. We're going to have to work at it."
if the team now has an identity
"I think there has been, looking backward. I don't know whether we'll be able to sustain that going forward or not. That's our challenge. But at least we've got something to work with ... I think defensively we're developing a little bit more consistency, and hopefully some more continuity, particularly in the secondary. Hopefully we can build on that, but believe me, that can go down just as quick as it can bounce back up. So if we don't keep working at it and keep the same attitude and work ethic that we've had recently, then I'm sure the results won't reflect that."
postgame, december 17

if quarterback can be a game-time decision or if it's sacred
"I couldn't speak for anybody else, but I don't think there is anything sacred about anything. I will do what's best for the team, whatever that is – be it any player, any position, or any game. I can't ever tell you what that's going to be until really you get down to whatever the final decision making time is. If you know for sure before that, then you make it. If you don't, then you go down until you can get as much information and have as much knowledge of the situation or the circumstances as you can, and then you make the final call. What that will be, I have no idea."
press conference, december 15

if the players' work ethic & knowledge of the game are a reflection of himself and the assistant coaches
"No. I think that the players' work ethic and knowledge is a reflection of their effort and time and work that they put into their job. I think that as a player, you get out of it what you put into it. And if a player works hard and studies film and practices hard and is in good condition, then that's really what's going to establish his career and make him successful. I think that's where it starts. As a coach you can try to motivate people or try to push them in a certain direction, but I think 90% of that comes from the individual's inner character and his own determination and motivation more so than it is somebody else motivating him. It's just too long a season, there's too many games. That just doesn't work every day. A guy's got to either want to do it and take a lot of pride in it themselves, or they don't and somebody else is going to come along and pass them up."
press conference, december 14

about Jon Gruden
"Jon and I have never worked together. I think considering that we've never worked together, I'm probably as close to him as any coach that I haven't worked with on a day-to-day basis. We've talked a lot about different aspects of football, whether it's head coaching or offense/defense. We've been in different conferences for awhile, so we've been able to talk about how to matchup against a common opponent that we were both facing. We're not really in direct competition, other than when he was at Oakland. But when he was at Philadelphia, and also now at Tampa, now it's easier to exchange information or try to help each other out when you face another team, or in the offseason. Jon's got a great mind, he's got a great understanding of the game. He really understands defenses and how to attack them and how to put stress points on them. At the same time, [he] coaches a very fundamentally sound game where he can get his players to execute basic, simple plays and techniques. In the end, breaks down a defense as much as anything does, it's just good execution. I really have a lot of respect for Jon. He's a great guy to be around, we've had a lot of fun together. I'm glad we don't have to compete with him on a regular basis, that he's not in our division or anything like that, it just makes for a better relationship that way. I think what he's done at Tampa has been outstanding – the success he had the first year, and then kind of the team he's rebuilt here. He's made a lot of changes in the last couple of years to get to this point. He changed the perceptions about things that they could or could not do. They're a top, hard-nosed, good, fundamentally sound football team. That's what Jon is. I think his personality is very much reflected in the team and the way they play."
conference call with tampa bay, december 14

good defense
"When you're playing the run better ... and you've got some second-and-nines and third-and-tens, it's a lot easier to call defenses than when it's second-and-three and third-and-two. Then the offense has a lot of options – you've got runs, you've got all the receivers, you've got quarterback scrambles, you've got little gadget plays, stuff like that like Buffalo ran in the first game against us where they ran a wide receiver option for three yards. But it was third-and-two, so it looks like a good play. You just cut down on a lot of that stuff as the yardage gets greater, and it starts with stopping the running game, and it starts with not giving up easy conversions in the passing game."
third down
"Third down has a lot to do with first down. If you can make yards on first down and come up with second-and-five, second-and-four, it's hard to be in a bad third down situation. It really is. You have to get sacked or have a big penalty or a big negative play. So the running game and the completions – just being able to hit at a high completion percentage, which we've been able to do in a couple games this year – that helps the third down situation as well. And then having guys on third down that – you have a lot of guys on the field on third down that can convert them. Tom picked up a couple himself yesterday, which he's done in the past couple weeks, too. When they have everybody covered, and there's a gap there in the middle, he can go up there and pick up the first down. Again, it's like having an extra receiver. It's kind of a bonus conversion that he wouldn't normally get. So you take those and put the offense back out on the field, call a couple more runs and keep pounding away."
weei, december 12

controlling the game with offense
"I think it's a complementary game. I think that any time you have a high time of possession then that's reflective of your ability to stay on the field offensively, but it's also reflective of your ability to get off the field on defense. Those two go hand in hand. When they work together, then you can have a bigger time of possession. When only one of them is working, it's probably going to be about even. And when they're both not working, then...they've got the ball all day and you don't. We've been in that situation, too. But converting those third downs is big. Ultimately it comes down to points, though. So moving the ball's good, having time of possession's good, but that doesn't really win any games. What wins games is points. Just like when we beat Buffalo in the first game, even though the time of possession was so dramatically against us, we were still able to win because of other factors. So, ultimately I don't think time of possession is...it's certainly not the bottom line, but it helps to have the ball more than they do. That's a step in the right direction."
press conference, december 12

beating buffalo week 14
"I thought that was a good win for our football team today. I thought we came in and played pretty solidly in all phases of the game. It was a good effort. Defensively, I thought we did a decent job on the running game and played better on third down. Offensively, it was better on third down, we were able to run the ball a little bit and have some balance. But I thought it was a solid effort, so hopefully we can build on that. We've got a short week this week against Tampa, and come in and see if we can build on these last couple and get ready to go against a good team from Tampa Bay that's playing very well. So we'll have a big challenge this week. But it's always good to win in the division, good to win on the road, and I'm proud of our team and the way they played today. I thought they played hard and made some plays. Played better on third down, got the ball in the end zone, kept them out, so, it's better than it's been."
postgame, december 11

how Buffalo played them week 8
"They did everything. Everything. They killed us. It was third-and-10 and they ran a draw and they picked that up. They hit the receivers on vertical routes. The first one was like third-and-15, third-and-16, something like that. They hit [Roscoe] Parrish up the seam for a first down. They hit [Eric] Moulds on an angle or a slant route, ran a draw on third-and-10 for a first down. You could go right down the line. We had a hard time and couldn't pick one up. The only one we converted was on a quarterback sneak. I don't think you're going to pick up too many that way, so you better find something else to do besides a quarterback sneak."
press conference, december 8

about J.P. Losman
"We saw him earlier in the year, a few weeks before we were getting ready for our game, and then more recently. I think that he's certainly improved his play from the early part of the season, although he had some productive games there, as well. But he's a very athletic guy. If the receivers aren't open and he's got the ability to pull the ball down, it makes it like a sixth receiver, another guy to cover on defense. They also use him on a little bit of moving pocket and bootlegs and stuff like that, so that's a problem. And the receivers with the addition of Parrish just adds another weapon to the mix of receivers and tight ends and backs that they have. Very good skill players. They're a hard team to match up against, especially because their skill players are very diverse. And Losman can get them the ball, like he did last week with Evans. But if you put too much coverage on him, you still have Parrish and Moulds and Reed and Aiken and everybody else to worry about, plus, obviously McGahee. So I think he's done a good job of finding the open receivers, taking care of the ball for the most part, and just performing with more confidence than he did earlier in the year."
conference call with buffalo, december 7

if holding the Jets to 164 yards and 3 points helps to build the confidence of the defense
"We've done some things that have been heading us in the right direction and hopefully we can take yesterday's game and continue to build on our ability to stop the run, our pass rush, our third down conversions, and be solid at that going forward. We need to be. Now we're in December. It's the last quarter of the season, so we need to be playing our best defense."
weei, december 5

this being a "season of truth"
"I think every season has its own personality so-to-speak, but I think it's a good focus for our team, therefore it's been an emphasis point. Next year it could be another... Last year it could be something else. But I think if you can focus on something that keeps everything in perspective, I think in the long run that's probably good. In this case, I think that being realistic and being truthful and being factual is a lot better for our football team than it is talking about perception and what everybody else thinks we are or aren't or can be or should be or whatever. I don't think that really has too much bearing on it."
what he has with this team
"I don't think we've been able to consistently be the same team. I think a big part of our season has been defined by our lack of consistency – in all three phases of the game. I think if we could develop a more consistent pattern, then there would be a lot better barometer on how the team is going to perform on a consistent basis. But we just haven't been able to do that."
press conference, december 5

beating the Jets week 13
"I don't think there was a whole lot that we haven't been able to do, I think we just did some things better, and that was encouraging. That's really what the emphasis was this week. What I think our team needs to do is we just need to do a better job of what we are doing. I don't think it's some magic play that we can run, I mean that stuff doesn't last too long, anyway. We just need to do a better job of executing the plays that we do call, and I thought we did better on that, especially in the third down area. Came up a little short in the red area offensively, but we were certainly able to move the ball, and that was good. A couple of times we were able to change field position when we were backed up. They did a good job of punting it and backing us up down there a couple of times, so digging it out off our goal line was important, too."
postgame, december 4

team defense
"I think it comes back down to team defense. I don't think it's about this group of guys, I think it extends to the whole team. When you call a defense, you have 11 guys to deploy. You could put more here, but that means you have to put fewer there. And you could put more there, but that means you have to put fewer here, whether it's by alignment or by what their responsibility is after the ball is snapped. Or, you can just try to balance it off the best you can and be relatively thin – or however you want to look at it – but have the same relative numbers across the board, which might lead to some unfavorable matchups. Or, you could try to put more guys here or more guys there, but that leaves fewer guys somewhere else. That's just fundamental defense, it's not us trying to create anything here, but those are what your options are. When you're having trouble on defense, it's probably not necessarily one thing. If you feel like you're strong in one area, then maybe you lighten the load there to spread it out somewhere else, which means that group might not look as good as if you put more strength into that area. Again, I think it comes back to team defense, I really do. I don't think you isolate it to one guy, 'Well, how come everything is not great there, because it's the same guys that it was some other time.' It's how the 11 matchup against their 11."
if the defense lacks confidence
"I don't think we lack confidence, but I think we can have more, let's put it that way. I don't think we lack confidence, but the more successful you are the more that builds, so it could be, certainly, to a higher degree. I've been around a lot of teams, and a lot of players, that really don't have any confidence – they're just hoping for the best. I don't feel that way at all. And I don't think our defensive players, or team, feels that way at all. But, if we were to play better, I think we would have more confidence."
postgame, december 2

his evaluation of a particular player
"I think I'd say pretty much the same thing about just about any player you could ask about. There are some things that are good, there are other things that could be better. I don't think we've had the kind of consistency, at any point, that we really need, or that we're capable of. So I think all of us – that includes me, it includes the coaching staff, it includes the players, it includes all three units – that we all need to perform better and perform more consistently. So I'll put everybody into that category. And they're all different circumstances that go around each position and each player and each unit. But still, all that being said, my expectations are still higher than what we've achieved. Hopefully we'll be able to get to that point, but I don't think we're there yet. I don't think we've been there on a consistent basis. I think it's been there from time to time, pretty much within every game, at some point, for a decent amount of time, but not really a sustained effort over the course of 60 minutes. It really hasn't been there."
press conference, december 1

coping with injuries
"It's the NFL. You look at any team. Every week you take what you have and put it up against what the other team has and try to set it up the best you can. Every team goes through that. We're part of the NFL. There are going to be issues to deal with every week. I've got confidence in our players, I've got confidence in our team. I need to do a better job. I need to coach them better. And hopefully we can play a little bit better and we can be a little more consistent than we've been the last few weeks."
conference call with new york, november 30

if the offense is under pressure to score more points
"To me, I think the offense should go out there and try to score every time they're out there. I don't see what difference it makes. I mean, don't get me wrong, the whole game is interrelated – offense, defense, and special teams. But when that offensive unit goes out on the field, they're only going out there for one reason. And defensively, when we go out there, they're only going out there for one reason. So, I think it's really a bad way to put it. I think it's a pretty feeble excuse, really, if anybody ever even looks at it that way.... When you're called to go out there, it doesn't make any difference whether it's on your 1-yard line or their 1-yard line, you're going out there to stop them. You don't think about whether they returned a punt, whether they got a fumble, whether you punt – wherever you are, that's where you are and you go out there and you compete defensively. It's the same thing on offense. You can have the ball in bad field position, then the first thing you want to do is drive it into good field position, and then you want to score. So why else put them out there? ... Same thing defensively – you're going out there trying to shut out everybody you play. You're not, 'Well, we're scoring 40 so let's give up 35.' I don't think a good football player, or a good football team, or a team with a good football attitude, I don't see how it could ever look at it that way. I know I never have. To me, the group that you're putting out there, you're putting out there for production, and that's definitely the reason they're out on the field."
weei, november 28

about their loss in Kansas City
"I'm sure there are some throws Tom would like to have back. I think there are some catches the receivers would like to have back. I think there are some calls the coaches would like to have back. There are some tackles that the linebackers would like to have back. There are plays there for everybody. I wouldn't single anybody out, and I wouldn't leave anybody out, either."
press conference, november 28

why they lost in Kansas City week 12
"We spotted them a big lead early – too much to make up against a good team. They just got too far out in front too early, and it was too far to come back from...We didn't play well enough. I think that goes across the board. We didn't play well enough on offense, we didn't play well enough on defense, we didn't play well enough on special teams, need to do a better job of coaching, so I think it's across the board....We spot a team a 26-3 lead in the third quarter – it's just like Denver. We spot them a 28-3 lead on the road. You're not going to win a lot of games against a good, quality football team, which the Chiefs are and which Denver was. We have to find a way to make it a little bit more competitive than that."
postgame, november 27

evaluating the team
"Ultimately, it's how the teams in totality play on Sunday. Not what their stats are, not how many all-stars they have, not what should happen, but what actually happens based on the way those teams perform on Sunday. I think in trying to evaluate your team, both in the long-term and at the end of the season when you make those kind of evaluations, you want to see how you do competitively against overall league competition, but then also against some exceptional competition."
press conference, november 25

beating New Orleans week 11
"I thought overall that we played a pretty competitive football game. Unfortunately, later in the game they kind of got a good comeback and made it closer at the end. But I thought we had some balance to ourselves offensively. We definitely wanted to try to get the ball down the field. We hit some. We missed some. But it was obviously a significant part of the game plan. Defensively, I thought we played the run pretty well and, for the most part, contained (Aaron) Brooks. They have a really good group of receivers and they ended up making some plays on us. They threw the ball pretty well, which we knew they were capable of doing. Overall, though, we have to be happy about the win. It's the first time we've been able to string a couple together all year, so that's satisfying. We're in a little bit of a short week now with Thanksgiving and all that, so I think it's just important to be able to maintain our focus, come back and get back to work here this week and get ready for Kansas City."
postgame, november 20

coaching "overachievers"
"I think that's what any coach, whether it's high school, college, pro, whatever it is, any coach's job is to try to maximize the potential and the abilities that a player has. I don't really understand what the word overachiever, I don't really know what that means. To me, what everybody is trying to do is do their best. If somebody's doing their best, I don't see why that really should be regarded as something that they shouldn't be able to achieve. Frankly, that's what they should be able to achieve. It's the ones that don't that...I mean, to a degree nobody's ever perfect. So in a way everybody's an underachiever, even some of the highest achievers. Every quarterback's thrown an interception. Every running back's fumbled. Every receiver's dropped a pass. So, it's never going to be perfect. I really think that's a misnomer. I think what a coach tries to do is maximize the performance of his players within the team context. That's really what it's about. Any time you have an offensive line, again, the context there is the performance of the entire unit. One guy could block great, but if it's not coordinated and consistent with the other guys, then you're not going to have any production, and it isn't going to be any good. All five guys have to function as a unit, function as one. And that's where your production of that unit comes from."

good coaching
"Being a good coach or a bad coach, I don't think that's correlated to being a good or bad player. Being a coach is about whether or not you can help the players on the team play better. If you can help them, then you have value. If you can't, you could be a 20-time All-Pro and have 50 Hall of Fame rings, but if you can't help somebody else be a better player, or help the team be better, that's what a coach does.... If you're coaching defense, you can't really be a good defensive coach until you understand offensive football, and vice versa. You have to understand what the other guy's doing to try to attack it, or defend it, as the case might be. I don't really understand how you could be a good coach, regardless of if a guy has spent his entire career on one side of the ball, he has to understand what is going on on the other side of the ball to be able to coach the players that he's coaching."
press conference, november 18

injured players who have been upgraded
"We upgraded them because their condition's improved."
if those players will be back this year
"Right now they're doubtful. If their situation improves, we'll upgrade them and maybe they will. If it doesn't, then we won't. I mean, my crystal ball is kind of cloudy today. I just can't see exactly where everything's going to happen in the next week, two weeks, three weeks. I just don't know. I do know, though, from past experience, when you try to say, 'Well, this player's going to be ready to play for this game 'x' number of weeks from now,' or 'This injury's going to be healed 'x' number of weeks from now and here's when he's going to come back,' that those are wrong a lot more often than they're right. You go day-to-day. If it's better today, than you do a little bit more than yesterday. If it's better tomorrow, then you do more the next day and you keep going. If it doesn't, then you pull back and reassess the situation on a daily basis."
press conference, november 17

if he has any sense why the Patriots have suffered so many injuries the last couple of years
"No. They're all different."

about the division still being attainable
"I don't really care about what the other 31 teams are doing – other than the one that we're playing. It's where we are and where our opponent is for that week. Those are the only really the two teams that you're thinking about. What difference does the rest of it make? I'm just saying, there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't make any difference if somebody else is 10-0, or whether they're 0-10, 5-5, whether they're on a 5-game winning streak, what difference does it make? There's nothing you can do about it. All you can do is control your situation, which is right in front of you, and that's your team, your game, and how you matchup against that opponent. The rest of it, to me it's irrelevant. I can't say that nobody else thinks about...whatever. I'm not saying that that doesn't occur. But I try, I would say, less than one-tenth of one percent of whatever – however small I can make it [Laughter] – that's how I try to make it." [Q: If you were 4-4 in Miami and someone else was 7-1?] What difference does it make? What do you want me to do?" [Q: It would make a hell of a difference I think, for me, knowing, 'We're still alive,' as opposed to, 'We're screwed.'] "There are seven games to go in the season. Nobody's clinched anything in the NFL, have they? I mean, I missed it if they did. Nobody's clinched anything. So what can you do anything about? You can do something about the next game. You can't do anything about the ones you've won or lost, you can't do anything about anybody else's record, and you certainly can't do anything about however many games come after this one you play. You deal with them when they come. That's the way I look at it. I might be screwed up – I probably am. [Laughter] But that's the way I see it." ... "We're going to be sitting here at the end of the year and you can go back and take a look at the teams that had a record at one point in the year that was this, and then a record at the end of the year that was something else, and they won't correlate, I promise you that. They won't correlate. So, it doesn't really make any difference where anybody is in the middle of the race, it's where you are at the finish line."
press conference, november 16

playing physical
"Football is a contact, physical game. I think you've always got to play it that way. We try to emphasize that every week. We knew it was a division game, and Miami, down there, was going to be tough. That's the way they want to play, and we felt like it was the way we needed to play. It's always the way we need to play. But the players really did a good job, I think that's what it comes down to. They played with a lot of toughness and a lot of heart, both mentally and physically. It was back and forth there, and there were certainly a lot of times where you could get down or get discouraged, but they just hung in there and kept battling, and they kept hitting them. So that was the way we felt like we needed to play that game. It's really the way we need to play every game."
weei, november 14

whether film depicting their body language during games had a positive effect on the team
"I think the reason why we won the game is because the players went out and made the plays they needed to make at critical situations. Hobbs broke up a couple passes, Brady hit Watson on a couple key touchdowns, Neal and Mankins and Kaczur made key blocks, McGinest knocked down a pass – that's the reason why we won the game. The players made the plays they needed to make to win, at critical situations in the game. And that's the way it'll always be. When the players make the plays that we need to make to win, we'll win. If they're not made, we're not going to win. It wouldn't have anything to do with showing some film, or breaking chalk and smashing a projector and all that. I wish that was all there was to it, just kick a couple chairs."
what it really comes down to
"I think it just comes down to every unit making plays at critical times in the game. You never know what it's going to be. Red area defense. Two-minute offense. Run defense. Pass defense. Special teams. Field goal. Kickoff return. Who knows? You never know what it's going to be. You just hope that you're prepared for those situations, and then you can go out there and execute that play, in that situation, when it's called upon. When you get into it late in the fourth quarter, like what happened yesterday, whether it was us having the ball when we were behind and coming back to score, or us being on defense when we were ahead and ultimately being down in the deep red area on the goal line, it's being able to execute those plays in critical times in the game when they come up. Who knows which ones they're going to be? 58, 59 minutes of the game ends up getting decided on two or three plays based on those crucial situations. That determines the outcome of the game. We all know that's the way it is, so that's what we try to prepare for."
press conference, november 14

beating Miami in Miami
"As usual, it was a hard-fought, tough game down here. Seems like it's always a dogfight in Miami. Just one of those great games, went back and forth several times.... I was really proud of the team. We fought through. It's tough down here. It's tough to play. They're a good football team. They're well-coached, they're physical. They gave us all we wanted. Just proud of the guys to be able to hang in there and make some big plays when we needed them. I thought we played more competitively on defense, but we still had trouble with them. Fortunately they had a little bit of trouble with us at times, too."
postgame, november 13

playing Miami in the past
"We play very competitively with them. We've had some great games with the Dolphins. Especially the last two, you know, have gone right down to the last couple plays, overtime. It's like that in this division, though. All those games are usually pretty tight. They're hard fought, they're tough, and it usually comes down to a couple plays. Sometimes those plays happen a little bit earlier in the game, so it's not the final play of the game, so to speak. But it's very close, very competitive, and the game's kind of back and forth until very late in the game. In the Miami games, both games with them last year came right down to the wire, so. That's what we always expect. We expect it to be that kind of game, that's what we prepare for, and then if it's anything else then you adjust along the way. But that's the way we expect it to be."
press conference, november 11

whether or not to play a guy
"I think you look at it as to what the player's availability is and what he can do and then decide on what role you want to put him in and what role he can be in and whether or not he can perform that role effectively. I think that's really what it really comes down to.... If you can tell me what's going to happen, then I guess we'd go on that forecast. But nobody knows what's going to happen. There are a lot of players that, say they're playing at 90 percent. They play in the game and they're fine, and then next week they're 95 percent. Some guys play the game at 90 percent, and something happens. Maybe the next week they're at 80 percent. Some guys play the game at 100 percent, and the next week they're at 50 percent. I have no way of being able to tell you what is going to happen. It's hard to predict. I think what you do control is what the situation is going into the game, based on the way a player has practiced – talking to him, especially if he's a veteran player, what he feels like he can do and how effective he is doing it, and what you're going to be asking him to do – and then decide how you want to do with those situations. We've gone all different ways on those kinds of things. It just depends on each individual situation."
press conference, november 10