BB: How many times did you have to rewrite those stories? That was some
football game, especially in the second half. I thought we had played a
terrible first half. I thought it was just awful. It was a miracle that we
were as close as we were in the game. A couple of big plays saved us, but
the time of possession, third down situations, penalties—it wasn't very
good. I thought we played a lot better in the second half. We started to
control the ball a little bit better in the third quarter. There were a lot
of big plays in the game, obviously both ways. In the end, we got down to
that situation and I will go over that because I am sure you wanted to ask
about that. It was fourth-and-10 on the 1 and I didn't think we'd get much
field position coming out of there. We had out time outs left, so we went
ahead and took the safety and we were hoping for some field position there
with the three time outs and the two-minute warning still outstanding. We
hoped we'd get the ball back and the be able to at least have a shot at the
field goal and tie it. Of course the way it turned out we got good field
position on the kick, the punt after the safety. We were able to make the
stop there on that possession that the Broncos had and then once we got the
ball in field goal range, then we felt like we could take a shot down there
for the end zone. Tom [Brady] made a great play on it. Charlie [Weis] made a
great call. Tom made a great throw and we had good protection and of course
David [Givens] made another nice catch. So that was kind of the strategy
there at the end of the game. But we played a real good football team and in
the end it can't get much closer than that. We just made one more play than
they did. We have a lot of respect for the Broncos and they are going to win
a lot of games from here on out, I am sure.
Q: How many times in your football career can you remember an
intentionally safety actually achieving what it is intended to do?
BB: It's not an every-game type play, but situationally that's what you
practice them for. We did that the last time in 2000 (actually two trips
ago) when we were out here. We took a safety in a similar situation, of
course [Deltha] O'Neil ran it back for a touchdown on us, but there are
times when I think it is just the right play to make just in terms of trying
to gain some field position. We just thought that this was one of them.
Obviously, the way the punt landed and bounced and the penalty and all that,
it really helped the situation. But we were just hoping to get good field
position and get the ball back there in the end. We ended up getting a
little more out of it.
Q: Was the discussion prior to it just about the means of how you were
going to take the safety?
BB: No. It was really a pretty quick decision. It was fourth-and-10 on the
1-yard line. If you punt it out of there, you get a 40-yard punt, they catch
it on the 40, they run it back to the 30. Even if you stop them, now they
kick a field goal. Well, they had some field goal kicking problems there.
But they put it back to you again on the 1 or if they kick a field goal, now
you need a touchdown to win. You could lose all your time outs and it's
going to be a tough situation. We just thought the best thing to do was try
to get some field position and use our time outs and the two-minute warning.
We still really had plenty of time. The key was being able to stop them on
that last possession.
Q: How much do you practice something like that, the safety?
BB: Well it doesn't take much practice. You just tell the center to snap it
over the punter's head. I mean that's pretty easy. It's situational — when
to do it. The actual execution of the play, they can do that in junior high.
You just snap it out of the end zone.
Q: Anything on the play clock on that play? It looked like it was going
to run down and then the players looked to ask to reset it and they did...
BB: No. So what, if they would have penalized us it would have been half the
distance to the goal. I don't know. I didn't see it. But at that point, they
couldn't penalize us much further.
Q: Was there a point at which even before fourth down that you started to
think you had to find another way? That you weren't going to go 99 yards?
BB: The first down play we missed over there on the sideline, Tom threw it
to Branch and we just missed it. On the second play it looked like we had a
chance to catch it over the middle. We didn't and then the third-down play
Tom got hit. I thought on two of those plays we didn't hit them but we had a
chance to hit them. The third-down one was pressure and he got hit, I think
as he was releasing the ball. We didn't really have a chance on that one,
but we thought we had a chance to complete the first two plays.
Q: Looked like you were building momentum at the end of the first half
and then you had the deep pass on that third-and-one and a penalty and
then...?
BB: Look, any time you have penalties in the kicking game and have to kick
them again sooner or later that's going to happen.
Q: But that was a huge shift of momentum there...
BB: No kidding. Look we have a lot of tough guys in that locker room. They
have been in tough situations before. We've been on the road. We've been
booed. There is crowd noise. There was everything and they've fought through
it and they had to fight through it again. It was tough out there, but those
guys are tough.
Q: What did you see in the Denver defense that allowed you to throw the
ball on them?
BB: We just tried to throw on all levels. We tried to throw deep. We tried
to throw on the intermediate levels and we tried a few short plays. I just
think you have to mix it up on them a little bit. We played them last year
and threw for about three yards a pass. It was just terrible. So we
obviously had to get the ball downfield more than we did last year against
them. We couldn't of had 100 yards passing last year. So we just tried to
mix it in those areas.
Q: You have had a number of close games this yea. How many of those can
you take?
BB: This team is, I think, a pretty resilient team. And look, you just want
to come out of here with a victory. It doesn't matter what the score is,
whether it is 3-2 or 39-38 or somewhere in the middle. That's not really
what it is about. It is about just finding a way to make a few more plays
than your opponent. You know it doesn't get any tougher than Denver in
Denver.
Q: How nice is it to go into the bye week with a win like this?
BB: Good. It's good to win any week. It's great to beat Denver. It's good to
win this game. We'll try to use the bye week to our best advantage.
Q: What did you see in their defense that you tried to exploit with deep
passes? Man coverage?
BB: A couple of times it was man coverage. I think most of it was zone,
though. We were just trying to find seams in the zone or try to throw it
over the top of the zone. Denver is aggressive. They lead the league in pass
defense. They are very good in the secondary and they are on you pretty
tight. Our receivers made some good plays and Brady made some good throws.
That's what you have to do to get those long balls. And we had good
protection. So if any one of those hadn't been in place then you have
nothing. And you can't hit all of them. We tried one on third-and-one and
missed it. But that was our philosophy that we were going to take our shots
when we were going to take our shots. Some of them we hit, some of them we
didn't. |
