BB: Good morning. Well, not a lot of sleep last night, but nice to be here.
Go ahead, fire away. I don't have much news from last night.
Q: Is this the time of year now that you sit back and let the other
people in the organization do their jobs?
BB: Well, you know what? In terms of heading towards next year, actually a
lot of people have been working on it. Scott Pioli and his staff have been
working on things heading into personnel that are coming up in the next few
weeks – the college draft, free agency and so forth, things like that.
They're already on it. I'll just try to get caught up a little bit. I'm
pretty far behind, but that's okay, you want to be there.
Q: Could you tell us what are the players you will have on free agency
for the coming season?
BB: I'm sorry, players that are free agents this year?
Q: Yes.
BB: Free agency doesn't start until March 2nd. So even some players whose
contracts will expire, those contracts could be extended or in this case
actually redone between now and then. So we really won't know for sure until
April or March.
Q: No one in history has ever won three straight Super Bowls, what is
that like to do something else no one has ever done? And what is it like
losing so much of your coaching staff?
BB: The coaching staff issue will be a change for us. There are changes
every year on every team, there's no team that stays the same from one year
to the next and the National Football League. Romeo (Crennel) and Charlie
(Weis) have done a great job. Their record speaks for itself and a lot of
the success that we've had is certainly a large share of the credit should
go to them. We wish them well and we'll have to adjust to and make some
changes on our end. But that's the way it is every year.
Q: What about the challenge of three in a row?
BB: We treat every year the same. We'll start at the bottom of the heap with
everyone else – same record – and all try to go for the same point. We
approach every year the same.
Q: Could you talk about the maturity level that a receiver in this system
has to have? It seemed like Deion (Branch) in another system could catch 80,
90 passes, maybe, and in this offense, where you spread the ball around,
does he have to be willing to accept maybe less than that?
BB: I don't know, I think Deion catches a lot of balls for us on a per game
basis. This year he missed a number of games, and that affected the overall
number of catches. Deion has a lot of versatility. He's been an outstanding
player for us, plays a lot of different positions, X, Z, slot. He does a lot
of different things, and is a very good route runner. I think Tom (Brady)
has a lot of confidence in him. He makes good decisions on the football
field. Receivers always have those situations where they're defenders, they
have to go over, under, they have to make a decision on what to do, and the
quarterback needs to know what that is so he can deliver the ball on time
and be there. Deion is very, very good at that. He's got an outstanding feel
for being a receiver, makes great decisions and of course has good hands and
can catch the ball.
Q: Can you share with us some of your thoughts right now on replacing
them outside the organization, staying in the organization. And second part,
near the end of the game there was a pretty sensitive moment with the three
of you on the sideline. Would you share with us some of the conversation
that took place at that time?
BB: Sure. Well, in terms of going forward, we really haven't done anything
with that. We will deal with that in due course. We were so focused on this
game and this season and Philadelphia. I thought it would be a distraction
for all of us, myself included, working on next year when we still had an
opportunity this year. That will come in the future. It was just an
opportunity last night at the end of the game after Rodney's (Harrison)
interception. The three of us kind of looked at each other and knew that
that's the last time we'd be together collectively, and kind of thanked each
other for what we'd done, and had a lot of preparation all the way around.
In '96 with the Patriots, three years with the Jets, going back to the
Giants, in '90, before that Romeo going back to '81 with him. And the last
four years with Romeo, five with Charlie. It was just a wonderful moment to
be able to share, sort of a perfect ending, the way we pictured it, the
three of us, anyway, the way we pictured the season ending. So it was great
to be able to share that moment spontaneously on the field, the biggest win
of the year.
Q: You say you haven't focused on replacing them yet, but do you have an
idea of when you want to have something done by?
BB: When we think it's the right thing to do.
Q: Very few of your guys – very few starters are on restrictive agents,
how do you feel about the roster?
BB: I feel good about that. We had a lot of guys and you always want to keep
as many of them as you can. But again there will always be changes on your
team. We'll be facing decisions, and we'll have to do things relative to
next year's team that will be different from this year's team. We understand
that. We all know that's the way it is in the NFL. Every single team in the
League does that. We haven't addressed it yet, but we'll address it in due
course and make our decisions accordingly.
Q: You have a couple of assistants that other teams are interested in
talking to who are under contract. Would you be willing to allow them to
meet with other teams, given you're going to lose your top two assistants?
And the second question allows you to resist the talk that we have had a
discussion out here that you're among the all time great coaches of all
time, and keep your own ego in check?
BB: Well, just on the second question, I don't feel that it's my place to
judge myself or our team or anything else currently in history. We're just
trying to do what we're doing currently, and that's keeping us plenty busy.
As far as the other coaches, there's a set of rules in place with the
National Football League about coaching movement and other personnel
movements. Whatever it is we'll of course comply with and work with it. And
if those things happen, we'll deal with them accordingly as stipulated by
the NFL rules.
Q: There was a report during the Fox broadcast that Tom Brady's father
had been hospitalized. They didn't specify as to when or how. Can you shed
any light on that?
BB: None.
Q: You don't know of such a thing?
BB: I couldn't shed any light on it whatsoever. Where is Tom right now?
Probably sleeping, I don't know.
Q: I wonder how important it was in your defensive strategy to not let
Brian Westbrook and (Donovan) McNabb beat you with their legs? You kept them
hemmed in.
BB: That was the No. 1 objective. We wanted to keep McNabb from getting out
of the pocket, from what we call playing against extended plays, where he
goes back and runs around and then becomes a double threat in terms of
running with it, running and picking up yardage or buying more time in the
pocket while the receivers uncover and get open. We wanted to get as much
speed and athleticism to rush the passer on the field. That's why we only
played a 3-4 defense on a couple of plays. We were trying to match up
against their passing strength, but more importantly to get our best passers
on the field to try to contain McNabb and keep him in the pocket and chase
him down. If he gets out there if you don't have fast guys, even if you have
good angles, he outruns them. That was a big part of it. We were concerned
as to whether or not we'd be able to hold up in the running game with that
configuration, that worked out well, we stuck with it, because that was our
best pass rush group. Westbrook gave us problems in the passing game. He
made some nice catches, and the touchdown pass to him was outstanding. We
had guys right there, but McNabb put it in well and he made the catch. For
the most part we were able to contain him in the running game. He hurt us in
the passing game – at least he didn't kill us. That was the main focus of
the strategy defensively, was to keep him in the pocket and put our best
passers on the field.
Q: You're obviously behind the curve as you always are when you win the
championship in terms of next year. Are you going to take some time off? Do
you have any plans to goof off for a little while?
BB: Well, I do plan to – I will be in Pebble Beach and play out there, play
– I'm sure to play poorly out there. Ask the fans to stand back and not get
too close to the fairway. We'll do that a few days and hopefully that will
be relaxing.
Q: Who is your partner?
BB: I don't know. I kind of feel sorry for him, because I haven't swung a
club in six months. So I'm sure it won't be pretty. The golf course is
pretty though.
Q: Deion was talking about when he was coming out of high school and he
had a setback and lost a scholarship. Was that a concern? How did you see
that wasn't a problem? And do you see any remnants of that personality that
he said he had a big head and wasn't going to class?
BB: I don't think we ever saw that. Deion was a very productive receiver at
Louisville, and played a lot of different spots, as he does here. He's
played outside, he played in the slot. One of the most interesting matchups
we saw was when Louisville played Illinois, and (Eugene) Wilson was playing
corner and covered him. That was a good matchup one year for Deion, and the
next year we looked at Wilson, we knew Deion, and we watched Eugene play
against Deion that day, I think it was one of the bowl games. And Brian (Daboll)
went down and worked Deion out, and we had a lot of interest in him and a
little bit of conflicting reports. He's not the biggest guy, but in terms of
his overall skills, we wanted to get one more close look at him, and Brian
went down and had an outstanding workout with him. Deion has been a
tremendous receiver, and one of our best team players since he's been up
here, from day one. He's willing to do anything. We've had him in return
duties. He plays a lot of different positions in the passing game. He's
called to run different types of routes. He works hard, stays late after
practice. He's diligent in his preparation, he's really a pleasure to work
with. I can't imagine him having a chip on his shoulder. I haven't seen
that.
Q: You carried Ty Law's cap number this year. It goes up next year, can
you carry him with his current cap number?
BB: We'll have to – the decisions we make on our personnel next year will be
things that come up the next few weeks as we get ready for the start of the
new league year in March when free agency begins. We'll discuss the players
and all our options, and do what's best. We were able to do that last year,
and it was unfortunate that he injured his foot against Pittsburgh, but
that's just something we had to deal with last year. We'll take a look at
all our options this year.
Q: How is Eugene Wilson? What happened to him last night?
BB: You know, I haven't talked to the doctors exactly on that. It's an arm
injury. I'm not sure what the nature of it was, but he wasn't able to come
back in the game. And I really don't have any further update on it. |
