Bill Belichick joined The Big Show with hosts Glenn Ordway, Fred
Smerlas, Steve DeOssie and Pete Sheppard during Patriots Monday on WEEI Sports Radio 850 AM.
GO: Back here with The Big Show, it is
indeed Patriots Monday. It's
time for Coffee With The Coach brought to you by
Dunkin' Donuts. Stop by Dunkin' Donuts today for a delicious coffee. America
runs on Dunkin'. Good afternoon, Mr. Belichick.
BB: Glenn, it's nice to be here. Fred,
Steve, Peter.
[Greetings and crosstalk]
GO: How do you look at a game like
yesterday? Obviously, you win, you make some big plays in the last eight or
nine minutes to win that football game, but how do you come out of it, as a coach
now, when you look at this film going forward?
BB: I think any time
you win, I always try to temper it with some of the things that we
could have done better. Any time you lose, you
try to keep everything from being a total disaster and recognize some
of the things that
you did well in the game, even though it didn't come out at the end right. In
this win there were some things that were good, there were some other
things that we certainly could have done better. I think a lot of
people kind of underestimated the Lions. They're a pretty good
football team, especially offensively. But that notwithstanding, still, we have a
lot of things we need to do better, and we'll work to improve those on a
week-to-week basis like we always do.
FS: Did they run anything
different? I've watched them a few times – were they hitting the slant
quicker underneath some of the coverages?
BB: They threw a couple of the quick slants when
we were off the receivers and that's something that they hadn't done
a lot of. Most of their
passes are downfield – like they hit those
in-cuts and those deep seams and that type of thing. But they did hit a couple when
we blitzed – they
hit a couple quick passes to the slot and we should have been tighter on
that. We expected that to happen and we just didn't get up there close
enough. [Jon] Kitna made a good play and recognized it and hit
him.
SD: Is [Mike] Martz trying
to do the same thing that he's done with other
teams he's been with, [like] with St. Louis?
BB: Exactly. Yes, all those plays with Kevin Jones coming out of the backfield, that's Marshall Faulk coming
out of the backfield. Roy Williams on those in-cuts,
[chuckling] that's Torry Holt on those in-cuts. Those seam routes by [Mike] Furrey, that's Isaac Bruce.
Yes.
PS: Were you surprised that [Josh] McCown was out there lined up at wide receiver? We had Tully Banta-Cain on last night after the show [and] he said he really didn't see much of that
on film during the week. Did that catch you off-guard a little bit?
BB: Well, they have used him there a couple times.
He warmed up there as a receiver – in pre-game
warmups he warmed up with the receivers – so it wasn't a total surprise.
Although, [Corey] Bradford and Mike Williams also
played some, so they actually used him as a fifth receiver. But he's a pretty athletic guy...
FS: He's pretty big, too.
BB: Yes, he's tall. He has good size for a receiver. But
it wasn't a surprise in that they had shown that before and did warm up
there. In fact, I was watching him in pre-game warmup warmup there as a
receiver.
FS: We found that kind of funny,
though. Matt Millen drafted three
receivers in the first round...
[Laughter and crosstalk]
SD: And the backup quarterback
has more receptions than two of them total.
FS: Looking at Kitna, and I've
watched a lot of Kitna over the years, he can come out and play – we said
this last week – as good as any quarterback in the league, and then kind of
[inaudible].
BB: Well he's a real athletic guy.
He moved around back there, he scrambled around a little bit and bought some
time for himself. He's always done that. We played against him a couple
years ago here when Carson Palmer got hurt late in the third
quarter in, what was it, '02, '03. He has a good arm. He can make all the throws, he
can whip that ball down the field on those deep corner routes and in-cuts and
seams and that kind of thing. So, none of that was a surprise. He moved
the team well, at times. Fortunately we were able to
make a couple plays on him, but he can handle himself and he's done a good job
in those situations before.
GO: We've talked before about the screen pass and yet that was a good part of that comeback
in that fourth quarter. You seemed to be very effective running that.
BB: Yes, I think we were able to slow down the pass rush a
little bit. In fact, both teams used the screen pretty effectively.
They hit us on a couple and we got them on a couple. We hit them on
both sides. And both guards, both Steve [Neal] and Logan [Mankins], I thought, did a good job getting out there, with Dan Koppen our center, and recognizing the coverage and
getting those guys blocked. I thought Kevin [Faulk] made a
real good run on the screen before the half where he was able to get
outside, get down the sideline [and] stop the clock, because we were out of timeouts
at that point. So that was a good play.
GO: Talking about the pass rush, is it a benefit
when you're getting into the two-minute drill – you did it at the end of the
first half and obviously late in the game when you were making that run – that when you're coming out there with that no-huddle it's very very
difficult for the big defensive guys to constantly rush it because they get
a little worn out.
BB: Well it is a way to kind of slow the
defensive line down a little bit, there's no doubt about
that. It's easier to pass block for a longer length of time than it is to rush
down after down. But those guys are well-conditioned athletes: [Cory] Redding is a good player, a good
athlete; and [Kalimba] Edwards, [Jared] DeVries, those guys, Tyoka Jackson, they're pretty athletic guys and they run hard the
whole game. They're tough. That's one thing I think [Rod] Marinelli has done a good job
with in Detroit – they play hard, they play with a lot of effort
and they come after you. But I think it is a good way to wear them
down. That's why sometimes you have to be careful with those screen
passes – if you throw them against a
defensive lineman who's not rushing, Fred, [Laughter] then you have no
play. You have to get them when they're coming.
SD: Reche Caldwell had another
big game. He seems to be getting more and more in
sync with [Tom] Brady and the offense every week. Has
that been showing up in practice, too?
BB: It has. Reche works
very hard, Steve. He's one of the hardest working guys on the team. He just
gets better and better every week. I thought he made a real nice catch
on that ball
on the sideline, even though it was ruled out of bounds – which it was
– but he did a nice job of going up and getting it. He was open a
couple other times. Tom had him down the sideline and the
ball just got tipped there and it was a little bit under-thrown, but
that could have been a big play. Reche has done a good job for us and he
just keeps getting better. We used him a little bit on the opposite side this
week with Troy [Brown] in there. He did a nice job
adjusting and made some big plays in the game.
[Microphone problems with Fred; crosstalk]
FS: Brady talked about working
with Reche Caldwell and the way
he likes routes run...
BB: Right.
FS: Did you ever think of using Brady as a receiver?
[Laughter]
BB: We just used him that one time,
Fred. Back in '01...
[Laughter and crosstalk]
FS: But has that helped a lot? They
seem to be much more comfortable with each other, throwing
the ball before the breaks and things of that nature.
BB: Yes, I think that their timing
and comfort level with each other grows with each day of practice and running
routes. Particularly in a game plan week like this week against Detroit, that
runs a lot of that Tampa coverage, and how to adjust those routes against a lot of rolled
up corners. I think that
Detroit played about, I think it was over 35 plays of Cover-2 against
us, so that means over half the game the receivers are getting rolled
up on by corners. That's a fairly high number. It just makes you run the
route a little bit differently and the timing's different. But the more that
the quarterback and the receiver can be on the same page on that, the
better for the passing game. And spacing is very important in those zone
plays now.
FS: Now, another fumble by [Benjamin] Watson. It didn't seem like it was a great hit on it. Is
there something that he's doing, that you could see, with the ball, [like]
holding it loose? He's a big, strong kid.
BB: Well he sure is. As we talked about
last week, every player who handles the ball has to make sure that they keep it
at the end of the play. There is nothing more important than ball
possession. They carry the entire team's
fortunes with them when they carry that ball. Whether they snap it,
catch it, pass it, run it, or get it on defense, keeping it at the end
of the play is...there is nothing more important than that.
SD: I know defenses, if they see on film
that a team is prone to, or an individual is prone to dropping the ball,
they're going to come after you.
BB: Oh boy, it's like a school of sharks. Once
they know that there is somebody they can get the ball off of, then they
just work that
much harder to pull it out. We're going to have to do a better job of that as a team. We've
had too many balls on the ground in the last few weeks and we have to
tighten that up.
FS: On the, it was third-and-22 and
it seemed like you had a middle blitz on and they hit the screen...
BB: Yes, we blitzed a couple guys up the middle
and the ends peeled out so we only ended up bringing five guys. And the blitzer, James [Sanders], ran into [Kevin] Jones, the back, on
the screen and that kind of distorted the timing there for a bit. We
ended up...the ends dropped out of it
and the safeties blitzed, so it was kind of a change of responsibilities
between those guys.
FS: And he hit the, and the screen
just hit the, and he was missed by [Rosevelt] Colvin?
BB: Right. We were over there and missed the tackle.
You know, Jones is a good runner and he's the kind of guy you don't
want to let get started out there
in space. I mean, it was a good call in that situation. Not unexpected. You'd
like to think that you could make the tackle before the guy gains 30 yards,
but we didn't.
GO: It seemed like you had a few of those. You had
first-and-30, you had second-and-23, third-and-21. It seems like you made good
plays where they committed a personal foul or something, and the next
thing you knew you had them pinned back and they escape with a big play.
BB: Yes, and then we'd stop them on third-and-one.
So it's really frustrating to go out there and give up third-and-20s and
be able to make third-and-one stops. That was obviously a poorly coached part of our game.
We have to do better than that. I mean, third-and-20 – we have to get off
the field.
PS: Furrey seemed to
be open all game; he had a tremendous game. Did you see anything on film?
Did you expect him to be as good as he
was yesterday?
BB: He's quick. Yes, he's a quick guy. No
question about it, we had most of
our coverage tilted to Roy Williams. Not to take anything away from Furrey, but if you're going to double one of those guys, you
have to get Roy Williams. So we rolled
into him quite a bit. But Furrey's a good player; he's quick and he's
good after the catch. He's got a nice game, he really does. He's a tough, competitive kid.
He has good quickness, and he's hard to match
on some of those routes.
SD: Did your offensive game plan
change at all after [Laurence] Maroney got hurt?
BB: No, not really, Steve. I think
that really the biggest change for us was at the end of the third
quarter – we just went to the no-huddle offense. [We] just felt like we
were able to move the ball some at the end of the first half and we had kind of gotten a look at
what we thought they would be doing against it. Then we hit a couple of
those screen passes and got it going so we were going to stay with that the
rest of the game.
FS: Now, the timeout call that Detroit didn't have, isn't that
a penalty?
BB: No, it's not a penalty unless it
happens in the last two minutes. But what
should have happened was the official should have just denied it and kept
playing and just said 'No, there's no timeout. You have to play.' But evidently they
lost track of the situation and once
they stopped the clock, and stopped the game, that was an official stoppage
not a Detroit stoppage, technically. And then they just, of course,
let them make the substitution and correct the mistake. But like we
have bad calls and we have missed tackles and coaches make dumb
mistakes, sometimes officials make them, too.
FS: But you know the exact...we have our own theory.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
GO: Did [Jeff Triplette] explain this to you right
after it happened, or did you get it explained after the game? Because I saw
that [he] made comments after the game.
BB: Well, we ended up scoring on the next
play, so while we were waiting for the kickoff I had him come over and we talked about the situation, had our exchange there,
and then he went back to refereeing and I went back to coaching.
PS: They actually didn't show
that on TV yesterday, they were
too busy showing Marinelli's face instead of what was going on with
you guys on the sideline. That's another story.
SD: I didn't know that they
allowed them to make the substitution afterwards. You could make a
mistake...
BB: They had ten guys on the field
and took a timeout and then, right, on top of that [Paris] Lenon took his helmet off. Well...
GO: Yes, he did.
[Everybody speaking at the same time.]
GO: What is the rule about taking your helmet off now?
BB: You can't take your helmet off on
the field unless the clock is stopped and there's a timeout, which is what they ruled because
there was an official timeout, even though... [FS: There wasn't a timeout.] Right, there wasn't a timeout but the officials technically granted timeout.
So once they did that, when he took his helmet off he was okay because there
was a timeout.
FS: Do you think they will grant you the same luxury
some time?
SD: Let you have a free timeout?
BB: If they make a mistake, I guess.
[Crosstalk]
FS: We were saying – and we have like eight brain cells between us
– they don't have a timeout left. Seven years in 4th grade and I still know
that.
[Laughter]
PS: Well, we were screaming about
that and then when he took his helmet off I'm sitting there having a conniption.
I'm like 'What the hell is he doing?!'
[Laughter and crosstalk]
FS: Ty Warren – he's just
getting better and better. The use of his hands and coming off of play
action, in a two-gap right to a pass
rush – he just seems to be really playing that position extremely well.
BB: Very well, Fred. He's made a
great adjustment to turning his run techniques into play
action pass rush techniques and getting off the ball in passing
situations. He's done a great job of taking those different aspects of his
game, not just playing the run but recognizing play action bootlegs, he's
done a good job on those and just pass rush situations. He's really become a
defensive lineman that has a very good repertoire of moves and techniques
and can play in all situations and play well.
PS: It's getting harder for opposing offenses
to decide which side they want to double team now, either [Richard] Seymour or Warren...
FS: And [Vince] Wilfork in the middle...
[Co-hosts talking at the same time]
BB: Really all those guys have been
good contributors for us. Mike Wright and Jarvis [Green],
who haven't played quite as many snaps as Ty and Richard and Vince have, but they've played very well, too. So we have a
lot of confidence in all those players. They've all done a good job.
GO: All right, let's get to this week's opponent, a team
you're obviously very familiar with, the Miami Dolphins. They were playing a lot better. I did not get to see yesterday's game; obviously, I've seen a couple
of the highlights and the score. But this was a team that seemed to
be really coming together, coming on. Certainly we know what they are
defensively, but [Joey] Harrington seemed to be very, very
comfortable in that offense.
BB: Yes, you know, they've been
throwing the ball a lot. Even though they've had Ronnie Brown, he
hasn't had quite the production in the running game that they have with
the receivers. They have a great group of receivers there with [Marty] Booker and of course [Chris] Chambers, and then [Wes] Welker is the third receiver in the slot and everybody has
trouble with him. And of course you have [Randy] McMichael with Brown in the backfield, or Sammy Morris, whoever the third down back is.
You know, they've changed their offensive line around a little bit – they've
moved [L.J. Shelton] back to guard and taken [Damion] McIntosh and put him back at tackle, so I think that's helped them a
little bit. The big thing is they've been able to play from ahead. They
run the ball, they hit a couple passes, they get ahead in the game, and
then they can let the pass rush go and play more of a
controlled game. I think what happened yesterday against Jacksonville is they fell behind and ended up having to throw a lot. The pass rush
bothered them and they got a couple turnovers and weren't really able
to run the ball or have
the game in their control. And the same thing defensively – if they could get ahead
and just cut that pass rush loose with [Jason] Taylor and
[David] Bowens and [Kevin] Carter and those
guys inside,
they're hard to block. It's a good front.
GO: We've talked a lot about kickoff coverage with your team
during the course of the season. Welker is another one of those
guys that offers tremendous quickness.
BB: Quickness and speed. He's the
type of guy that can really stretch the field. He runs to
the sideline like he's going to take it outside, and then as soon as
there's a crease then he just hits it up in there. He's given us a lot of trouble
all the way back to his rookie year when he ran that punt back 78 yards down
to the 1-yard line in Miami when they beat us down there.
FS: It looks like Harrington has
been playing much better. We remember seeing him in Detroit, but it
looks like he throws the ball well. He's
a strong kid; he seems to be much more confident in the pocket, not as
rattled. Does his game look like it's elevated that much since last year?
BB: I think he's getting rid of the ball
quickly, Fred. And again, he has a very good group of receivers – he has an excellent tight end and three real good receivers and a good running back.
He just goes back there and there's usually somebody open, and he cranks
it up and lets it go. And he's athletic enough to avoid a little bit of
the rush. They've had a lot fewer problems in pass protection and a lot less
sacks and strip-sacks and negative plays and fumbles and all that since
he's replaced [Daunte] Culpepper. I don't want to say that's all
a result of him, but I think his ability to get the ball out of there
quickly has helped some of that and helped him avoid some negative plays.
SD: Defensively, they seem to be
very much a ball-hawking unit. Maybe not as much as Chicago, but they
really play for the turnover, whether it's stripping or interceptions or
whatever. They don't mind taking some chances.
BB: No, they don't. Nick Saban is
a very aggressive coach in the secondary. They play a lot
of what we call 'robber' type coverages, where instead of dropping in
the deep part of the field, they kind of hang in there and read the quarterback and
try to jump those in-cuts and over-routes and curl patterns and things like
that. So they're very good defensively. To me, I can't imagine any
player in the league playing better than Jason Taylor this year.
He looks like [he's having] an MVP-type of year. He's been great
against the run, has rushed the passer, he's a tremendous force in the
pass rush, he has a
bunch of interceptions and tackles. He's a guy that you have to
know where he is on the field every single time the ball is
snapped. I don't care what play...whether you're running at him or running
away from him, whether you're throwing, whether he's in coverage or rushing.
He's had a tremendous year.
FS: He's only, what, 260 pounds?
BB: I don't even know if he's that
big, Fred. 245, 250?
FS: I was out with him a couple
times and the first time I met him I'm like 'My god.' He was tall and thin but
he has a real good explosion when he comes off the ball.
BB: He does, he has great first-step
quickness, and really knows how to
use his hands. He has very explosive hands and hips. I don't even know
if he's 250, but he's as fast as anybody we see off the edge. I mean, we've
seen the John Abrahams and Aaron Schobels and guys like
that, but he has that kind of speed, and power to go with it. Good counter moves and
a big motor. And he has those long arms – a lot of times he reaches in there
and can kind of knock the ball out of the quarterback's hands or grab him
around the back of the shirt or tip it or something. He's a very rangy
player.
SD: And they don't even drop into
coverage sometimes.
BB: Dropped into coverage, he's already intercepted
a couple of passes and run back for
touchdowns this year. Same thing. You try to throw over him and it's
like trying to shoot over Shaquille O'Neal – you just can't get the
ball into the basket.
[Crosstalk]
GO: All right, Bill, your favorite time of the show, the Eastern Mass. Volkswagen Dealers' Coach's
Question of The Week. This one comes from Jack in Norfolk,
Massachusetts, who would
like to know 'What was the most controversial call you've been part of in the playoffs
[and] who were you playing?'
BB: Well, I mean I have to say
that, it wasn't the playoffs, but the controversial call that
got us into the playoffs, which was what really prompted the
whole instant replay rule, was the quarterback keep by Vinny [Testaverde] against Seattle where his was kind of tackled on the like one-and-a-half-yard
line and then he sort of crawled
forward ... it was a fourth down play and they gave the touchdown. He was
clearly down, but there was no replay. So once they awarded him a touchdown,
that was it. And that put us into the playoffs...or knocked Seattle out, I
should say. That was really the play that I think kind of pushed the
league over the edge on the instant replay, because it was so clear that he didn't make it and it kept Seattle out of the playoffs. Had there
been replay it would have changed the fortunes of...
SD: He was at least a yard out.
BB: Oh yes. Not even close. So,
controversial call in the playoffs...?
GO: See, I thought you would have said the tuck rule, because any time a
quarterback fumbles... [Crosstalk] No, it was the right call, but any
time you
see a quarterback fumble the ball right now in an attempt to throw it,
what does every announcer say? 'There's the tuck rule,' 'Oh, there's the
tuck rule.' Even though it's not the tuck rule, they refer to it as the
tuck rule. Or the great line of 'Hey, in Oakland they would think
that's the tuck rule.'
BB: Well, I mean again, to me that wasn't even a hard
call, and it was again the exact same situation that we had with the Jets when
we played them in the first game down there in Giants Stadium when Anthony Pleasant hit Vinny. It was the exact same situation
and the ball came out and
we recovered it, and they called it a tuck, which it was. That's when I really scrutinized
the rule by the letter of the law. It wasn't a fumble.
[Crosstalk]
BB: All right, so my question now.
This one goes to Fred and Steve this week. On the fourth-and-one there for Detroit, on the 8-yard line, had you been the coach of the Lions what would you have done in that situation? Field goal or fourth-and-one
after getting stopped there on third down.
GO: You mention that because we had a major discussion when
that was happening....
BB: Honest to god, Glenn, I didn't
listen to that part of the show.
[Crosstalk]
PS: No, this was during the game.
FS: When Detroit had the ball and
kicked a field goal?
[Co-hosts speak at the same time and most of it is inaudible.]
PS: But Coach, were you surprised
that they didn't go for it?
BB: No. No, actually I wasn't
surprised at all. I thought that going up by eight after the way they had played us in the
third quarter, we hadn't really done much...
[Laughter and crosstalk]
GO: I'll tell you what, Bill, your questions are so good that
you should register to win a trip for two to the pro football championship
in Miami [Laughter] with the Eastern Mass. Volkswagen Dealers' Coach's Question of The Week.
Stop by your
local Eastern Mass. Volkswagen dealer or logon to WEEI.com,
submit a question for the coach – or let the coach submit a question for us
– and register to win a trip to the big game. [Crosstalk] All right, Bill, good luck in Miami next weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday.
[Thank yous and good-byes] |
