Q: What is your impression of the Bears' defense?
BB: Oh man, they're pretty good,
they're pretty good. They do everything well. I don't really see any
weaknesses at all. They just pretty much set the whole standard for the
league. They don't give up any points, they turn the
ball over a lot, they score a bunch of points, they're outstanding on third
down – they're so much better than anybody else that there's nobody
else really to compare them with. [They're] good against
the run, have a lot of team speed, rush the passer, intercept passes, cause
fumbles. I think they do about everything they can do very well.
Outstanding.
Q: Would you rather play this game on the road or at home? You've had so much trouble at home and
great success on the road.
BB: Well, I think the big thing we
have to do is just play a good football game, wherever it is. That's
something we could be more consistent at, and we need to be more consistent with.
Q: Do you have any concerns with that FieldTurf right now? How are they doing with that?
BB: I don't know, but it sounds like
it's going to be fine for the game. Hopefully it will be. But they've been
working around the clock, they've been working hard. I'm sure that they'll
have it ready to go.
Q: What went into the decision on the FieldTurf? When did that conversation start and how did it
finally come to fruition?
BB: Well, the last game we played the field was unplayable. We tried to play with grass here and it just
hasn't, for one reason or another, worked out. We've had to re-sod the field
at least once, and on several occasions multiple times, during the year and
we just felt like in the best interest of the organization, and the league
and the game, that we get a surface that will be more conducive to the level
of play that we have on it.
Q: From a defensive coach's
standpoint, do you typically scheme – your reputation is that of being a schemer – do you scheme for the offensive scheme or do you really look at individual
players and scheme for that?
BB: I think when you try to defend an
offense, you have to look at a combination of their players and what they do
with them. You certainly have to be aware of the personnel and defend the
players, but at the same time you have to try to balance that with what the
tendencies are, how that team is trying to utilize their talent, what things
are the most important to stop, and what things, if you're going to kind of
take a chance on or defend a little less heavily, which ones those
are and just prioritize them. And I think those decisions are independent
every week of what you've done or who you've played or anything else. It's
just how you matchup against that particular team; what you think you need to do, or can do, to defend them.
Q: Coach, what are the major
differences, do you think, between offensive game-planning against a 3-4 as opposed to a 4-3 defense?
BB: How would we game-plan
them differently?
Q: Just in general, what are your
thoughts on game-planning a 4-3 versus a 3-4 defense?
BB: Well again, I think it depends on
what type of defense you're playing against. There are a lot of different
versions of a 3-4 and a 4-3. You have 4-3 teams that are over and
under teams, that are blitz zone teams, that are man-to-man coverage teams,
that are pretty much zone teams that mix them. Same thing with 3-4 defenses. So I think it really depends on not so much what front they
line up in, but what style of play they have and what you're going to try to
do with it – how to attack it from a coverage
standpoint and how to deal with the pass protections and your assignments in
the running game. And again, that to me really depends a lot more on how
they play it than what they initially line up in.
Q: Coach, Tom Brady has
received so many accolades over the years, what do you consider to be his
greatest attribute as a football player?
BB: He's a winner. He wins a lot of
games. He's very team-oriented, unselfish, works hard, works well with his
teammates, is very dependable, demands a lot of himself. But the bottom line
is, he's won a lot of games and I think that's what a quarterback really
needs to do, is to figure out how to manage the game. It's not about how
many stats or yards or whatever he has, it's about whether he can make the
plays at his position that your team needs to make to win the game. Whether
that's a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-one or whether it's completing a
pass at the end of the game to run out the clock or whether it's a touchdown
pass in a two-minute situation to be the deciding points, it doesn't really
matter what that play is, but if it's the play that helps you win the game
then that's the one the quarterback needs to make.
Q: Does your offense miss Deion
Branch?
BB: Well, our offense works with the
people we have and we try to utilize our talents to maximize what we can do
on that side of the ball. Sometimes we have some players play. Other players – whether it be injuries or transition from
year-to-year or whatever – that's something that
every team has to deal with, us included.
Q: Do you find it amusing, or what is
your reaction to the sometimes-designation 'Bill Belichick, genius'?
It wasn't always that way. How do you find it now, is it amusing, is it
something you just disregard, or is it gratifying?
BB: Yes, I think it's pretty amusing.
Some of the things I do are pretty dumb. [Laughter among the press corps] I
appreciate the compliments, but I wouldn't use that adjective.
Q: Coach, what are you impressions of Rex Grossman?
BB: He's a very accurate quarterback.
He's made a lot of big plays down the field in the passing game, especially
on play action. I think he's a young guy that is getting better, has a real
good wealth of receivers and weapons on the offense and he does a good job
of spreading the ball around – tight ends, receivers.
He utilizes all of his receivers. [He] manages the game well for their
team and again, that's really what it's about.
Q: Offensively, your game-plan seems
to change week-to-week probably more than any other team in the league. Does
that make it a little extra difficult on your offense, or would it even be
possible if you did not have a quarterback like Brady at your
disposal?
BB: I don't really think we change
that much from week-to-week from the plays that we have. We might select
different ones in one week than other week, but in terms of putting in a lot
of new plays and new protections and new concepts, we really don't do very
much of that. We try to run the same concepts that we've been practicing
this year and in other years because they've been successful and good for
us. We try to match them up in a way that gives our opponent what we feel is
the hard way to defend it. But Tom is a very smart quarterback; he
handles little variations like that – like a new
formation to run the same play, or a little different wrinkle on it – he handles those things very well and is able
to process and understand, again, how to change the look but still maintain
the integrity and the fundamentals of the concept of the play. I think his
ability to do that enables us to probably expand our looks a little bit, no
question about that.
Q: Is this Bears' defense any
more vulnerable without Mike Brown?
BB: Well, Mike Brown is a real
good football player and I'm sure that they would like to have all their
players available, just like we all would. But now at the same time, they're
still an outstanding defense. They have a lot of good players on that
defense and a lot of players that play situationally and in roles, whether
it's on the defensive line or in the secondary. And a lot of those defensive
players also play very well in the kicking game. I think that they're a very
strong defensive unit and I'm sure that they'd like to have Mike just like
we'd like to have Rodney [Harrison], but you still have to play your best
with the players that you have and I think the Bears have done a
great job of that.
Q: Coach, are we going to see you in
a suit on the sidelines?
BB: I'm thinking about it. I don't
want to give away the game plan.
[Laughter]
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