| |
Bill Belichick joined The Big Show with hosts Glenn Ordway, Fred
Smerlas, Steve DeOssie and Pete Sheppard during Patriots Monday on Boston's Sports Radio WEEI 850 AM.
GO: Back here on The Big Show. We're doing it
live down at the "sandbox," as people like to refer to it, down here at
Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. Time for Coffee With the Coach
brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts. Stop by Dunkin' Donuts today for a
delicious cup of coffee. America runs on Dunkin'. Hello, Bill. How are you?
BB: Good, Glenn. How about you?
GO: Doing alright. Before we get to the game so we can get it
out of the way quickly – did you go out there,
did you drop some seed, did you take care of the field today, drop a little
fertilizer down? Because if you'd like us to help, we're pretty good at it.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
GO: I noticed you did have to address it today in your press
conference. Obviously, there were numerous horticultural experts there
[Laughter] that wanted to get some tips.
BB: Well, there's no question the
field's in terrible shape. Everybody can see that. We'll see what we can do
about it.
FS: Can't they use the same grass
they use on your practice field?
BB: Our practice fields are in
great shape. John Bengston is our groundskeeper; he's done an awesome
job with those. You know, we're out there practicing twice a day all through
training camp, we're still out there practicing here –
we've had like 55 practices – and they're great. The game field, obviously,
is a whole different entity, but we'll see what we can do about it.
GO: [The Rolling] Stones, did they perform on
the practice field?
[Laughter and crosstalk]
GO: OK, let's talk about the game, because it was one of those
typical Patriot /Miami Dolphin games.
BB: Wasn't it? It sure was.
GO: They are ugly. It seems like you guys know an awful
lot about each other. I wonder, when did you start and how much work do you
do with the backup quarterback? Especially when you know during the
course of the week in preparation for that game there's a chance that backup
quarterback's going to play.
BB: We have to prepare for all
the players that could potentially be active – the first quarterback, second
quarterback. I think it's a little different
situation when you know that a team's going to change quarterbacks like,
say, Tennessee going from [Kerry] Collins to Vince
Young, where you know the offensive styles are going to change
dramatically. But from what I understand, I think it's accurate. Both
quarterbacks, [Daunte] Culpepper and [Joey] Harrington, practiced last week [so] you've got to think, going into the
game, that they're going to run their game plan no matter which guy's
at quarterback. They have a little bit of a different style,
but not enough where you would change your game plan significantly, again,
as in the Vince Young/ Kerry Collins example. So our big focus was just to
stop the Dolphins, and no matter who was throwing the ball, or
handing it off, that that player was going to execute his role on the play.
I think they have a different style, but fundamentally it's the same
offense.
FS: They are not two guys that can run
anymore. Both of them are similar, kind of stationary targets. Harrington,
going into that game, he didn't have the memory of getting killed the last
two weeks of making him...he came in, it looked like he was, early on, nice
and relaxed, and he threw the ball very well.
BB: Yes he did, Fred. We watched Harrington in preseason. I think he threw
65 or 75 passes in the preseason games. We saw all of those. He gets the
ball out on time well, he's got good quickness in the pocket, he's an
accurate quarterback, he looked good in the preseason. So that's about the
way he played yesterday. Fortunately, we were able to get our hands on a
couple balls, but he did a nice job getting the ball in there. And [Wes] Welker had a big day against us, which we knew. He's a tough guy to matchup on. They have very good skill players. [Randy] McMichael, [Marty] Booker, of course, he got hurt, but Booker and even [Derek] Hagan, he came in for him...[Chris] Chambers, Ronnie
Brown – I mean, those guys are all good skill players.
FS: You didn't blitz them that much.
It seemed like you played more of a four...
BB: You know, we tried to blitz
a little bit, but you know, Fred, the ball was just coming out so quick.
There were a lot of three-step drops, and they were running tear screens and
plays like that. It slowed us down a little bit because even though we had
guys free, we couldn't get there. Then, we ended up with a couple three-man
rush situations. That's really one that Asante [Samuel] got the interception on. Jarvis [Green]
got good pressure on that. Even though it was three-man rush, he really
forced...really similar to the Denver game, where he kind of forced the
ball to be thrown over top of the defensive line, over Jarvis' hands there,
and it hung up a little bit and Asante got it. But we did, we tried to mix
in a little bit of more coverage and less blitzing when it was clear that
they were going to be getting the ball out of there pretty quickly.
SD: It seemed like offensively Tom
Brady had more than his fair share of passes batted down. Did you think
that was part of their game plan? Especially in the middle it seemed like.
BB: Yes, they did. They blitzed up
the middle a lot in the game. That's kind of what we anticipated because
that's what they did last year in the second game up here – they blitzed up the middle. They've got
some big guys up there, and we've just got to find a way to get the ball
through there. Sometimes it's tight, and it's tough when you're standing back
there at quarterback, and you see the receiver coming free and you let it go,
and then there's a big paw sitting right there in the way. So we're going to
have to do a little bit of a better job of clearing that pocket out and
finding open throwing lanes and all of that. But again, give Miami credit, they're a very good defensive football team. They're good across the
board – they can stop the run, they tackle well, they cover well, they
blitz, they're physical. Fortunately, we were just able to make enough plays
– a couple key ones on third and fourth down and in the red area – that
were the difference in the game. But they're tough to move the ball against.
Everybody's that's played them has found that out.
SD: That's an entirely new secondary,
too isn't it, for Miami, for the most part?
BB: Yes it is. Well, Travis
Daniels played for them last year, but then he went out even yesterday
in the game. So it was with Will Allen, and then [André] Goodman and [Michael] Lehan came in at corner,
and then [Renaldo] Hill. [Travares] Tillman took
over for Tebucky Jones last year, so he was there for like the last
ten games as a starter, but yes, in fact from the '04 season, it's 100% new. Sam Madison and [Patrick] Surtain,
all those guys, they're all gone.
FS: It seemed like, similar to Denver, they were playing a lot tighter to the line of scrimmage and
they were taking away the run. They were filling the gaps well. How
do you defend, how do you combat that? Because it seemd like they were
trying to take the run away early, making you go to something else. They
were more committed to taking the run away early.
BB: They blitzed us quite a bit.
Again, we had some people open, got some balls batted down, a couple we
didn't connect on. A couple of those were third down opportunities which
would have kept us out on the field and kept the drive going. One thing
about the running game, we saw that last week against Cincinnati,
that there are going to be times where they're going to hit you for no gain,
or a yard, but if you can convert on third down and stay out there, tee it
up again, you can start punching some holes out. But when you're
only out there for a few plays it's kind of hard to get into that rhythm in
the running game. That hurt us a little bit, too. We didn't convert on a
lot of third downs and then that limited our run opportunities which limited
our overall production in the running game. So I think those things have to
go hand-in-hand.
FS: But when you had six minutes left
to run the clock out, they stacked the line and you went right over to the
tight end. And then both times [David] Thomas and then [Ben] Watson. So when they put all those guys up there, you weren't going
to run at it. You came up with the nice pass plays in order to get the first
downs and kept them by surprise.
BB: Right. Those were plays that were
really well-executed against the blitz with Brady. The first time
with Dave Thomas, and the second time with Watson when we got
to that third-and-six or third-and-seven and we ran the power play there
behind Russ [Hochstein] who was lined up at fullback, and Laurence [Maroney] took it around the end and picked up the first
down, we were able to run out the clock. So those are the kind of things you
need to do to...like I said, there's one where you kind of don't do well in
the running game for a couple plays, and then you get to third-and-seven and
they're all packed in there and you make good blocks and pick it up. You've
just got to keep hammering away sometimes, and if you don't convert those
third downs and don't stay on the field, then you don't really get that
opportunity.
PS: Chad Jackson now, we saw
him in one play – the ball he dropped. Was he in more than one play? If not,
is he just getting it or...why isn't he playing more downs? I saw him in one
play yesterday, the ball he dropped.
BB: Yes, I think he might have been
in a couple more than that, but it wasn't a whole lot. You know, we're using Troy Brown on third down, and we just went with Reche [Caldwell]
and Doug [Gabriel] the entire game out there at the outside
receiver spots. I just feel like we're getting a little bit more consistent
with them. We've got some things for Chad; he's got a number of plays
that we worked this week in practice, and I'm sure we'll have him next week.
Just kind of the way it worked out – some of the formations we were getting
into with all of the blitzing they were doing – just probably didn't lend
itself to some of the things that probably we had him designed for. Not that
we couldn't handle those plays against blitzes, but I'm just saying we
weren't into those formations and those sets that would have put him in
there. But Chad's doing well. He's really improved every week. I like the
way he's coming along. He's going to be a good football player for us. I
can't tell you exactly what week it's going to be where we're going to be
talking about his big breakout game, but he's going to be fine.
FS: Wasn't he the fastest receiver in
the draft?
BB: He's pretty fast, I don't know.
He can run.
GO: Tom [Brady] was talking this morning about
the passing game and said it was a work in progress. I wonder how much of
this is really a timing factor. Fred was talking about sight adjustments
with the receivers picking up on the blitz and how everybody's got to change
up a little bit of what they do, and I'm wondering, is that just a matter of
it's going to take time for everybody to get...it just seems like it's a
little bit off. When you mentioned Troy Brown, it almost seems, from
the novice anyway, that Brady seems to be favoring going to somebody like
Troy because he's familiar with what he's going to do on every route and how
he's going to change up when there is a sight adjustment. We reading
too much into it? Probably.
[Laughter]
BB: Well, there's no question Tom's comfortable with Troy. Troy does a great job of getting
open. I don't think Tom goes back and looks for Troy Brown. I mean, in
certain plays he's part of the read and if he's open he'll give it to him, like he did yesterday. There
are other plays where, maybe when Tom has to scramble, when he looks down
the field and tries to see who's open, a lot of times
Troy is able to uncover and get away from people because he's very
adept at that. But Tom doesn't go back and look at one receiver. I think the number of site adjustments and
route adjustments in the total perspective of the game is relatively
minimal. If you throw 30 passes, that maybe is going to come up three
or four times, and that would be a lot. It's not like it's every other play.
The hard thing against a team like Miami is, with all the press coverage that they played where
the timing really becomes an issue is, let's say the receiver's supposed to
run a 15-yard route and he gets jammed at the line of scrimmage, but he
gets off and he gets into the route. Now, when
the quarterback...that 15-yard route is designed for the quarterback to
drop back, set up, and throw, but now that the receiver's been held up a
little bit at the line. Even though he's progressing into his route, now what's
the timing on that – is it 12, is it 13, is it
14? It's probably not 15, because that would be if everything just came
off clean. So an experienced receiver who's played a lot in this system
with Tom, like Troy Brown, knows that on that 15-yard route,
based on how much he gets re-routed
or held up at the line of scrimmage, how far to take it, because there's an alarm clock that goes off in
his head and says, 'This is it. I should be going into my break now.'
If it's at 12, it's at 12, and if it's at 14, it's at 14. But it's when the
quarterback is ready to throw the ball, and that's where some of the timing aspect comes
into it between the quarterback and receivers. That's one of the advantages
of pressing receivers at the
line of scrimmage. Of course, one of the drawbacks is you're a little bit
lighter at defending the deep part of the field, which is another thing
that we probably need to do a better job of taking advantage of and
getting the ball down the field a little bit more, especially against that
type of coverage. But we haven't seen a lot of press coverage this
year. We've seen a lot of [inaudible], and
in some respects that makes it a little bit easier for the receivers in
the passing game. I'm not saying it makes it easier for the passing game, but they don't have to deal with press
coverage. But in terms of timing, I think that's what we're talking about
here.
FS: One of the things we didn't see
at all yesterday is the screen. Against a team like Miami that
runs real well, and the D-line runs real well, it's not a team that's
probably
suited to run a lot of screens against.
BB: Well, as always we had some
screens in the gameplan. Those are plays that obviously there's only one receiver
to throw to. You're going to one guy, and either he's open and you have a
play or he's not and you have nothing. Based on what they were doing with a lot of
their blitzes and a lot of their man coverages, sometimes it's hard to
screen man-to-man teams, because they have guys standing right there taking
the guy you're trying to screen to, and it's hard to get him because he's standing so
close to the line of scrimmage. So like I said, rather than just
put all our eggs in one basket and call a screen and kind of hope that
it works, sometimes in a game like that against a team like Miami that's
giving you a lot of different coverages, you'd rather have something where
the quarterback has a couple more options and
you're not just locked into throwing the ball to one guy behind the line of scrimmage.
I think really that's probably a little more a function of that aspect of the
play-calling.
PS: Corey Dillon yesterday
only had 10 carries. Was he a little dinged up at one point in the game and
just didn't want to take a lot of chances?
BB: No, I don't think so. Corey was ready to go.
Again, it's tough. When you don't have the ball a lot...you know, you're running the ball 41 times, or
whatever it was, against Cincinnati, well then everybody gets a lot
of carries and that's great. When you don't have the ball as much and you start dividing the carries between...you know, you want Laurence to get some, you want Corey to get some,
then pretty soon you just don't have the ball enough; you don't have
enough carries. So we're always going to be sitting here talking about
that. If we don't possess the ball and make a lot of first downs and
convert on third down, then we're going to be sitting here saying we didn't
throw enough to this guy, and that guy didn't get enough carries, and all
that. You just don't have enough plays. That's all a combination of
executing them better,
converting more third downs, and staying on the field more offensively so
you can get into that rhythm. And we had a hard time getting into it.
And again, Miami's a good defensive football team and a lot of credit
should go to them. At the same time, we've got to do a better job.
FS: Now, your special teams, it
looked like the kicker [Stephen Gostkowski] ... [Laughter and
crosstalk] One of those balls, you couldn't have been two feet from it and
not block it. He got a lot of height on his field goals yesterday. It looked
like a lot better lift than he did early on. But it seems like he's in a grove now after last week.
He kicked-off well, but those field goals seemed to go real well.
BB: Well, Steve really has
kicked well for us all year. I think that getting used to the surface out
there a little bit...and he did a good job of
that yesterday. You're right, Fred, the ball got up well. He hit it well. But he's really kicked well for us all year [and] in preseason. He gets good
height on the ball naturally; he's got a strong leg. I think he realizes,
too, that there's really not too many kicks that he needs all his leg on.
There aren't many 55-yard field goals. He can, from 40, 35, 42, those are
really ... I mean, they're not drivers for him. He doesn't need everything
he's got to hit the ball to the goal line, so he can be more conscious of
his plant foot, his timing, his rhythm, and being under control and not so
much really trying to attack the ball and kick a 60-yarder. Part of that's
experience and part of it is getting used to the surface and the conditions
that we're playing on.
PS: You worked out several wide
receivers over the last ten days or so. You signed Jabar Gaffney.
What did you see in him, say compared to [Charles] Rogers?
What does Gaffney do better than him?
BB: Well, he's been productive. He's been in a system down in Houston that does some things similar
to what we do, so you can kind of see him running the same type of routes.
[He] has some quickness and [we] feel like [he can] get open. He's been a
productive player. So, we'll take advantage of this bye week and have some
extra practices to evaluate him and see whether or not there's an
opportunity to work him in there [and see] exactly what he can do. I think
he's kind of a natural weak-side receiver, an x-type of receiver. I think
what we ask him to do, and what I think he does well, are things that
hopefully can fit together a little bit there.
GO: This defense, obviously, is forcing turnovers – what, three yesterday plus the blocked punt,
which really was a huge difference. But the thing that really impressed me
is, again, making big, huge stops. You were in a 13-10 game, Kevin Faulk fumbles the ball. You go three-and-out with them and they were five yards
shy of really being within field goal range, right? You couldn't afford,
really, to give up any yardage at all. That was a huge stop.
BB: It was a big series, Glenn, no
question. That was a huge series. Defensively, I thought we played well in
the second half. I think they only got, I don't know,
less than 100 yards, something like that. But we tightened things up in the
second half and our defensive line played well, I thought, and we got
some good plays in the secondary from Chad Scott and Asante [Samuel].
Those guys really did well on the perimeter. We started doubling Welker more in the second half after he killed us there in the first two
quarters. He's a good player. He's their leading receiver. He was their second receiver coming into the
game, behind Ronnie Brown; certainly added to that in our game here.
But we just did a good job, I think, of adjusting to their passing game,
their quicker throws, a lot of the crossing routes, and did a better job of
hitting their receivers. Rodney [Harrison] did a good job on McMichael, for the most part. It's hard though. They have a lot of
good players and they have a good running game, so you have to be careful
about how many guys you commit to coverage and let Ronnie Brown get loose.
SD: Do you emphasize, when you're not
creating the turnovers like you want, is there anything that you do in
practice to emphasize, I don't know, maybe strip drills or [inaudible]
scenarios?
BB: Yes. You know, Steve, we do those
drills every week whether we're creating them or not. If you're not creating
them, then it's a point of emphasis. If you are creating them, then let's keep
doing it. But the strip drills, the tip drills, the high-pointing the ball,
blocking on the interception returns and all those things...you know, it was
frustrating the first two, three weeks of the season. We just got the one
interception by Tedy [Bruschi] at the end of the game against
the Jets but nothing much else was happening. Now all of a
sudden they're starting to come in bunches. I don't think our practice has been any different. We talk about them and there's certainly a mentality
to go get the ball. We did have our hands on a couple balls in the
secondary in the first couple of games that we didn't catch them. We've been
doing a better job of that. The DBs have been catching the ball well, like Asante went up and took that ball up at the high-point on the out
pattern there to Welker and made a nice play on the deflection there
coming across the middle. So being able to take advantage of those turnover
opportunities, that's really the key to making them. It's funny, we had a
ball on the ground out there in the Denver game on the punt that [Roscoe] Parrish fumbled – the thing's laying out there
in the middle of the field for what seemed like about five seconds – and we
couldn't get it, and then you get a play like yesterday where Rodney punches the ball out of Brown's hand, and you can't even
hardly see the ball, and Bruschi dives in there and takes it out from
between Ronnie's legs.
SD: It looked like Samuel was
almost baiting him to throw that first interception that he had. He saw it
coming, because you can see him break almost as the ball was being thrown.
BB: Right. Well, he kind of
trailed the outside receiver on a go-route. Then as he was trailing him
up the field, then saw Welker break out. When Welker broke out, then
he kind of stopped and what we call like a trap...
SD: He knew he had help over the top.
BB: The safety was deep over the top.
But you know, it was really very similar to the Denver play
for the 80-yard touchdown. It was the same coverage, and Jarvis Green was bearing down on Joey Harrington just like [Richard] Seymour was bearing down on [Jake] Plummer. It seemed like
in both cases the quarterback kind of had to arc the ball over the defensive
line – one we intercept and run back to the 10, the other goes for an 80-yard
touchdown. I mean, sometimes it's a fine line between huge success and
disastrous failure. But it's a fine line.
[Laughter]
FS: You had a couple big plays by [Mike] Wright again.
BB: Yes.
FS: He blocked the low kick at, what
was it, a 52-yard kick? And then he tackled the punter.
BB: That was really an alert
play there on the punt. We only had a couple guys rushing there, because we
were really watching for the fake because of their field position. Mike got off on the ball, really drove the offensive wing back, and then
when [Donnie] Jones fumbled it he was able to slip off the
block and make the play. So it was a heads-up play by Mike in taking
advantage of an opportunity there when Jones dropped the ball. The
kick was a little bit low that he blocked. [Olindo] Mare kind
of slipped on it a little bit; we've seen that out there before. Like we
talk about all the time, on the field goal rush you've got to get your
hands up. Every once in a while somebody's going to line-drive one. I
mean, that's just the way it is. If you get your hands up you have a
chance to block it; if you don't then it's going to sail over your head.
You can't block a kick in this league without getting your hands up.
PS: Interesting press conference yesterday with Tom Brady. I was actually worried today
that your car might be out in the parking lot without tires on it.
[Laughter]
BB: We had to call a truce on that,
Pete, because I'm telling you, this was escalating into almost the point of
nuclear war.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
BB: It was retaliation back and
forth. I thought we were going to have to have a peace treaty. So we had to
call it off.
GO: He filled his car up with packing peanuts?
BB: All the way up over the steering
wheel.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
GO: So, you do have the bye week this week. I understand that Seymour and the fellas pressed you for an extra day off this week. Is
that true?
BB: Yes. We were in the captain's
meeting there – I meet with the captains every week.
We talk about the gameplan and how we feel going in the game, if there are
any adjustments we need to make before the Friday practice, and so forth.
And right, Richard brought up maybe next week, the bye week,
if...because I told him what the schedule was going to be – we're going to practice on Wednesday and Thursday – and he said how about if we win, what if we practice Tuesday and
Wednesday? We talked about it a little bit and I said OK, that's a deal – if we beat Miami, we'll go Tuesday and
Wednesday instead of Wednesday and Thursday. So hey, if that had anything to
do with winning then I'm all for it.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
SD: It's amazing how just a single
extra day off will motivate a guy. Not that you need extra motivation;
there's plenty against Miami, but...
[Laughter and crosstalk]
FS: You're off till Monday, then?
BB: Well, no, we came in today and
met as a team, and the players will be in tomorrow, on Tuesday, and then on
Wednesday. Then we're going to take a break after Wednesday and come back
Monday and start up on kind of a normal week for Buffalo next Monday. So
they'll be off Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Four days off.
GO: You're doing an interesting thing this week, you were just
telling us, you're going to the Navy-Rutgers game back in Annapolis.
I remember you telling us the story about your sports book collection with
you and your dad going out seeking books. You were the cheap one, right?
BB: My dad starting
collecting them back in the '50s and '60s when he would go out scouting.
[He'd] get into the school on Friday afternoon, so he'd just start
hitting some old book stores and picking up old football books from the
'20s, '30s, '40s. He had a tremendous collection. Then as I got
older, I mean, I knew the books that he had and all, so I would occasionally
go into a bookstore and if I saw one that he didn't have, I'd pick it up.
But then you get in there and you see there are two or three pretty good
books, even though he's got them they're still good books – they're old, the price is right, so before we
knew it I was collecting them. So we just decided to consolidate and
put our collections together and give it to the Naval Academy. Other than the Library of Congress and the Pro Football
Hall of Fame, I think it will be the largest private football book
collection in the world.
GO: How many books?
BB: Close to a thousand.
[Crosstalk]
BB: Most of them are older. I'd say
the majority of them are pre-1970.
[Crosstalk]
GO: Time for the Eastern Mass. Volkswagen Dealers' Coach's
Question of The Week. Coach, Jason from Roxbury wants to know,
'What has been your most memorable football season and why?'
BB: Oh my god. Well, there are 5 that
jump out.
[Hosts: Obvious reasons, yes. (see here)]
BB: I mean, that 2001, that was
really special. You start out 1-3 and pretty much everybody is writing you
off, change quarterbacks and all that. Even going to the playoffs and still
not really be given a chance in any of the playoff games,
particularly the last one against St. Louis, so that was a great season. But
to me those seasons are kind of like your children. I have three children;
they're all special. Those five championship seasons – the two with the Giants and the three here – they're all special. None of them are the same.
In a way, none's any better than the other. They're all great.
GO: People probably ask you that question all the time.
BB: First time I got it.
GO: Oh, really? [Laughter] People want to think that there's
one that stands out, but if you've had a pretty eventful career...
[Crosstalk]
BB: Hopefully it'll be the next one.
GO: There you go, 'the next one.' Alright, there's your Eastern Mass. Volkswagen Dealers' Coach's Question of The Week.
Jason is now registered to win a trip for two to the pro football
championship in Miami – you know what that is. [Laughter and crosstalk] Stop
by your local Eastern Mass. Volkswagen Dealer or logon to WEEI.com to submit a question for the coach and then register for a trip to the big
game. Alright, bye week. Enjoy your trip down to Annapolis. We'll catch you
back here on Monday. A little bye week next week, we'll do it. Maybe you can
have the grass fixed by then. Can you do that?
[Crosstalk]
GO: We'll see you next week, Bill.
[Thank yous and good-byes.]
MP3 available in WEEI's Audio Vault |
|
