Glenn Ordway: Back here on the Big Show, it is Patriots Monday and time for Coffee With the Coach, brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts. And we welcome in, as we do each and every Monday as we have for now 14 victories, the coach of the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick. Congratulations.
Bill Belichick: Don't forget the two preseason ones, Glenn.
[Laughter]
GO: You sound like Mercury Morris now.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
Steve DeOssie: Just a quick quiz – who are the two teams you beat in the preseason?
BB: Well, we beat the Giants…
SD: Oh…I thought you might forget.
GO: We were trying to figure that out when Mercury Morris was making a big deal about that. We didn't even remember what the preseason record was. Do you remember that? Mercury didn't either. He was trying to include that as the differential of why the 14-0 would be just as significant as 16-0. He said, 'We both played 20 games.' [Laughter] Yeah, but what was the record in those other games?
BB: I do remember after they went 17-0, that was one of their comments, was, 'Next year, like what could you do better?' 'Well, next year we could win all our preseason games.' [Laughter]
GO: How did the conditions play into that game, and did it change the way you guys coached the game and strategized for the game?
BB: Well, I think it had a little bit of an effect in the kicking game, Glenn. When we won the toss, we elected to receive. And then at halftime, when the Jets took the ball, we elected to kick into the wind so we would have the wind in the fourth quarter, when I thought that there might be a little more passing and/or kicking. So that affected it a little bit. It was, I think, more the rain and the moisture affected the field, the ball and all that, than the wind did in the passing game. I think the wind had a little bit of an affect in the kicking game. I think maybe we saw that on [Mike] Nugent's last field goal attempt and maybe on some of the kickoffs headed in that direction. We didn't really eliminate a lot of things from our game plan – maybe five, ten percent – but most of it we just went with what we had. There were some things that we wouldn't have called going in one direction or the other.
Fred Smerlas: Now, was some of it limited because you had no tight ends? You had the free agent that was signed last week…
BB: Right. We ran into a little bit of a tight end problem there when Kyle [Brady] was in and out for a little while and then he finally didn't come back in. So Steve [Spach] was working at tight end there and we were having to work around that – Wes Britt – in some of our two tight end stuff. So actually that was more of an adjustment to our game than the weather, as it turned out.
FS: Is that the first time… because you love two tight end sets and sometimes three tight ends, and didn't have that mismatch out there to – especially in that bad weather when you have [Benjamin] Watson who's a big target.
BB: We've used that, I think, with pretty good production against the Jets in previous games. But that's the way it goes, and we felt confident with the players we had out there on the field. There were some things that we could have done better, and the Jets, they did a good job of defending us.
SD: They were going back and forth with all of the movement on the defensive line – one or two defensive linemen, one or two down linemen. Did that dictate the amount of runs that you had?
BB: I think, Steve, it made it a little bit easier to run the ball with some of those guys standing up in a two-point stance and walking around. I thought that there in the first quarter when we…I think the Jets only ran seven or eight plays in that first quarter – and they had the wind. So we had the first drive, and then the second drive, and we ate up a lot of clock in that first quarter, and a lot of that was the running game. And as we put in the more receivers, they matched us with multiple defensive backs and took out some defensive linemen, so we thought that the running numbers would be advantageous to us. I thought we ran the ball overall with decent success. It could have been better, but it was alright.
Pete Sheppard: I thought when [Brad] Smith came in [and] they got that one option play off, big game. But after that, every time you came in they basically did nothing. Were you guys prepared to see him at all this week, or did throw you off a bit?
BB: Sure. Yes, Pete, we worked pretty extensively on that. And even the first play, we were right there. We just didn't play very well. And [Leon] Washington hit the seam. But I thought that we defended it very well. The problem was that Smith broke some tackles, and he had a couple 5-, 6-yard gains when, really, it looked like we had him behind the line of scrimmage. He was an elusive guy and we missed some tackles on him, but I thought overall we played the responsibilities pretty good. We just have to get him on the ground quicker.
GO: Did that present any problems, Bill, in that they go from a gimmick quarterback to a dink-and-dunk guy and they were just changing at hands? Did that cause any confusion out there?
BB: No, not really because once Smith was in the game at quarterback, I think it really limited what they could do. I mean, they hand the ball off, they run the option… It was a tough day to pitch the ball, with the conditions and all. They fumbled a couple of them, so that slowed them down. I think it's hard to run the option in this league; there's just not enough threat in the passing game and it's just too hard to block. It's not like college – you don't have the wide side of the field, there's just not enough space and it's hard to move those linemen, and the linebackers are a lot faster. I think it's just a tough offense to run at this level.
FS: When [Chad] Pennington came in… He's a guy that reads defenses well – usually makes good decisions. He had a pretty good day passing. And that was a surprise because he doesn't have a lot of velocity on the ball. Watching the game, he made a lot of the right pickups on the blitzes, he made a few real pinpoint passes. How was he so effective throwing the ball in that weather?
BB: Well, I think that's Chad's game. He's kind of a possession passer, although he'll take a few shots down the field, but he gets it out of there quick. He sees the defense well; he's a smart kid. He sees an opening, he throws it in there. We thought we had couple chances to maybe pick a couple off; we had our hands on a couple balls. But that's his game. And it was a spread game – he tried to spread us out and get the ball in some of those shorter, underneath areas. Or a couple times when we were in man coverage, try to matchup [Chris] Baker or [Jerricho] Cotchery in the underneath zones. Kind of the same thing they did in the first game, where they spread us out and put [Laveranues] Coles and Cotchery inside. This time it was a little bit more Cotchery and Washington and Baker. So, a similar idea. We had seen that in the earlier games.
FS: When he came out and was effective like that, were you surprised they put Smith back in? It seems like when a quarterback gets in a groove…
BB: It's unusual. I can't think of too many games that I've coached where a quarterback comes in for a couple plays and then the other guy comes in for a couple plays – rotating quarterbacks. You don't see that very often in the National Football League.
GO: Kordell [Stewart], when he was first breaking in in Pittsburgh, didn't they do that with him?
BB: But they usually spotted him in, Glenn. Like in for a play, and then get him out of there, and then in for another play, as opposed to running a series of plays.
FS: Because rhythm is important with the quarterback. It seemed like he was getting into it, because he was effective hitting short stuff. And like you said, we almost had a couple INTs. But he's a guy that [when he] gets in a groove, he's tough to stop.
BB: He was. Chad's done a good job of that throughout his career. He's a smart guy. He doesn't, maybe, have the strongest arm in the league, but he can get the ball outside and he sees defenses well, and he usually puts it in the right spot. As I said, I thought we had a couple chances yesterday to get our hands on the ball and we just couldn't quite hang on to it. Those would have been big plays. But in the end, I thought that the best thing about the game, two best things about the game, were Kelley Washington and the blocked punt, and defensively just giving up three points. Any time you can hold an offense to three points in this league, you've got to feel good about your defense.
PS: Is this the most complete game that you've seen Richard Seymour play all season, was against the Jets?
BB: I thought Richard had some big plays. He certainly had some big plays in the game. I think that as he's been playing each week a little bit more, and against different style offenses, that his game is coming around. Like it should, after seven or eight games. That's what training camp is for and that's what preseason games are for, and what we say 'midseason form' after four or five regular season games and all that preseason practice, that's about where a player is and that's about where Richard is now after whatever it's been, seven or eight regular season games plus the regular season practices. I think that he's coming into about where he would be in what we could call 'midseason form' here at the end of the year.
FS: How the heck does Junior [Seau] keep doing it? I mean, the guy plays with the amount of energy…
BB: He's amazing, isn't he?
FS: He had to come flying, he made a couple nice reads… I don't know what he read was as far as coverage goes, but he comes flying in there, finds a nice gap, still has the energy, out there pumping his fist. What is he? He's older than DeOssie.
[Laughter]
BB: Yeah. One thing about Junior, when he sees an opening, he can hit it. He's got a good burst and acceleration. He can still really knife through those openings. He has good instincts for getting to the ball. Does a good job in man-to-man coverage; he gets up in the line and sometimes he blitzes, sometimes he drops, sometimes he switches with another linebacker like [Mike] Vrabel or Adalius [Thomas] and he does a good job of kind of confusing the offensive line up there, or making them block him when he has coverage so somebody else has a better rush.
GO: You talked about limiting the Jets to, their offense, to three points. Red zone defense, something we've talked a lot about this season, once again was very, very good. What has happened in the last few weeks here, do you think, to tighten up that red zone defense? What are they doing differently?
BB: [Laughing] I wish I could say I knew for sure what it was, Glenn, or we would have done it ten weeks ago. But, it just looks like we're playing better. First thing is, we're not letting them run the ball in. That's the number one thing. Any time a team can hand the ball off and run it into the end zone, they don't need to do anything else! But the plays that hurt us the most in the red area were third down. We've given up a lot of third down touchdowns – third-and-sevens, third-and-eights. Going back to the Dallas game – well, all year, really – where we get teams in third down in the red area and they not only convert the third down but a lot of times score. We felt like if we could just make that play on third down, then that was really the difference of getting a stop or not getting it. Now, like I said, in the Baltimore game where [Willis] McGahee took the ball on the 17-yard line and just pranced into the end zone, that's just bad run defense and you can't do that. You've got to make them throw the ball down there if they can run it in, like I said, there's no need to call any other plays. But third down has kind of been our Achilles heel in the red area.
SD: With your playoff positioning settled for the year, how does that affect the approach to the next two games?
BB: I don't think it really does, Steve. I think we'll do the same thing we normally do in terms of the scouting report, game plan, practice. And I think that we'll do what we always do – or I always do – which is to do what I feel like is best for our football team. And I can't tell you exactly what that is in every situation, and I don't even know what all the situations are, but in the end, whatever we do, it will be what we think's best for our football team. But we're going to prepare and practice and get ready for the Dolphins just like we did last week for the Jets.
GO: As far as playing time, obviously based on the score, is it a little bit different in that you know that you're off that first week? If those guys don't play a lot of minutes in the next couple of weeks, they're off for a week.
BB: I really wouldn't look at it like that, Glenn. I think what we need to do is we need to get our team playing as well as it can at this time of year, period. We've got big games coming up and we need to be at our best. So whatever puts us there, that's what I'm for.
FS: Coach, I want to ask you a question. You were talking about the decisions [Tom] Brady made, and there was one play where [Randy] Moss was open and it looked like he had the safety on him man-to-man – I don't know what the coverage was – and Brady opted to go to him instead of [Donté] Stallworth.
PS: [Kevin] Faulk was open.
FS: And Faulk was open underneath [inaudible]. But he saw that – who, was Randy, I mean, you watched the play – was it Randy had the safety helping him and the corner dropped him? Because it looked like he…
BB: I think the play you're referring was down in the end zone by the light house?
Hosts: Yes.
BB: Right. They ran a blitz zone – they brought two guys from the outside, rushed five. They were in what we call 'blitz zone two,' so they were four under and two deep. I think Tom saw Randy down there on the safety, on [Eric] Smith, and any time you put a safety on Moss in the deep part of the field, my money's on Moss.
Hosts: Yeah.
BB: So it's hard to say, 'Well, you shouldn't throw it down there.' We've seen plenty of times where Randy's gone up and taken the ball away from a defender for a big play; and that's really, I don't think, a low-percentage throw. On the other hand, as you said, there were a couple other guys that weren't covered as tightly as Randy was, and I'm sure that Tom, in looking at the film, and as we go over it with him, that there are always plays that you could say, 'Well, [we] could have done something else on this play instead of that.' But it would be hard for me to second-guess Tom for throwing down the field to Randy when he's got a safety on him one-on-one. I think that Randy's going to come up with a lot more of those than the safety is, and a lot of times those guys have to interfere just to break it up. So I think that's probably what Tom's thinking was and I can't really fault him on that. If we pass up all those opportunities then there would be a lot of times where we would not get the ball down the field to Moss that we probably should.
FS: Well, that's pretty much what you've been doing all season. But you alluded to the fact that the weight of the ball was probably a factor, because it was getting wet as opposed to snow, where the ball relatively stays the same weight. And that would cause some of the throws to be long or short. Did he have trouble with the ball getting saturated or hard?
BB: I don't know, I think they do a pretty good job of getting those balls in and out. But of course by the end of the game I'm sure they're a little bit damp. But you'd have to ask Tom about that. I'll tell you, he's thrown a lot of balls. We throw a lot of balls in practice. I can't imagine that a little moisture on the ball would…
[Crosstalk and joking around]
SD: How has the linebacker rotation worked out since [Rosevelt] Colvin's been down? I saw [Pierre] Woods got a little bit of time and [Eric] Alexander got a little bit of time yesterday.
BB: For the most part, it just was those four guys – as long as we had four linebackers in the game. Then when we had three, then that changes the rotation a little bit, where sometimes it's Junior or Tedy [Bruschi] in some of our sub coverages or where Adalius can either come up on the line or be off the line of scrimmage and we have kind of a 4-for-3 rotation. But when we're in a 3-4, it's pretty much those four guys. And Pierre backs us up outside with Chad Brown and Eric Alexander gives us some depth inside, along with Adalius who could also come back inside if one of the other guys plays on the outside. So we've got a little bit of depth there, but not quite the same rotation we had with Colvin. It would be good to have Rosie out there, but of course we don't, so we'll have to go with what we have.
FS: Do you think Adalius's best position is middle or outside? It looks like he's effective at times but not as crafty as Vrabel or Rosie as far as body-lean and using his hands; but he does have speed-size combination more for the middle, maybe.
BB: He does, Fred. He's got speed and he's got a lot of power. He's a big, physical player. So I think he can use that to his advantage inside or outside. He's been productive for us in a lot of different ways. I thought yesterday he had some outstanding plays. Of course the strip on Baker was big, he ran down a couple guys outside and showed his speed and acceleration on the perimeter making tackles down the field. He was good in coverage; he had one real good jam on [Justin] McCareins and nailed Washington on a short pass. So he's good in coverage, he's a pretty good rusher, he's physical, he's a physical tackler. He had a couple good tackles and good hits where he knocked the runner back, so you like to see that; we like to play him that way. I think he can do a lot of things – I don't think he needs to play one place or the other. I think it gives our defense some flexibility when we can move him around a little bit and blitz him from different spots.
PS: I know it would be tough for him to crack the lineup right now [and] I know the tremendous amount of respect you have for Troy Brown. Is it possible we might see him activated and playing a game…
FS: Maybe tight end!
PS: Well, somewhere, either against Miami or the Giants?
BB: Well, Troy is part of the 53-man roster, so he certainly can be activated. As we do every week, Pete, we'll do what we feel like is best for our football team, that gives us the best chance to beat Miami. All 53 guys are in that mix. And we'll decide at game time, or closer to game time, what we feel like those best combinations are. But there are certainly things Troy could do to help us. Just like if we could activate all 53 players, as I think I've said before, all 53 would play, except for maybe the backup quarterback so long as nothing went wrong there. But they would all play – they wouldn't just be there and dress but not play. We could use a lot of the players that were inactive had they been healthy yesterday – like Watson, like Troy Brown. All those guys.
GO: You mentioned earlier about how you had to change the game plan a little bit when Kyle Brady went down and – it's pronounced 'Spock,' right?
BB: Yes.
[Crosstalk and joking around]
GO: A two-part question with Spach: were you forced to have him more as an inline blocker, first of all, and second of all, tell us a little bit about him, because he played a lot yesterday – [Laughter] we saw him a lot out there on the field…
FS: Who is that guy?
GO: We have no idea who he is!
BB: Well, Steve played at Fresno State for Pat Hill and we knew about him when he was coming out. We've had some depth at tight end…and I think when he came out he wasn't drafted and he originally signed with Philadelphia, has been with a couple of teams. But just doing him in college and kind of keeping tabs on him through the Pat Hill connection and Pat running an offense that's similar to ours. Some of the things that Steve did out there we felt like he could do for us. But again, at that time we had guys like [Daniel] Graham, and we had drafted [Dave] Thomas and [Garrett] Mills, and of course we had Watson, so we had some depth at that position. But anyway he's a tough kid, physical, good blocker. Has some versatility – has played in the kicking game, has played on the line, off the line. And is smart – has enough experience in the league and has been in a system where he was able to come in and spend a lot of time with Coach Mangurian during the week and really was thrust into a role where he played over 30 plays, and we didn't expect him to play that much – of course neither did he – but he handled himself well. So that was a real credit to him. I think he'll be a lot further along this week and we hope – nothing against him – but we hope that our other players are healthy and he won't have to play as much. But if he does, I'm sure that he'll be better prepared this week than he was last week.
GO: So you don't foresee this tight end situation being a long-term problem for you? Shortage at that position.
BB: We'll take it day by day. We'll see how it comes out. We hope not.
SD: Did we see an extra tackle in there, too? Was it Wesley Britt that was in there, too?
BB: Yes. Wes played the tight end and the two tight end sets. Yes.
[Inaudible crosstalk]
BB: No, it wasn't really unbalanced, it was two tight ends. So we went into the game, really, with three tight ends – Kyle, Steve and Wes. And then we ended up with playing the better part of the game with two, being Steve and Wes.
FS: Now with Spach: when you guys called him, did he think it was a friend of his joking, 'The Patriots are calling'? Because, how long was he out?
BB: Well, we've talked to him. We kind of keep in touch with the players we feel like are the first or second guys on our emergency list if something were to happen. So we had been in contact with him. And again, we have a – even though he hasn't been here – we have a little bit of a relationship with him going back to when he came out of Fresno State a couple years ago.
FS: How long has it been since he played?
BB: Well, he was in camp this year, but he's been in the league…I think this is his third year.
GO: Kelley Washington on the blocked punt: it was interesting, he was talking about the fact that left-handed punters, he always believes that he's got that extra advantage in that situation. But his spin move on the edge was really what got him there so quickly.
BB: It was a tremendous individual effort.
GO: [Laughing] That was a great move.
BB: Yeah, he got [Abram] Elam…he started up inside and then beat Elam on the edge and threw his hand up just at the right time. It was a great individual effort by Kelley. And Elam is a 6-foot, 190, whatever he is, kind of guy, 195, and Kelley's longer and has a longer reach and was just able to slip by him and get his hand up there. It was tremendous timing on the play. Kind of similar to what happened to us when Chris [Hanson] bobbled the snap and we didn't do quite a good enough job on the protection. Same thing happened on the Jets, although they didn't bobble a snap, but the protection wasn't quite good enough, and it ended up going the other way.
FS: What's the normal time between snap and kick? One-point…
BB: Yeah, 1.9, two seconds.
FS: Did you time that one that he blocked? Was it any shorter? That Kelley blocked. When after the game…
BB: I think…yeah, I think it was about normal. I didn't think it was slow.
SD: Was that basically all zone? He was the one forcing the punts?
BB: Yeah, just a one-man rush.
SD: It wasn't…
BB: No, we had a return on.
SD: Right, and he has the liberty to take it on himself just to force the punts?
BB: Well, exactly. That's what we want to do is have one person forcing the punt so if the punter does bobble the ball or so that he doesn't pull it down and run it, not that that was a real running situation, but just to kind of force the punter to get it out of there on time. He was able to slip the block… and as you know, when the fullback's trying to get out of there early and go cover, then if you beat one blocker then you got it; if the fullback stays in, then he kind of backs up the protection. And like I said, a similar thing happened to us on our blocked punt where we were trying to get the fullback out on the coverage and then [David] Bowens slipped through us inside, and…
PS: Would you have liked to have seen Hanson run in that situation, as opposed to trying to keep it?
BB: No, I don't think so.
PS: Just go down, maybe? Or…anything but what he did, is what I'm trying to say.
BB: No, I think that…certainly he could have caught the ball and got it off a little bit cleaner, but there was a protection breakdown there – Bowens shouldn't have been in there nearly as fast as he was in there. We didn't really hit him at all. Had we slowed him up at all, I think Hanson would have got it off. I can't really fault Chris on that; I think he did the right thing. If every time we bobbled a ball we pulled it down and ran with it, there's probably nine times out of ten you'd be able to get that off. And we should have got it off. It was really more of a protection breakdown. Even if he had caught it cleanly it would have been a problem.
PS: He had another great punt though later in the game – into the wind, it was about a 46-yarder that was…at the time it was still a close game and he blasted one into the wind.
BB: It was a big kick and that was the one Washington muffed, which, he's done some of that before and unfortunately we weren't able to get on it. And then the last punt was, I thought, also a good one too, where we had him kick the ball out of bounds away from Washington – we didn't want him to return it – and got about 35 yards of field position. I thought that was another heads-up play, too.
PS: And the first one, when Willie Andrews downed…that was a good punt.
BB: Excellent.
PS: Willie and Washington combined to down it and that led to your first touchdown.
BB: Right. That was another good situation where we were punting into the wind. Chris got the ball up in the air pretty good and I think the wind kind of beat it back a little bit and stopped there inside the goal line, gave Willie a chance to tip it back to Kelley. So that was a good field position play, led to the first touchdown. So there were some…we had two or three real good plays in the kicking game. And then we had a couple that weren't so good – the kickoff return, of course, and the blocked punt.
GO: Alright, let's get to this week's game. Game 15 on the regular season schedule, it's the Miami Dolphins. And they are partying today in Miami because they came up with a big win, a bizarre finish to that ballgame yesterday. But I have to get to Jason Taylor because he's a guy – and we know he's a great player, a future Hall of Famer and all of that – but he's a guy that seems to been able to get to Tom Brady an awful lot. And Brady was talking about it this morning. He's that one guy that just for some reason – and we all know he's great – but what is it that over the years he's just seemed to change up what Tom does back there?
BB: Well, he's one of the best players in the league, Glenn. He was the Defensive Player of the Year last year. I think it would be hard for a front seven guy to be the Defensive Player of the Year if he couldn't get to the quarterback and make some disruptive plays. But I think that Jason has been part of a very good defense down there in Miami for a number of years. And he's an outstanding player, don't get me wrong. I'm not taking anything away from him at all. But when you put together the group that's been down there – the Surtains, the Madisons, the Zach Thomases, guys like that through the years that have been so disruptive. They make you hold the ball, they play tight man-to-man coverage – they've been a man coverage team since Jimmy Johnson went down there – and the quarterback has to hold the ball for a split-second longer and then that gives Taylor a chance to get around the edge. And they do a good job on that. So certainly a big part of it's him, part of it's been that the defensive unit that he's been with [has] been a very good one through the years.
FS: Part of it's you play them twice a year. Who leads the sacks? [Aaron] Schobel has more sacks than anyone in the NFL against the Patriots. You know, you play them twice a year.
BB: He does a lot of damage. And he's a guy, absolutely, that we have to game plan for. I mean, we have to know where Taylor is on every snap. And we don't say that about every player every week. There are some guys you have to… Ed Reed, you have to know where he is; Jason Taylor, you have to know where he is; Schobel, you have to know where he is. You have to game plan for Jason Taylor. You just don't want to let him go wherever he wants and say, 'Well, whoever's got him has got him, we don't care.' We do care.
PS: You guys did a pretty good job though in the first game keeping him… except he picked off [Matt] Cassel, right, in the game?
BB: Yeah, he picked it off and ran it back for a touchdown.
PS: Besides that, I thought you guys were…
BB: Besides that?!
PS: For the first time in a while, though, you didn't hear his name a lot in that first game.
BB: Right. Right. And that was good. I think that our offensive line and tight ends and quarterbacks and receivers, I mean, we're very aware of him. Fortunately, he didn't do too much damage, but I don't think that's really any indication of how it's going to go the next time we play them. We'll just have to pay as much attention to him, if not more, this time. I think the play he made there before the half, he almost blocked a kick last week against the Jets. It was late in the game, the score was heavily in the Jets favor and he almost got one. And then he got one right before the half yesterday when it was like 13-3 or something like that. It would have padded the lead right before the half and it was another great effort by Taylor. He's a guy that's long, he's lanky, he's sort of hard to… he's got a long reach but he's deceptively explosive for his… as tall and linear as he looks, he's a very powerful and explosive player. He can get under you and he can rock those tackles and everybody else. So, he's got a good set of skills. He plays hard and he's smart.
FS: Do they run a little bit different… you talked about more of a coverage team as opposed to an attack, blitzing team…
BB: Well, they'll blitz but they like to play a lot of two-deep man – play man under with two safeties behind – and that gives all the underneath man guys a chance to really play those receivers aggressively because they all have deep help. And when there's only one deep safety, unless it's Ed Reed, if there's only one deep safety then the guys on the perimeter really don't get too much help because the safety's just too far away from them. But when you play two deep safeties, then really everybody that's in man-to-man coverage underneath has help behind them and they can get up there and play those receivers aggressively because the quarterback has to put enough air on the ball that those deep guys should have a chance to get there and break it up.
GO: Alright, here's our MVP Volkswagen Dealers' Coach's Question of the Week. Right now your seven MVP VW dealers can slide you into a new '08 VW with no money down, no down payment, no first month, no security, and zero due at signing. Just sign and drive. But eventually you do have to pay.
BB: [Laughter]
GO: Coach, this is from George in Middleborough. He asks, 'It appears that Tom Brady can audible and change an offensive play. Who is generally the defensive signal caller and does he have the ability to change a defensive scheme?'
BB: The defensive 'checks,' as we refer to them, are based on game plan, so there are things we want to change depending on what the offense lines up in. For example, if we have a certain coverage called and they give us a formation – say an empty backfield where there's nobody back there but the quarterback – we might not want to play some of our defenses where we don't really anticipate that the way they're going to line up. And then when they line up in that formation, we 'check' to a certain defense. Or sometimes a team lines up with all their receivers on one side of the formation – all two or all three of them over there – and that puts us into a certain defense. So usually those 'checks' are handled by the safety and he coordinates the secondary. And the safety and the linebacker have to be on the same page, or they relay the call to each other and then the linebacker coordinates the linebacker coverage and the front. So it's usually a two-part communication – one from the safety to the rest of the secondary and one from the linebacker to the other linebackers and to the linemen, because sometimes that affects them.
PS: Is that usually Tedy and Rodney [Harrison]?
BB: Or Junior. Could be James Sanders because a lot of times Rodney's playing down at the linebacker level in our sub defense. It depends on what defense we're in, but it's a safety and a linebacker based on the configuration. It's just hard for a linebacker to get the signals to the secondary – he has to turn around and signal them. And it's hard for the secondary to get all the calls up front because they're too far away. And the defensive line, you can't signal to them, you have to verbally tell them, 'Slide right,' or 'Slide left,' or we're running a certain blitz, whatever it is: 'We're running Jet blitz,' or, 'We're running Bear blitz,' or Dolphin blitz or whatever it is. So you have to I that to them; they can't turn around and see it either.
FS: Because generally you'd have the nose tackle, because he's probably the smartest player that recognizes…
SD: Right. Yeah, that's what we do.
GO: I don't think so.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
SD: But I remember you telling me in '89 that I could audible if I saw something. I thought you were like kidding with me or testing me… Why would he actually ask me if… I'm looking around with Pepper Johnson, Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks, you know, all these great players, and I'm thinking to myself why in the world would I even say 'Boo!' let alone… I don't even want anyone to notice I snuck my way in here, let alone…'
[Laughter and crosstalk]
BB: I'll say this, now: there are certain things in each defensive call that we have some flexibility on. Like, for example, to move the line, or maybe we could change a coverage where the corner's up instead of the safety, or the safety's up instead of the corner. And when you make that call defensively from the sideline, when Dean [Pees] makes that call to the defense, a lot of times you don't know what it's going to look like when they come out of the huddle and line up. And a smart defensive football player that can see that this is going to be a run – he can tell by the lineman's stance or just the way that the offense looks this is going to be a run – he could then help the line play that run better. Or if it's a pass, vice versa, get us into a little bit more of a pass rush mode or maybe a pass rush game. So there is some flexibility out there but those are kind of adjustments that are built in to the defense. As far as actually changing a defense goes, that would be something that would be game planned, and unless we had a blitz called and the offense changed their formation dramatically, we'd want to check out of it. But for the most part we wouldn't do that.
GO: Got a question for Freddy…
BB: You know, I have a question for all four of you and it's one that I'm not going to get involved with; I just want to hear your answer.
[Crosstalk and joking around]
BB: My question's easy: Pennington or [Kellen] Clemens?
[A lengthy discussion amongst the hosts ensues.]
FS: Coach, did you see what they're saying in the newspaper now? You smiled after the game and now it's 'the softer side of Belichick.' Isn't it amazing how things change?
BB: You're only as good as your last handshake.
PS: They timed it: 14.7 seconds across the field with a smile on your face.
GO: I was going to say… we would give you a group hug today but you seemed to get a lot of love yesterday after that game. Not needed here, apparently. Pretty impressive. If you'd like to ask the coach a question, swing by your local MVP Volkswagen dealers, like Southshore VW there in Hanover, VW Gallery in Norwood, be sure to ask about the 'Nothing down, sign and drive.' See mvpvw.com for more. Coach is going to be on the next couple of weeks on The Real Post-Game Show with you guys… I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas. Good luck in the game come next week and the next couple of weeks, and I'll be talking to you in a couple of weeks.
[Crosstalk]
BB: Talk to you next Sunday night.
GO: Thanks, Bill. Congratulations.
Transcribed by the webmaster.
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