BB: We're buzzing right along here.
It seems like this week is going quick. I wish we had a little more time.
These guys, they do a lot of things. [They have] a lot of things to get ready
for. It's probably good that we have a little bit of experience playing
them. They have quite an extensive scheme. Anyway, we're on to some of our
situational stuff here later in the week. We're trying to utilize all of the
time that we have to be ready for this one.
Q: What type of dimension has
[Laurence] Maroney added to the offense this year?
BB: I think that Laurence has done a good job in all areas that he's
played in. There's still a lot of room for improvement. He's helped us in
the kicking game. He's helped us offensively in the passing game, the
running game, pass protection. I think he is able to do what we need him to
do.
Q: Yards after contact, where does he sort of fit in?
BB: I think that all of our backs have been pretty productive there. Laurence has, no question. Corey [Dillon]. Kevin [Faulk]. They've all gotten
some yards after contact. That's an important part for any player who has
the ball.
Q: How has he progressed in pass protection?
BB: Good. Good. He made a lot of progress in the spring camps and in
training camp I think that's probably where he made the biggest jump. Now
it's more of a question of a different look or some new adjustment in a
protection or something like that that we might make on a week-to-week
basis, but I mean just the basics to just picking up a linebacker, the 'Will'
linebacker in '60 protection,' that type of thing. The degree of difficulty,
you still have to block them, but I mean the degree of difficulty of those
kinds of plays is not what it is when teams start giving you different looks
and switching guys and bringing them from here and there and running pick
stunts and all of the stuff that goes with it. They're hard to pick up and
that's why they run them. That's experience and working together with the
guard, or the tackle, or the tight end, or whoever is involved in the
combination of the blitz pickup. Sometimes it's just not one-on-one.
Q: What has Maroney's addition allowed you to do in terms of options for Dillon, ways of using him differently, ways of resting him?
BB: We just run our offense. We don't really care who is in there. We
don't call plays based on, 'This guy is in there, we have to run that play.
That guy is in there, we're going to run this play.' No. We call the play,
whoever is in there runs it.
Q: Has it allowed you to use Dillon in different ways than you did last
year?
BB: No, I think he's doing the same things. Laurence is getting his share
of snaps. Kevin is getting his share of snaps. Corey is getting his share.
Again, we don't sit there in gameplan meetings and say, 'Well, last year we
ran these plays, but this year we're going to run these plays.' We just
haven't done that.
Q: Do you feel Corey is fresher now than he was at this time last year?
BB: You'd have to ask him.
Q: From what you've seen.
BB: Last year he had a couple of injuries through the course of the year.
This year he hasn't really had that. I think in January it's hard to call
anybody fresh that's been playing. I'd say ask him.
Q: What has Vinny Testaverde brought here in terms of leadership and a
veteran presence?
BB: I think just that. He hasn't played very much, and that's good. I
think he's prepared to play if he needs to play. He understands the offense
and has taken some reps in practice. He definitely gives us a good look,
along with Matt [Cassel], on the opposing quarterbacks. Vinny's job is to be
prepared and be ready to go, and thankfully we haven't needed him. That's
what his job is. That's what the most important thing is. Obviously he has a
lot of experience. He's well-respected. He's seen a lot of things. That's
good and that's part of his value to the team.
Q: Does he interact much with Tom Brady?
BB: Yes. I think all of the quarterbacks have a good relationship.
Obviously, they meet together. We meet together as a group — the
quarterbacks, with Josh [McDaniels] and myself, them independently and so
forth. That's just the chemistry, or the dynamics, within that room. I think
it's a positive. Vinny has a lot of things that he's seen and he can add,
but he's not coaching the team. He's trying to get ready to play, and that's
what we really need him for.
Q: Do you think Mike Wright playing a little bit more over the last
couple of weeks on the defensive line has bolstered the depth that you guys
have there?
BB: Well, it's given Mike a chance to play more inside than he has. Mike
has done a good job for us all year and he's played consistently from the
first preseason game. He's had playing time in every game and some games
more in the kicking game and less on defense. In some games, more on defense
and less in the kicking game. He's a versatile guy that's played different
spots for us on the defensive line. He's played different roles for us on
special teams. I think that he's going to get a certain number of plays each
week and for the most part he has been productive on those plays, in a lot
of different roles, whether it be regular, sub, nose tackle, kickoff return,
kickoff coverage, punt return. He's contributed in a lot of different ways.
Field goal.
Q: Obviously, you've had some moving parts on the defense. How much has
the play of the defensive line helped you guys out as Tully [Banta-Cain]
transitioned into being a starter or some of the things that you had change
in the secondary?
BB: I think, defensively, it always starts with the people on the line of
scrimmage. Without consistency on the defensive line, it's almost impossible
to have any consistency at the next two levels. That's where it starts.
Those guys play at a pretty good level. Not perfect. There are a lot of things
that they could do better. They have a competitive level of play and that
certainly helps the linebackers. If the linebackers can play with
consistency, that helps the defensive backs in terms of their pattern
matches and run force fits and things like that. If you don't know where the
guy in front of you is going, then you're never going to be in the right
place aggressively. You're going to be waiting to see where he goes and then
try to balance off your spacing and so forth. Whereas if you're confident
that he's going to be in a certain spot, then you can aggressively go where
you need to go or do what you need to do, whether it be covering a pattern,
or whether it be fitting in a run, or blitzing, or whatever the case might
be. It always works in layers. If you're not good on the front layer, then
you're not going to be as good as you could be on the second two.
Q: At this point, does this defensive line rank with anyone that you've
ever had?
BB: I don't know. Right now, we're just trying to see if we can play
competitively against the Jets. I'm not really worried about career
rankings.
Q: Does [Chad] Pennington's brain power and his ability to see things at
the line of scrimmage add another level of a cat-and-mouse that you don't
see most weeks?
BB: Yes, I think Chad does a great job of that. He's outstanding.
Managing the team. Managing the formations. Changing plays. Recognizing
defenses. Either changing plays or making adjustments to the plays that they
have called based on what the defense does, I think he's outstanding. One of
the best that we've played against.
Q: How do you see the special teams matching up?
BB: The Jets are always good on special teams. They're good again. They
do everything good. They haven't given up any long returns this year —
they're the only team in the league. Justin Miller is a Pro Bowl returner.
They have a great kickoff return. [Rashad] Washington has given them a lot
of plays on the punt return. They're a good punt rushing team. They're a
good field goal rushing team, as we saw. The field goal kicker is good.
[Mike] Nugent has made a lot of kicks. He's played very consistently. He's
made some big kicks for them. I think they're good on special teams. They
have good specialists. They have good core players. They're well coached.
They're tough. They don't make a lot of mistakes. They don't get a lot of
penalties on special teams. They're good at everything.
Q: Just going off of what happened last week with Pacman Jones, does Miller compare to Jones in terms of return style?
BB: Well I haven't seen Miller return any punts this year. He's really a
kickoff returner. Washington is the punt returner.
Q: How does Washington compare?
BB: Well, he's quick like Pacman. They both are guys shorter of stature,
stocky build, guys that are hard to tackle, hard to knock off their feet,
have good balance, have a lot of quickness, hard to get in space. It's
obviously a concern. They're both good. Miller is a fast guy that has a lot
of playing strength as a runner. He runs through a lot of tackles. You see
him break a lot of arm tackles. He certainly has the speed to get outside,
but at the same time, when people overplay the outside, he's strong enough
and aggressive enough to hit it up inside and run through a couple of arm
tackles and go the distance like he did against Cleveland. That was an
impressive return when he ran and about three guys had him and he just kind
of was strong enough to run through them. They were grabbing on his jersey
and trying to pull him down and all of that and he just ran through them. It
was an impressive run. And he's had a lot of them. He's had eight of them,
or whatever, for 40 yards [or more], however many it's been. It's been a
bunch of them. It seems like it's every other game.
Q: [Jerricho] Cotchery and [Laveranues] Coles have combined for over 50
percent of their passing yardage and their catches. Is it too simple to say
just stop those two and you stop their passing attack?
BB: Talk to Miami. They ran a shovel pass to Washington. They ran a
screen for 60 yards. Those are really two plays that led to a lot of points
in that game. [Chris] Baker is a good receiver. They use [Justin] McCareins.
They use [Brad] Smith. [Tim] Dwight earlier in the year before he got hurt. Pennington spreads it around. Certainly those guys are good. I'm not taking
anything away from them. They're outstanding. Stopping them is a lot easier
said than done. They move them around. They line them up in the backfield.
Sometimes they're outside. Sometimes they're inside. Sometimes they're on
the same side. Sometimes they're on the opposite side. Sometimes they're in
the slot. Sometimes they're the outside guy and somebody else is in the
slot. It's hard to find them. You just can't make a defensive call and say,
'Well, I know where Coles is going to be. I know where Cotchery is going to
be,' because you don't know where they're going to be. Once they come out
and line up, maybe you can make some adjustments, but they do a lot of
motioning, they shift and it forces a lot of communication. It's hard to
just say, 'Well, we're going to get this guy,' because you may not know
where he's going to be. They do a good job of that. They move those guys
around a lot. They have a good group of receivers. They have one of the best
groups of receivers and quarterbacks that we've faced all year. They're hard
to stop. The tight end, Baker, is a good player. Obviously they get a lot of
production out of the backs, especially you drop back and try to get depth
and take away the receivers, and Washington kills you. Like I said, talk to
Miami. He killed them.
Q: Do you see a lot of misdirection in the running game?
BB: They use a lot of reverses, or fake reverses, to complement their,
kind of, power running, off tackle type of plays and some of the zone plays.
They use Brad Smith, he's kind of a deceptive player, he's does everything.
He plays receiver. He plays running back. He's taken some snaps at
quarterback. But he's run reverses. He's run fake reverses. They've used Coles and Cotchery in some of those deceptive types of plays, too. They do a
good job of keeping you off balance. They're going to have two or three of
those every game and they're going to have a couple of new blitzes on
defense and they're going to have a couple of things on special teams, a new
punt rush or new field goal rush, or some type of adjustment in the return
game. What you've seen in the last couple of weeks doesn't necessarily mean
that's what you're going to get.
Q: What's the trick to keep these guys focused and away from outside
distractions at this time of the year?
BB: Not let the media in the locker room. [Laughter]
Q: [Laughter] Seriously.
BB: Seriously? This is what we've worked for all year. We've been at this
since the players started the offseason program at the end of March. Spring
camps, training camp, two-a-day practices, preseason games, a demanding
16-game regular season schedule, all to get to this point. So that's what
you do just to have the opportunity to be one of the 12 playoff teams, which
we are, one of the six in the AFC. You work that hard to get to this point,
then you'd like to think that that's when you really want to put your foot
on the gas and try to take advantage of the opportunity. There's no
guarantee that this opportunity will ever be here again, for any of us.
Everything is year-to-year. And obviously it's a one-game season. You can
have a bad game, a bad play or a bad series earlier in the year, in the
second, third, fourth game of the year, whatever. In the long run, it might
not make any difference. If you have one of those plays now, one of those
series now, one of those games now, and that's it. Everything is heightened.
It's more important. There's more attention to it. It's more critical. There
are no second chances.
Q: Do these guys do a good job of that on their own or do you have to get
up and kind of remind them of that every once and a while?
BB: I don't have to remind them that we are in the playoffs. I think that
everybody knows it's a one-game season. Certainly we talk about what's
important, what's critical, what we need to do to give ourselves the best
chance against the Jets, and each one of us has a job to do. I can't do
somebody else's job. Somebody else can't do my job. One player can't do
another player's job. They have to do their job, and they have to do it the
best they can and they have to do it at a level that's good enough to get
you to the next game. That's the way it is for every team that is playing
right now. So we're in the same boat. Whichever team plays the best, that's
the team that is going to move on. It's not about stats and records and last
week and last year or some other game or whatever. It's about who is going
to play better on Sunday. We talk about it, sure, but I think everybody is
aware of it as well, too.
Q: I think I saw a quote that Troy Brown epitomizes what you want in a
football player. Can you explain why?
BB: I'd say the three most important things for any football player, and Troy exemplifies them, is being well-prepared, which includes physical and
mental conditioning, working hard and putting the team first. Any player who
does that is a good team member. I don't care what position they play or how
many years they've been in the league or anything else. Players that are
tough, smart and dependable, which he is, those are the qualities that are
desirable for any player that a coach has on his team, especially this team.
Q: Is there something to be said for younger players getting to see that
everyday?
BB: Sure. I think every player on the team has an opportunity to be a
leader. Every player, each day, either comes to work prepared, ready to go,
works hard, or doesn't, and plays his role and puts the team first, or
doesn't, and the guys that do that on a consistent basis have the respect of
their teammates, their coaches and the organization. That shows positive
leadership. But it's no different than being in any other group. Pick out
any group that you want to belong to. If the person is prepared to do what
they're doing in that group, and they commit to the group ahead of
themselves, and they work hard at it, then I'm sure they will have the
respect of that group. That's the way it is with a football team. That's the
way it is with any other group, whether it's a church group, or a family, or
whatever it is. To me that's the fundamentals of leadership. It's not about
how many Pro Bowls you've been to, it's not about how many passes you've
caught or how many years you were All-American, or whatever. It's about what
you do on a daily basis in the community, or team, or group that you're a
part of. Troy is outstanding at that.
Q: How does being able to rotate Jarvis Green in improve your defense?
BB: I think anytime you can change up the style of play to your
opponents, that gives them some problems. It's different when we cover
different types of receivers or block different types of rushers or tackle
different types of runners. It's an adjustment that you have to make, and so
if you can do it and still maintain a good level of execution, then again,
that makes it harder for the offense to adjust to different players,
different styles of play and it certainly gives your team depth and quality
snaps through the course of the game, which it's a long game, it's a
physical game, especially on the defensive line. There are a lot of plays up
there and you can't really get around any of them. You look at a corner and
there might be six, eight, 10 plays that that corner is really involved in
in the game. Now, the ones that he's involved in probably make the
difference in the game, too. Whereas, on the defensive line and the offensive
line, there's not one play that they're really not a pretty significant part
of. Having a lot of players to do that and players that you have confidence
in, that are quality players, that's a big part it. That's a big part of the
game. Football is a physical game and a lot of it is won and lost on the
line of scrimmage. You want as many good players in those positions as you
can have.
Q: What kind of strides has he made playing inside?
BB: He's played both. He's been productive in both spots.
Q: Do you feel like he's made strides inside in particular this year?
BB: I think he's played well at both spots for a number of years. A few
years ago he had a lot of production inside against the Colts in the playoff
game. We've seen him do it before.
Q: You said yesterday that you have confidence in your kicker or he
wouldn't be on the roster. Is there a difference on when you would go for a
field goal with him? Is there a difference in range? Is there a difference
in how you would set up for a game-winning field goal for an untested kicker
like him?
BB: No, not this one.
Q: Why is that?
BB: Because I have confidence in him. So I think if I sent him out there
to do the job, he's going to do it. I can't talk hypothetically about if I
was a kicker how I would manage the game. I'm not the kicker, so I don't
know. Or, if you were the kicker, I couldn't tell you what I would do in
that situation because I haven't seen you kick. I'm just telling you that
the kickers that I have, I have confidence in Stephen [Gostkowski], whatever
the situation is that we would want to kick in, I have confidence that he
would kick well, kickoff, kick field goals, whatever his assignment would
be. I think he is a player that can do what we are going to ask him to do or
I wouldn't put him out there.
Q: In an end of the game situation, would it be a different consideration
for him than it would have been for Adam [Vinatieri]?
BB: No. I would say no. Definitely not. Whatever the situation is, if you
have confidence in your kicker, whoever that kicker is, put any name on the
guy that you want — Nugent, Gostkowski, pick a
guy, whoever you want — if you have confidence in that player and the
situation and that role comes up for that player to perform in, then you put
him in there and he does his job. That's what the situation calls for. Maybe
I'm missing something here, I don't know.
Q: I'm just wondering if you would send Adam out to kick a 50-yarder,
maybe you wouldn't attempt it with this kid who hasn't made a game-winning
field goal. Maybe your strategy would be different at the end of the game
and maybe get him closer.
BB: So why wouldn't you get closer no matter who your kicker was? Do you
think we want to kick a 50 yard field goal with kicker 'A' and kick a 30
yarder with kicker 'B'? I'd rather be on the 30 yard line regardless.
Q: But it might change your play-calling at the end of a game.
BB: Look, we are trying to make plays regardless of who the kicker is. We
are trying to get the ball as close to the goal line as possible in that
situation. I don't care who the kicker is. It could be Lou Groza. It could
be Bert Rechichar. I don't care who it is. You're trying to win the game.
You're trying to get the ball as close to the goal line as you can and raise
the percentages for whoever you have to kick it. I don't know. I must be
missing something. I'm sorry. |
