GO: Back here on The Big Show down here at Gillette Stadium, it is indeed Patriots Monday. It's time for Coffee With the Coach; it's all brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts. America runs on Dunkin'. … Well, congratulations Bill Belichick. Nice win yesterday in Indy.
BB: Thank you, Glenn. Thank you. Steve, Fred, Pete, how's it going?
PS: Emotionally drained from last night.
BB: Oh, you and me both. Down by ten, in Indy…ten minutes to go in the game. Boy.
GO: Let's start at the beginning of this one, because – and we were talking about this before you got down here – that kind of both teams showed stuff that we never expected. Now you came out, showed a lot of nickel package. You were doing some different things with your personnel defensively – because of the fear of their quickness in their passing game, is that why you came out with five DBs?
BB: Well, we basically matched Rodney [Harrison] up on Dallas Clark. I think that was a good matchup for us. He only caught really the one pass, and we were in a zone coverage on that so Rodney wasn't completely on him there, it was Cover 2.
[Hosts banter]
BB: So we just thought that was a key matchup for us. Clark plays in the slot a lot. So that was nickel, not nickel, whatever you want to call it. But Clark's flexed out so much it really isn't, there really wasn't a lot of tight formations with him. A couple, but not too many. So that was good. And of course the Colts play a lot of nickel against us because we play a lot of multiple receivers, and that's probably what we expected.
GO: Did you guys have trouble making the quick passes early, because you were getting a lot of penetration from their ends, from both [Dwight] Freeney and [Robert] Mathis?
BB: Oh, no. I wouldn't say…
GO: Because of single coverage over the middle? I heard [Tom] Brady talking about this this morning and he said he couldn't get rid of the ball quickly enough because although they were playing a Cover 2 over the middle. He talked about the Mike coming right up and playing single coverage.
BB: Right. Well, if we just talk about the first half – and you said early in the game so you're talking about the first half.
GO: Yeah.
BB: The first drive, we go three-and-out. We get sacked on the first play and so then we're out. The next drive, we go whatever it was, 14 plays, 64 or however many yards. And then the next drive, we take the ball and go another ten or eleven plays, whatever it was, go the length of the field, get a tripping penalty, and then throw an interception. So that's the first half. So other than the first drive, I thought we moved the ball. We ran the ball, we converted third downs. Now, we came out in the third quarter and went three-and-out to start and then we got an interception and weren't able to…that was another penalty. So we hurt ourselves with some penalties, and they mixed some coverages on us – they're a good defensive football team. They rush the passer well and they mix some coverages. So I don't think it was any one thing; I think it was a combination of penalties and a little bit of mix by the Colts and good defense.
FS: Go back to the defense for a second. You went with four down linemen, sometimes linebackers mixed in for the pass rush. Weakens you once they get through that line because obviously you have smaller guys, not linebackers. But you're able to get more pressure with the four-man line and not blitz, correct? So the weakness of that whole thing was it's basically a nickel and you're missing a linebacker. So on the fills you're not going to get a bigger guy coming through to hit the running backs.
BB: Right. Basically what we tried to do, because the Colts are such a big zone team…they hurt us in the first half with a couple of outside runs that we didn't play particularly well, and a couple of them we missed some tackles when [Joseph] Addai cut back, but I thought in the second half we did a much better job on that. They only had about 30-some yards rushing. I thought the running game was pretty solid, and they threw for whatever it was, eighty yards. So they had about a hundred yards total offense in the second half which, against the Colts you have to take it. You'd like for it to have been less and not to have given up that touchdown, but overall that's pretty competitive. So I think that some of the problems we had in the first half based on coaching and missed tackles and a couple alignment things, we kind of got those straightened out and it was much better in the second half.
SD: Was the Addai touchdown in the second half, was that as simple as poor tackling?
BB: That had a lot to do with it, poor tackling and leverage. I mean, give up a 70-yard touchdown on a three-yard check-down is just…
[Laughter]
FS: Go back to what you said about the second half. It looked like they were getting a lot more pressure, getting upfield. They didn't change anything, it was just strictly guys seemed to be getting off the ball. You had the outside linebackers getting nice pressure, penetration by [Richard] Seymour a couple times killing the guard on the tackle call. Was it just the guys getting off the ball better? It looked like they were getting more penetration into the backfield than they were previously in the first half.
BB: Well, I think that we got a couple pressures and we got a sack from [Mike] Vrabel on the outside on a one-man blitz. And then those last couple drives, I think that Indianapolis was more in a throwing situation. We had Rosie [Colvin] in there, we had Adalius [Thomas] in there some, we had Jarvis [Green] moved down inside, so we felt like we had some good matchups across the front there and were able to get a little pressure on [Peyton] Manning, or in a couple cases sack him and strip him. So once you can get them into those passing situations, I think they're a lot easier to defend. The problem is they mix in the running game, and if that's going it keeps you off-balance. And you've got the play-actions that go with it and all that. Once they get back in the shot-gun formation where it's pretty much all pass, then your pass rushers have a better…
FS: [Interrupting] Seymour looked like he had his sea-legs back a little bit. Last week he was good but yesterday he got off the ball real nice, changed directions well, exploded…
BB: Yeah, I thought he made a nice play early, running down the outside play. Richard had a good week of practice, followed up with the previous week, and played more plays. So I think he took another step and hopefully in the next week or two that that will continue to get better.
FS: I want to bring up this – it's my favorite peeve – ten penalties, 146 yards. Have you ever been involved in a game that all the calls were going against you? I mean, it's not something you can comment on but it was so blatantly one-sided it almost popped my vein out of my neck. Because you saw the…
[Hosts banter]
FS: You've got to call them both ways. You're tackling guys, you're holding Patriots, and then you call…is there a more fundamentally sound play than [Ellis] Hobbs made on that one they called for interference?
BB: Well, it's disappointing to set a franchise record for penalty yards like we did yesterday; that's not something that I'm proud of or where we want to be. I think the big thing is – and certainly there were a lot of questionable situations yesterday – but I think the big thing is we've got to do all we can to play within the rules and control what we can control, and whatever we can't control we'll just have to live with.
FS: What's the process, you look at the film and if they're completely, if you don't agree with the calls you send it in, they send you a nice letter, 'Sorry, we were wrong'?
BB: Well…the fact of the matter is we'll have new officiating crews in the coming weeks. I think the most important thing for us to do is focus on us and let everybody else do their job. There are just some things you have to live with.
GO: Well let me ask you this question. This is a real veteran team. This team didn't seem to get flustered at all by some of those so-called questionable calls. This team seemed to almost use them to their advantage – certainly didn't let them disrupt what they were trying to get done out there.
BB: Hopefully not, but I'm sure they were frustrating at times. But hey, there's nothing you can do. Once the official's thrown it and I've thrown it then the game goes on. You've got to go back in the huddle and line up for the next play. I hope that's the attitude we take; that's what we need to do, because there isn't anything you can do about anything that happens – a good play, a bad play, a call, a non-call, whatever it is. You just line up, play it one play at a time and move forward.
SD: Your red zone defense was spectacular in the first half, holding them six points before the Addai touchdown. Was there anything different you did or was it just good, solid play?
BB: Well, I think being in the four-man line helped us a little bit. It looked like the Colts tried to run the ball directly in like they did last year with a lot of effectiveness. And we had Richard and Vince [Wilfork], of course, inside with Ty [Warren] and Jarvis. So I think we stacked it up a little bit better than we did last year. They got down there three times: we blocked the one field goal and he kicked the other two, but I thought those were big stops for us. They really were. That was important that we held them to six points when it could have been potentially 21, so that was great. We need to play better defense in the red area. We haven't really played good defense all year down there, but this is a good time to…
FS: [Interrupting] Second half, you changed the pace of your offense. You went a little no-huddle. It kept them off-balance. They weren't able to lock into that…you know, when you're a defensive lineman and you're on sight, and the offense has to go silent count, a huge advantage for the defense but it seemed like you kept them off-balance a little bit more with the hurry huddle and no…
BB: I thought it did, Fred. I really did. We went to it there in the fourth quarter with like ten minutes to go in the game or whatever it was, and it seemed like the quicker pace did help us. It seemed like it quickened our pace, and I don't know whether it slowed them down or just seemed like they weren't as fast, but it definitely helped us. Probably something we should have done a little bit sooner.
GO: Is it an advantage to…they had trouble changing their personnel, it seems, late in that game when you hurried up your offense. Is that a big advantage? Or is the other advantage that it's a tired team? Their defense was out there for awhile and they seemed to be worn down a little bit.
BB: Well, they're a fast team and they chase hard, and they were chasing us. I'm sure they were tired at the end, as we were. But there wasn't a whole lot of substituting going on, Glenn. Because when you go that fast, then offensively you don't sub so they don't sub either, if you're running guys on and off and they run them on to match. But we kind of stayed with one group there and just tried to go at a quicker pace. I think it was more to up our tempo than to necessarily slow them down. Maybe it had some of that effect but we were just trying to up-tempo ourselves.
FS: Elaborate on what you said earlier, because we can't see the full field, and they basically run a lot of Cover 2, right? Were they doing anything different on the Cover 2? Basically man on and they had the two safeties deep?
BB: Well they mixed in…yeah, they mixed in the kind of two-soft zone with a tighter Cover 2, similar to what Miami did, almost like a man-to-man coverage. So it kind of played like a two-deep zone and then a two-deep man. A little bit of a combination of those coverages. It wasn't anything that we haven't seen before. Again, it was very similar to what Miami did, they just mixed it up. They occasionally blitzed the nickelback, [Marlin] Jackson. He came a couple times. And [Bob] Sanders dropped down into the box a few times like he usually does. But that's what they do. Sometimes they made plays on it and sometimes they didn't.
FS: Without pressure it seems like those matchups are more difficult with them with the big, fast receivers you have.
BB: Yeah. Well, I mean obviously pressure's a huge part of the Colts' defense. The more pressure they get then the better everything looks, doesn't matter what the coverage is. The less pressure they get and the more the quarterback can find time and step up like Tom did on the long pass to Randy [Moss], where he's able to step up and get the ball down the field, then the more holes there are and the more the zone separates. So protection is a huge part of the passing game against the Colts. It always is.
SD: What were the issues that you had with the headsets on the sideline?
BB: Really didn't have any issues with the headsets, Steve, it was just the coach-to-quarterback communication system. And as you know, those are two independent systems. The coach-to-quarterback: basically what it came down to was Tom couldn't hear what [offensive coordinator] Josh [McDaniels] was saying. And that was in the first quarter so we really got away from that and just ended up signaling the plays in…
SD: So it wasn't a technical thing, it was because of the crowd noise?
BB: Well, static and he couldn't…I don't know exactly what all it was but it was hard for him to hear what Josh was saying.
PS: Did [Tony] Dungy have the same problem, too? And did they make him…
BB: No, it's a different system, Pete. The headsets that go from the press box to the coaches on the sideline, if there's a problem with those…let's say yours aren't working. Then you call a referee over and say, 'Look, our headsets aren't working.' And then the referee will say, 'OK, then you take yours off.' And then he goes over to the other side and tells them, 'OK, you take yours off.' And then the next time there's a stoppage in play, like a change of possession or a score or something, then he'll come back over and say to the technicians, 'OK, have you got them fixed?' 'Yeah.' 'Alright, then let's put them back on and let's try it again.' And if they haven't got them fixed, then… So the coach-to-quarterback thing, that's a different system and it's done on a frequency…I mean, I don't really understand it, but if it isn't working then you have to basically fix it. Either make it louder or take out the static or however it works. It's not the first time a coach-to-quarterback thing has broken down. Usually the hard part of it is if it breaks down unexpectedly. You know, you're going along and along and it's fine, it's fine, and all of a sudden, boom, it doesn't work, and now you have to blow a timeout because you can't hear the play. Yesterday it just, it wasn't working very well from the beginning so we ended up just signaling all the plays in instead of calling them in.
[Hosts banter]
GO: Wes Welker gave you terrific field position on a couple of big returns, including that last one at the 50-yard line. What difference does that make to your offense, setting yourself up in such great position with a guy like that?
BB: Well, you know, you just add up the yards, Glenn, and it's two or three or four fewer first downs that you have to make. You get the ball in his hands and he goes for 25 yards, well that's two less first downs, five, six less plays you have to run offensively. And as you know, the fewer you run the less chance there is for something to stop the drive. So it's huge. I think our whole punt return team did a nice job of getting him a chance to get started. It's something we've been emphasizing all year, is just get him the ball, let him get started, he'll make some guys miss, he'll break a tackle or juke somebody if we can just get him going and not have to fair catch it or get tackled before he can really get underway. Wes did a nice job of running them and our protection and our blocking was pretty good. And I thought our kickoff coverage was real good. Those were big field position plays for us, too. That when we did score we were able to back the Colts up the next time and put them on a long field. In the past we've had a couple times where they've run it back to mid-field and that's a backbreaker. You've just scored and then boom, they're right back on your doorstep. Luckily that wasn't the case yesterday.
FS: OK, on the last touchdown drive, three-something left, you scored with what, three minutes left was it?
PS: It was 3:15.
FS: Three-fifteen left. Was there a thought – and I know you're going to say it – but was there a thought to killing the clock a little bit before you got in, or was all the thought process just get it in and first and worry about that after?
BB: Well at that point we were just trying to get the ball in the end zone. But had Kevin [Faulk] not scored, had, let's say, he'd been tackled on the two- or the three-yard line, then I think there would have been some thought to maybe running the quarterback sneak and either making them use a timeout or run 30 or 40 seconds off the clock. But he scored from like the, how far out was it, was it the 14, 15? Whatever it was. So really it didn't come up because at that point we were just trying to get the ball closer to the goal line and score. But we got it all in one play. But yeah, if we could have bled a little more time off the clock, and certainly looking back at the situation at the half, that was a terrible series there where we were in field goal range and then got penalized out of it, then got intercepted, then they end up scoring a 70-yard…
FS: [Interrupting] It's a ten-point swing. It's a ten-point swing. Got an easy field goal.
BB: Yeah. But had we taken a little more time off the clock, not turn the ball…you know. There are a lot of things we could have done better, obviously, starting with the coaching and the playing and the tackling and everything else. But to give up seven points in that situation, when we had the ball on their 30 yard line with less than a minute to go in the half, is just…that's not good.
FS: I wonder what the mindset of the Colts was. Did they think you were going to run a draw or something out of that set, anticipating you eating up a little more clock and that's why Faulk…I mean he had almost a free run right to the end zone.
BB: Well those ends were running up the field. You saw them all day. They were trying to run, speed rush the tackles and so…one thing they're vulnerable to is draws and plays over the middle that kind of separate the coverage from the front.
SD: I noticed that Randy Moss was going over the middle more than in previous games. Was that part of the gameplan or was that an adjustment to what the Colts were doing?
BB: A little bit of both, Steve. I think we anticipated a decent amount of two-deep coverage where they try to roll into the outside receivers, and they played more of it than they played against us in the past. And of course when you roll up on the outside receivers it's hard to go down the field because you have a safety over the top. It's a lot easier to go inside and get away from those corners and safeties and just work on the linebackers, the underneath coverage. So we did a decent amount of that and hit some plays in there. You know, there was a couple other passes that were tough catches, or we couldn't catch or whatever, that there were some other yards to be had there. But that was a significant part of the passing game as they were running those two-deep zones.
PS: I want to ask you about a couple possible roster moves. You said earlier today about Troy Brown being activated off the PUP list this week means you have, I think, 21 days to decide if he's ready to play.
BB: Exactly.
PS: And also, I was reading over the weekend. Any interest about possibly resigning Corey Dillon? He seemed like he was staying in shape. Have you heard from him and would you consider picking him up now that [Sammy] Morris is out for the year?
BB: I don't think that's really in the plans right now, Pete. We've gone with the four backs and one of the things that Kyle [Brady] and Heath [Evans] have given us is play on special teams. So I think it would be hard to lose their special teams play, and Laurence [Maroney] has given us good play at the running back position and Kevin has given us some runs and some third down plays and he's also returned for us. So it's just hard to fit in another back there that wouldn't be a special teams player. It would be hard to see where that role would come from.
PS: And Troy Brown. How do you think he's going to fit in to your plans here down the road?
BB: Well I think that we'll start practicing him and evaluate him on a week-to-week basis. We'll have three weeks to do that and I think we have to make a decision by, I forget when it is. Sometime around the middle of November. So we'll start practicing him and see how it goes.
GO: We talked earlier about Adalius Thomas. He played less yesterday. Is that just a part of, 'This is the game plan, this is the personnel that best suits what we need to do,' and does that happen on a more often basis than people realize?
BB: Basically what we try to do, Glenn, is…we really used ten guys to play the front six positions – four defensive linemen and we had two linebackers in there, Harrison being the third linebacker who is obviously a defensive back. We used the five linemen – Seymour, Mike Wright, Vince Wilfork, Ty Warren and Jarvis Green – and then our five linebackers, Junior [Seau] and Tedy [Bruschi], played inside and Vrabel and Colvin and Adalius played outside or played defensive end rush-type positions. So we wanted to try to keep everybody fresh, we used everybody, we got key plays out of everybody, and that's kind of how it went. We were in a traditional 3-4 setup so playing-time was just a little bit different than it would be in that normal situation. But because the Colts are a no-huddle team, you can't sub in and out. Whoever you put in there you kind of have to go with. We wanted to have enough depth to be able to change our personnel so that we could keep everybody fresh through four quarters.
FS: You've played them with a 4-3 before, haven't you?
BB: Yeah. Everything we've really done against them…we've played them so many times, I don't think there are too many more new things we could [chuckling] play [that] they haven't seen before, or vice versa that they could show us. But we felt like this was the best matchup for this game so that's why we played it.
FS: This team has kind of morphed into more of a running team with good defense, as before with a wide open team with a lousy defense over the years. It's a quick defense. They've been now ranked…last year I think they were last in the NFL in rush defense; this year I think they're fourth. But they're a more of a defensive team that runs the ball much more than they are a wide open team.
BB: I think that they do a good job of controlling the ball. We've all seen the Colts when people try to come up and play them tight – they can throw it deep and make big plays and go over the top in a hurry. And teams that play back and try to take those away, then the Colts can be a possession team – run the ball, play-action and hit possession passes. So I think they'll do whatever they need to do to move the ball and score points. I don't think it's they're afraid to throw it deep or they can't throw it deep, I think the more teams leave guys in the deep part of the field against them, the more they're willing to take the running game and shorter throws to the receivers and tight ends and backs.
[Hosts banter]
GO: You've played nine games, we all know what the record is, but you've always talked about you really start to know your football team after about nine or ten games during the course of a season. What do you know about your football team now [that] maybe you didn't know seven, eight, nine weeks ago?
BB: Well I think one thing we found out was that we can play from behind. We haven't had to do that this year, fortunately. But we showed we can play from behind and play in a tight game and play good situational football. I think it's clear that offensively we have some balance. We can throw the ball; we've thrown it against everybody. We have balance in the running game. We're at the top of the league in third down, so we're able to convert third downs. So I think those are some things that we can do. Defensively, we've been a good third down team. We're plus-11 in turnovers, so our overall ball protection has been decent, and we've been able to take a few away. Our return game is getting better. So I think there are some things to build on, to work with. We're certainly not there. Our red area defense hasn't been very consistent. We can do a better job offensively of taking advantage of our scoring opportunities. But I think there are some things we can work on [and] that's what we'll spend this bye week doing.
FS: You have a team now that has scored, what, 355 points, known over the years as a short passing game and a strong defense. But that's such a difficult matchup when you have receivers that can go downfield and a quarterback that's so accurate, that option. This is the first time, I think, we've ever seen that, with receivers that can really spread the field like that can kill man-to-man coverage.
BB: Well I think that that's one of the strengths that we have offensively, is we have some balance. We have guys that are…like Welker and [Benjamin] Watson and Kevin Faulk and guys like that that can make plays underneath. Maroney in the running game. And [in] the passing game we have guys like [Donté] Stallworth and Moss and Welker and Watson that have made plays down the field in the passing game, too. So I think that's hard for a defense to defend. I know being a defensive coach for a long time, the toughest thing is when they do a little bit of everything and you can't just zero in on one particular spot, you have to defend the whole field. So we try to attack the whole field. The better we do at that then probably the better we're going to be offensively.
GO: Time right now for the MVP Volkswagen Dealers' Coach's Question of the Week. And right now only the seven MVP VW dealets are offering '08 Jettas with German engineering, 8-speaker CD, power windows and more for just $179 a month. Visit mvpvw.com to see which Volkswagen dealers can offer this special deal. Coach, the question comes from John in Billerica. He asks, 'How do you relax during the season and what do you like to do during the bye week?'
[Hosts banter]
BB: … [A]t the top of the list, Glenn, would be hanging out with the kids. They all have their activities, whether it's sports or so forth, or just going out and catching up with them. They're young, they're active, they have a lot of interests and they're hard to keep up, so it's good to take a little time and catch up with them and enjoy them.
GO: It sounded to me like a lot of the players were, especially after the win yesterday, looking forward to the bye week, a few days off…
BB: Glenn, I think everybody always looks forward to the bye week. It doesn't matter…people say, 'Would you rather have it this week or that week?' You know what? Whenever it comes everybody looks forward to it and they're happy that it's there.
SD: Does it come at a good time? After the…
BB: I think it's always a good time when it comes.
SD: But this was a very emotional game…
BB: This is probably as late as we've had it, other than the '01 season where it was at the end. But we've had four preseason games, and now we've had nine regular season games, so that's 13 weeks of football. Plus another two weeks of training camp. So really we've pretty much been going 15 weeks now of practice, meetings, gameplans, adjustments, walk-throughs, weights, sprints. And hey, we're 9-0 and that's great. But it's been a grind and it wears on you mentally as much as it wears on you physically – new gameplans, new adjustments, new scouting reports, new everything every week, start all over again. So I think it's a mental and a physical break and I think it does come at a good time. We've been at it hard for quite a while now.
GO: As a coach, and I won't throw this out because Indianapolis did have a bye week before they played you last year, would you rather have the bye week after you've won a big, huge game like yesterday, or as a coach would you rather have two weeks if you were going up against maybe the toughest team in the league, or what you … toughest rivalry or toughest team in the league? Would you rather have the two weeks to prepare?
BB: I don't know. There's nothing you can do about it. Whenever it comes, it comes. I mean, the extra time is good, but wherever there's a long week there's a short week, let's put it that way. So somewhere along the line somebody's probably going to have a bye week on you, you're probably going to have a bye week on somebody else… Whenever they're scheduled we just try to show up and play them.
GO: Alright, if you'd like to ask the coach a question you can swing by your MVP Volkswagen dealer, like VW Gallery in Norwood, Patrick VW in Auburn, where nicely equipped '08 Jettas are just $179 a month. He's sweating already for your question.
BB: Yeah, I'm going to put you guys on the spot. We play both teams later in the year, so who do you like tonight?
[Hosts banter back and forth about tonight's Ravens-Steelers game]
GO: Alright, Coach. Have a nice few days off here and then it's back to work for Buffalo. That will now be a night game. … So we'll catch you back here Monday. We'll sit down and talk Buffalo Bills next week.
BB: Sounds good.
{{{ Full audio available in WEEI's Audio Vault }}} |
