Pete Sheppard: Joining us from Paul Brown Stadium. Coach, Pete Sheppard, Fred Smerlas. Steve [DeOssie] will be by sooner, hopefully, rather than later. But congratulations once again.
Bill Belichick: Thank you, Pete. Thanks, Fred. I appreciate it. And give Steve my best when he shows up. Nice job by the players tonight. I thought we played a pretty complete football game in all phases and made some good plays throughout the game. You know, played a full sixty minute game, which is good.
Fred Smerlas: We just had Sammy [Morris] on and he just reiterates the same class that everyone else does. It's the team concept. Everyone works together and gets it done and we do it as a team. How do you find these guys that can come in here and be unselfish like that?
BB: Well, I think we've got a real good makeup on our team. These guys work hard. I know the fans don't see it, but these guys come to work every day, they study, they watch film, they practice, they practice hard. When things don't go right it really bothers them. They work hard to get it corrected and get it fixed and get it right the next time. They take a lot of pride in what they do. So it's just a credit to the players and the entire team about the way they go about their job. They're very professional and they're a great group to work with.
PS: Coffee With The Coach is brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts. America runs on Dunkin'. And Steve DeOssie has joined us, Coach. Came running in here. Steve…
BB: Steve, how are you doing?
Steve DeOssie: I'm out of breath. I ran 24 yards. I'm out of breath.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
PS: Were you surprised a little bit in the first quarter that the Bengals came out, I thought, a little bit conservative? … Coach?
BB: I'm sorry, Pete. Could you repeat that, please?
PS: Oh, sure. I was wondering if you were surprised at all that the Bengals came out, I thought, a tad conservative in the first quarter.
BB: Well they've got a pretty good running game, they've got a good offensive line, so it didn't surprise me that they tried to have a balance between the running and the passing game. We matched their multiple receivers with our nickel defense. And, you know, a lot of teams like to run against nickel defenses; we did quite a bit of that ourselves tonight. So I don't think that's a big surprise. It's something that they've had a lot of success with. They're a well-balanced offense and that's kind of what they do. It wouldn't have surprised me if they'd come out gunning it but I thought that trying to keep balance to the game, especially early in it, you don't want to be throwing on every down. And they weren't. And that settles down the pass rush and the pass coverage a little bit, too.
SD: It looked like they were putting some pretty good pressure early on on [Tom] Brady. Was it straight four-man rush or were they blitzing sometimes?
BB: A combination. Most of it was…well, I'd say it was mixed. Some of it was four-man rush, some of it was blitz-zone pressure. They've got some good upfield rushers, especially those two ends, [Robert] Geathers and Justin Smith, and then they start pumping an extra guy or two. And with the crowd noise and you're just a hair late off the ball, you don't quite get a good set on them and they get into the pocket. So they did a good job. They gave us some problems there. We had some passes on play action there in the second half but they gave us some problems with the pass rush. They're a good upfield group.
FS: You seemed to hit seams on them as far as the running game is concerned. [Absolutely inaudible] pulling the guards and the lineman was coming upfield. Analyzing them all week, something you entered the game obviously trying to achieve is they hit the seams and get those backs breaking into the backfield?
BB: I think Cincinnati is, because of the amount of stunting they do and they're kind of an upfield team, it's kind of hard to run the zone plays on them. It's hard to just block everybody in the same direction, because they get upfield and if you can't get those guys reached and they get into the backfield and then you get negative plays and you're cutting back and all that. So we try to take a little more of an approach where you block down on somebody and kick somebody else out and try to split the defense and that type of thing. And we had several of those runs that were good for us. We had the long one down there, down about the two-yard line. We had a couple other runs similar to that where we were able to gap block somebody, block a couple guys down, kick somebody out and get up inside.
FS: Now, obviously with the pursuit they have and the upfield pressure, you did that reverse with Wes Welker and it worked tremendously well.
BB: Oh, that was a huge play for us. And not only did it get the first down but it kind of helped change field position, and then the next play I think we hit a pass and got a personal foul on top of it, so we kind of went from our 25 or 30, whatever it was, to about their 30. So it was a huge field position swing. Had they stopped us there on third down and we punt the ball back to them, they were starting to get a little bit of a momentum, so I thought that was a real big play in the game. And like I said, it coupled with the next couple plays, then that field position changed in a hurry.
SD: Was it a big gameplan defensively to not let them go over the top? They're a very good downfield passing team. It seemed like you eliminated some of the deep passes.
BB: Absolutely, Steve. That was objective number one, was defensively no big plays in the passing game, and offensively no turnovers. To take care of the ball and not allow big plays, we felt like we had to do those things to even have a chance on anything else. And for the most part we did a pretty good job on that. This is a pretty good deep ball team with T.J. [Houshmandzadeh] and of course Chad Johnson. And even their third receivers. Last year it was [Chris] Henry, this week it was [Antonio] Chatman a little bit, and [Glenn] Holt. Those guys are good down-the-field players too and they really stretch you. So that was a big objective for us, was not to give up the big plays. Try to keep everything in front of us.
FS: You didn't seem to blitz that much, getting more pressure with three and four men.
BB: Well you can't blitz and double cover those receivers, so our choice in this game was to play more coverage and do less blitzing. We pressured them a couple times, they hit that look pass to Chad, he broke a tackle. Another one we knocked down. We ran a couple blitzes on them at the end of the game when we kind of knew they'd be throwing, but they're a hard team to blitz because of the deep balls and their vertical receivers and passing game. So we did less blitzing and more coverage in this game, absolutely.
PS: I haven't seen a team in a long time…Lemar Marshall goes down early in the first quarter, then their other linebacker Landon Johnson goes down with an eye injury. They only had two healthy linebackers, really, for most of the…late in the first half and all of the second half. Was that something that you realized and tried to exploit?
BB: Well, we saw that, but they've got a couple big defensive backs that are really linebackers. They've got 40-numbers on and they call them safeties but they're big kids and they really play like linebackers. So they plugged them in there and that's kind of what we expected them to do. They had ten defensive backs active for the game, which is a very high number and really a couple of those were basically linebacker-type replacements. But we were in our sub offense a lot—with three wide receivers—and they matched that with their sub personnel, so actually it didn't really…wasn't that much of a mismatch personnel-wise for us as maybe what it seemed to be. And then when we went with our regular two-receiver groupings, or one-receiver grouping, then they came in with five defensive linemen and played a five-two against us. So again, those are things that they've done in the past. It wasn't anything that was that unexpected. I know they're a little bit shorthanded there but I think the backup players they had, they [inaudible].
SD: This Bengals offense was probably the best test for your secondary and they certainly stepped up. How does Rodney Harrison fit back into the picture next week when he comes back?
BB: Well, we'll have to take a look at that. I'm sure that we can use everybody we can get for Cleveland. They're a high-scoring team and they've got two great receivers with [Kellen] Winslow and Braylon Edwards, and of course a very powerful running game, a good offensive line and a big back there in Jamal Lewis. So they can score a lot of points. They can move the ball—they can run it, they can throw it—and we can use all the players we can get on defense to try to put the brakes on them. We'll have to figure out something here this week. But it'll be challenging because the Browns, they can really move the ball.
SD: Do you expect Rodney to…do you anticipate him going right back into his starting role?
BB: We'll have to see how it goes. I mean there are procedures that have to take place for him to be back on the team, you know, through the league and be reinstated and so forth. So once all that happens, if it happens, then we'll go from there. We'll take it day-to-day. But we haven't had any contact with him for a month. We weren't allowed, and we haven't. So we'll just have to see how things go when all that process takes place.
FS: How much Cleveland film have you watched? Because obviously this is not the Cleveland film of the Cleveland we're used to seeing. Fifty-one points, 23 [sic] against Cincinnati, 23 points [sic] against a very good Baltimore defense. Is it much more of a spread offense? What are they doing that's different than the previous year?
BB: They do it all, Fred. I've seen all their games and they play some two tight ends, they play some one tight end and two receivers, they play some three-receiver sets. Like I said, they can throw it, they can run it. Jamal Lewis is having a terrific year. Their offensive line is good. They've added a couple players, brought in a couple free agents. They drafted Joe Thomas, put him out there at left tackle, and he's done a good job for them. [Steve] Heiden is a good blocking tight end, one of the best in the league. Of course they have Winslow who's kind of like a…somewhere between Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez. He caught 90 passes last year; he's probably going to catch at least that many this year. So they're tough to stop. They do everything well. You can't…it's hard to overload one or two guys with them because they've got so many weapons. And they have a good offensive line; they block well. Whether it be run or pass, they give the quarterback time and they open holes for the running backs.
PS: Randy Moss made an unbelievable catch last week and I thought this one might have even topped it. I'm talking about the one I'm sure was a 7-yarder that put you guys up 17-7. I know he jumps up in the air—it was pretty good coverage by [Dhani] Jones and [Johnathan] Joseph—he keeps both feet in bounds, he twists around, I mean, the guy continues to amaze week after week. I knew he was great. I'm not sure I knew if he was this great.
FS: We're giving him a chance. [Laughter]
BB: I know that the fans can't appreciate this but Randy makes a lot of plays in practice that are pretty impressive. He's got great ball skills, great hand-eye coordination and seems to always get his feet down in bounds, even in practice, when he's catching the ball. I didn't really get a good look at that play, it was all the way on the other side of the field from me, down in the end zone. When Tom threw it, it was hard to even see. Moss looked like—all you could see was the defender, and he came down with the ball, but he does that a lot. He really does. He's very good at using his body to shield the defender off and make the catch, or reach around the defender and catch the ball, and he puts his hands up right at the last second where the defender doesn't really realize he's even reaching for the ball until it's too late. He's very good on deep balls, he's good on catching balls in traffic, and he knows how to get open and he knows how to set up defenders and get some space in the passing game.
PS: Alright, it's right around the end of the second quarter and [Chad] Johnson makes a catch. He comes over to you, says something, you start laughing. Can you share with us what happened during that exchange? I've never seen that. I don't ever remember a player coming over to you at the two-minute warning to chat.
BB: Well, I just greeted him before the game. Last year I had told him we were going to double cover him every game and he asked me if we were going to double cover him again today and I said 'Well, you know, [that's the] only way we can cover you.' [Laughter] So after that play he came over and, you know, he caught that swim post on us for about, I don't know, 20 or 25, whatever it was. So it was the two-minute warning and he walked over and he said 'I thought you were going to double me.' And I said 'We did double you that time and you still got us. We're just going to keep doubling you.' [Laughter] He was like 'Come on, man. Let me go one-on-one sometime.' [Laughter] I'll tell you what, that kid, he was a great guy to be around at the Pro Bowl. He's as hard a working player as I've seen on the practice field and competitively in games. He just has fun playing, you know? And I really, I appreciate that and respect him for that.
FS: Didn't seem like he'd be one of your pals, but hey, what the hell?
[Laughter and crosstalk]
FS: Another thing: it looked like you were in a run formation and there was a quick, just like zip out to Randy Moss because the DB was backed up. Is that something that Brady and him look at before plays, that if the guy's ten yards off then just throw it to me?
BB: Yeah. It's kind of the same thing that…a lot of teams do that. Sometimes it's just nice to, you know, we had that blitz on and Carson [Palmer] raised up and hit Chad out there on that quick-look pass and he was able to break a tackle and get it down to about the two-yard line. So that's one way when corners backoff that quarterbacks can get the ball out there to a receiver, and if he breaks the tackle then could make a good play out of it. So we use it, some of the teams use it, we've got to spend it better but that's a good way to take advantage of corners that are trying to play deep and not let the receivers get behind them, to try to zip it out there to them and if they break a tackle then you can get a good play out of it.
PS: It's now time for the MVP Volkswagen Dealers' Coach's Question of the Week. Visit any of the seven MVP VW dealers to fill out a question for the coach and be automatically eligible to win a February vacation in Miami, no purchase necessary. Coach, John from Providence wants to know: 'In trying to get ready for a Sunday opponent following a Monday night game, what is the most difficult area to prepare for and what does losing that one extra day of preparation most impact?'
BB: Well, it just shortens everything up. We're going to fly back tonight, we'll get in probably four or five in the morning. Try to get a little bit of rest on the plane but we just have to make those gameplans on Tuesday with a little less sleep and a little less preparation than we make in a normal week. So you really don't do anything different, you just have a little bit less time and you're a little bit tireder. Probably what we'll do this week is maybe keep it a little more simple on Wednesday—just do the things that we know we're going to do, not try to put in a lot of new stuff, and save that for Thursday and Friday so we might just back our preparation up a little bit towards the end of the week. But essentially we have to go through all the same steps that we normally do, it's just on a little bit of an accelerated basis with a little less rest. We worked some on Cleveland today during the morning and the afternoon during some of the dead time out here while we were waiting for the game. And we saw their film from Baltimore which was a very impressive win for them. So I think we know what they do, or what they've done, and so we've got some ideas on how we want to try to attack them. We'll put those together tomorrow.
PS: Alright, Coach, thank you very much. I know it's early morning now but thanks for spending a few minutes with us.
SD: Wait, no questions for us? Nothing? Nothing for us?
[Laughter]
BB: Alright. Hey, Steve, what about that fourth-and-one, now, on the road? Were you thinking about that?
SD: Well, the way I looked at it, fourth-and-one-and-a-half, I'd think twice about it. But fourth-and-less-than-a-yard, I think I'd go with it. Great minds think alike, Coach. [Laughter and crosstalk] You guys seemed pretty much in control of the game even though the score was a little closer than you'd think. But I think that's a pretty reasonable call.
BB: Well, you know what, I knew things were going our way when they blocked the extra point and it still went over the crossbar.
[Everyone talking at once]
BB: I said 'OK, somebody's smiling on us tonight.'
SD: Yep.
PS: Alright, Coach, well have a great flight and we'll talk to you next Monday.
BB: OK, thanks a lot. I appreciate it, Steve, Fred. OK, Pete. Great talking to you. Good night.
PS: Thanks, Coach. That's head coach Bill Belichick joining us. If you'd like to ask the coach a question swing by your local MVP Volkswagen dealer, like Wellesley VW, Wellesley, or Colonial VW in Westboro, where new Jettas are just $197 a month with power windows and 8-speaker CD player. Check out MVPVW.com.
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