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Replay: Patriots Unfiltered Tue Dec 10 - 02:00 PM | Wed Dec 11 - 11:17 AM

Bill Belichick Post Game Press Conf Transcript

Belichick: Man, that was a great win for our football team. That is a great win.

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            **BB:**   Man, that was a great win for our football team.  That is a great win.  I'll tell you, I just can't say enough about those guys.  They keep fighting and keep scrapping, just played hard for 60 minutes against a good football team.  We all have a lot of respect for the Giants and I've really got to give the defense a lot of credit.  They were out there for a long time today.  But man, they played hard and I thought they did a good job.  Offensively, we had a lot of penalties, stopped ourselves a lot of times.  The Giants are a good defensive team.  We had trouble with their front, we had trouble with [Michael] Strahan like we always do; but in the end, they were able to get a couple of good drives.  There in the third quarter we had enough points to win.  I thought the field position in the kicking game, our coverage was pretty good, and it wasn't perfect but it was pretty good, again, against a tough team.  So man, it was a great win today.  We are really happy to come out of there and just come away with one here because this is a very explosive football team.  To be able to just hang in there with them for 60 minutes defensively, play 90 plays or whatever it was, and those guys did a good job.  We have got a lot of contributions from a lot of different people.  I wouldn't even want to start naming names because we have so many guys that stepped up.  

**Q: Have you ever been ahead in a halftime when you were out gained 199 to 29 in the first half?

BB:** Probably. When you get a couple turnovers, that is the way it is. When you get five turnovers, they don't get any. I don't know what the numbers are in that, but it is probably 95 percent winning percentage in the NFL. We turned the ball over and we capitalized a couple times. The guys did a good job and they took it away from them. They hit it and they made some plays.

**Q: [On the turnovers]

BB:** No, I just think that was part of the story. We just made a real good team effort, made a few plays in all three areas. Turnovers were big, no doubt about it. When it was still raining and all that, be able to put some extra points on the board put us in a good situation defensively. In the fourth quarter where we were kind of teeing off, I thought we played a lot better in the fourth quarter.

**Q: In the third quarter after the sideline completion with [David] Patten when [Tom] Brady came back with no huddle, was that communication from upstairs, communication on the field?

BB:** Yes. We thought it was a close call. We sacrificed a couple yards there to make sure that we got a run before they had a chance to review it. I don't know if he was in or not, but they said it was a real close play up there. So we have a term to trigger that so Tom did a good job also up the line and got it off before they had a chance to challenge it. Any time we have got a play like that, usually on a turnover, the clock stops anyway so it is hard to get it in that position. But when you maintain possession of the play and make a big play, you force them out and make a quick decision. And so I don't know. I don't know, what did you guys think? It was a catch?

**Q: Yes, it was.

BB:** Okay.

**Q: Bill, you got a lot of contributions, like you said, from everybody defensively. It looks like you got a lot of disruption from [Richard] Seymour up the middle. Can you talk a little bit about that.

BB:** Seymour, Ty, and Klecko, you know, there was a lot of pressure up inside. We felt that was something we had to do against Kerry [Collins]. He is a big strong guy. Jarvis [Green], Bobby [Hamilton], you know, there was a lot of guys. Again, I can't really single anybody out. You know, we were out there for 90 plays and I am sure at one point or another we have got it from a lot of different people but they all collectively did a good job.

**Q: How different is Kerry Collins throwing the ball when he is moving? Obviously, he is very active from the pocket.

BB:** Well, I think that Collins had a really big drop back rhythm type passing game. I think he can make all the pros, I don't think that is a problem. But when you disrupt the timing game, the quarterback is not ready to throw. When he is not ready to throw, he has a chance to get your receivers later in the routes. When you can throw the timing off a little bit, you can do a better job. They have got great receivers. They have got [Jeremy] Shockey, Tiki Barber, [Ike] Hilliard, [David] Tyree. They have got one guy after another to make a play, big play after big play. And to be able to sort of keep that under wraps, just a really big team defense. To say one guy took care of it, it is more than one guy.

**Q: The switch from [Mike] Cloud to [Kevin] Faulk, was that a matter of seeking the hot hand?

BB:** Yes, a little bit. I don't think Mike did anything really wrong. Kevin got in there and split a couple of runs. We were comfortable with Mike in the game. But I thought Kevin made a couple nice plays there and so we stayed with him. I mean the thing that really hurt us offensively was poor execution in the first half and that we had a lot of penalties in the second half that negated a couple good plays.

**Q: They moved a lot between from 30 to farther up. But was the field path short for them? Your defense also played very well at that point, but it also takes some of the options away for what the Giants seem to do best at that point.

BB:** Well, I think it is usually easier throwing to have more field to work in. You can have more plays to spread the defense out. I thought we made some plays in all areas of the field but we played good in the red areas. No doubt about it. We kept them out of the end zone and held them to a couple field goals so that was certainly a big key to the game. Third down in red area along with turnovers usually are big keys there.

**Q: Can you talk about some of the adjustments you made in the second half offensively?

BB:** We tried to block better and eliminate plays. Honestly, that is what we were trying to do. We had a bunch of dropped balls too, dropped better, catch the ball, eliminate penalties. You know, Charlie and I talked about it at half time. Charlie told the team we are not going to run any new plays, in fact some of the runs we were going to run in this game we are going to forget about it; we are just going to run the stuff that we know and let's stop screwing it up. And it was better. I am not going to say it was perfect. It was better.

**Q: Tom Brady, come second half, was it more guys just concentrating?

BB:** It was better execution and some of those balls are drops. Some of them weren't thrown, you know, I am sure Tom would like to have a couple throws back, get a couple of catches back. A couple of them had good coverage on the plays. The bottom line was we didn't do much the first half and we were offensively lucky to stay in the game.

**Q: How much a factor did the weather play in all those drives?

BB:** I don't think the weather really affected the calls much. Certainly, the field was muddy and it was a little bit slow. It was a slow track and with the wind and the rain, it was less than ideal. I thought that at least our concentration, I know we dropped some balls but our concentration in terms of not fumbling the ball and losing it on turnovers, it was good.

**Q: In three weeks you guys have seemed to play with a sense of desperation or hunger. I don't know what you call it. Can you keep it up? At some point does that end?

BB:** I hope not.

**Q: But is there anything you can do to keep it going?

BB:** Well, I think if we played better, we could keep it going. If we played better, we could keep it going. I think we could eliminate some penalties and be a little bit more consistent in all phases of the game. But today especially, offensively, if we had played better I think we could continually be okay hanging against these two teams.

**Q: Can you talk a little bit about Matt Chatham?

BB:** I'll tell you, Matt really did a great job. We played a lot more 34 in this game than we had in the last couple weeks. Romeo [Crennel] and I talked about it. We said, 'Look, we are short of linebackers, if anything happens to Matt or Willie [McGinest], I don't know how long we are going to last, but we will make it go as long as we could.' As soon as we saw the Giants' basic plays, we ended up playing it even more than we thought we would. We thought we would play it some, but we ended up playing it a lot. And I saw the thing with cover two, and we ended up playing probably, oh, 60 snaps of cover two, maybe more than that. I don't know. But it was a lot and it ended up being a two deep game which normally was shocking. But the way we felt like we matched up against them, it was just a call we continued to make and it was fairly successful for us.

**Q: Kind of unexpected to see Matt Chatham in the end zone, I imagine?

BB:** Yes. That is our secret weapon. That is not really in the playbook. But he made a good hit, knocked the ball out and he scooped it up and made a great play on it. You know, Matt is really kind of a quiet unsung kind of guy. But when he goes in there, he plays pretty good and it looks like he had a pretty good day today.

**Q: If you could pick one word to describe the team today, how would you do it?

BB:** Tough.

**Q: Strahan is obviously going to make his plays. How did you feel Tom held up against him?

BB:** Well, we obviously had trouble with their defense. I mean it wasn't like we moved the ball consistently against them. Strahan was a big part of the problem. [Mike] Barrow was a problem. A lot of the guys made tackles too. But those guys are tough. I mean I am sure the big thing was he didn't ruin the game, but he is as good as we play against. I mean the guy is a hell of a football player. A lot of things that we schemed to try to get in and miss his opportunities as much as possible; we double teamed him, all of that. But he is a solid player.

**Q: The Strahan sack, three and 15, whatever it was, to Givens, that kind of was the igniter for that whole drive? The whole second half, that changed everything. What was that play about?

BB:** It was a double seam pattern where we ran four guys down the field and then ran a comeback outside. Are you talking about the three and 18 coming off the goal line?

**Q: Yes.

BB:** Right. I think they were in a three deep zone and Tom made a great throw on the come back, the corner kind of sunk inside and he hit him right there. It was a nice call by Charlie [Weis] and we got a coverage that we were able to get the ball down the field and a good throw and a good catch. That really got us out of the big hole there when we got nailed on the play before on the screen. We were trying to run a screen out there and we couldn't get Strahan.

**Q: Given all you guys have been through, is it surprising that you are four and two heading to Miami?

BB:** I don't know. We just don't really look at it that way. We kind of go week to week and try to do the best we can every week and we will add them up at the end. But right now we have got to get ready for Miami. We haven't played too well down there in a while and, hopefully, we can be a little more competitive than we have been the last few years in Miami

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