Skip to main content
Advertising

Official website of the New England Patriots

live
LIVE: Patriots Playbook, 2:30 - 4:30 PM Wed Dec 04 | 02:25 PM - 04:35 PM

Bill Belichick Post-Game Press Conf. Transcript

Belichick: Well, one of the main things we wanted [to do] was to get a lot of people in and we did that.

            [
listennowicon.gif

]()

BB: Well, one of the main things we wanted [to do] was to get a lot of people in and we did that. We played a group of guys last week against Carolina, a pretty long time into the game and a lot of them didn't play tonight. Then, guys that didn't play last week, had a lot of playing time tonight. So hopefully, we will get a good look at them. And we have to make some decisions here in the next few days in terms of our roster and so this will be a good game to evaluate them. I thought that if we had held on to the ball a little bit it would have made it more competitive there. It got out of hand at the end. We missed a couple of scoring opportunities. We missed a couple chances to turn the ball over in the first half [the] scoring got out of hand, obviously, at the end of the game. That is pretty much how it went.

Q: Bill, the fact that you open up the season a week from tonight on a Thursday rather than the following Sunday, does that play into your thinking at all about not putting your first unit in tonight?

BB: Well, yes. It kind of went into the whole planning for the preseason and training camp because we played them a lot last week. [We] played some guys an awful lot last week. It was a real physical game. We are coming back on just a few days, coming back off the road, real short week, and I had another group of guys that we put in for a much longer time tonight. So then we have another it is not a short week, it is a regular week, but compared to what the normal opening weeks are, which are usually 10 days if we play on Saturdays, nine days if we play on Fridays, this is a little bit shorter.

Q: Bill, did the starters work for the Colts game this week and the backups prepare for the Jaguars?

BB: Well, the guys that we didn't play, yes. We put in a number of things we wanted to get going with them. Some things we needed to finish installing [and] get straightened out on our end. We obviously still have plenty of work to do in every area. We tried to allocate that time. We tried to get the guys ready that were playing tonight and I thought for the most part there wasn't too much of a problem, mental errors weren't too much of a problem, penalties, and obviously we had some plays where the timing was off and so forth. But it was pretty competitive there for a pretty good part of the game.

Q: Bill, how do you think Rohan [Davey] did?

BB: Rohan did some good things tonight. He managed the game well. I thought he made a couple good throws that we weren't able to come up with, but I think it is the best he has looked this preseason. I thought he managed the game well.

Q: Given the short week, I know the NFL day is Sunday for the cutdown, but you have to move a little bit quicker than that given that Sunday will be a normal practice.

BB: Yes, we might. We might have to do that. We will take a look at that. On any of these days, if you release the players, the waivers last until Sunday so you can't they don't clear and you don't really know what is going to happen until, well, that is until Monday. It's Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you couldn't play them, you couldn't clear them, you couldn't do anything until the Monday wire at noon. So if you did it, you are doing it a little bit blind. By doing it early you don't really gain anything, but there is still a possibility that we could move along on some of those decisions just because we need to get going and we need to start practicing before the weekend.

Q: Right, just in terms of putting in the game plan, you want a bunch of guys seeing the game plan and then being thrown out to the rest of the league, does that make a lot of sense?

BB: Well, there is a lot of player movement at this time on every team, so I don't think this is a huge consideration for us. The biggest thing we have to be concerned with is getting our team ready to go play the game and play it as well as we can. If there is some player movement, we will have to take our chances on how that goes down.

Q: Bill, could you talk about the performance of Mike Cloud today and Chas Gessner.

BB: Well, we had a lot of guys that had a lot of playing time. We'll take a look at the film and evaluate them. As I said, we didn't have a lot of mental errors. We didn't have a lot of penalties. We will evaluate their performance [when we] get a chance to look at the tape.

Q: Bill, is Rohan Davey the backup quarterback going into the season?

BB: Yes.

Q: Are you happy with your backup quarterback situation, both Rohan and Kliff Kingsbury?

BB: Well, I think Rohan has made progress through the preseason. I think he still has a ways to go. But again, I thought he did a lot of good things out there tonight. He showed he could manage the game, he hung in there under some pressure. We need to move the ball better and score better. Some of it is pointing at him, some of it is pointing at a lot of the people in there as well. Young players can obviously improve and develop. He is certainly in that category.

Q: Getting the non regular types a view tonight, you say Jacksonville is number one early, is that the truth when you evaluated them?

BB: Well, sure. A lot of those guys were there in for a very extended period of time against different guys. You can see different match ups and see how they do against different guys with different playing styles. And the fact that you are giving guys a chance to play, they are not just in for their first series or two. They can really get into the flow of the game. You can actually see how they can learn from their mistakes. So it is a good opportunity to evaluate all those things.

Q: Bill, Kevin Faulk didn't play tonight. Where does Mike Cloud fit in your backfield for the season?

BB: Well, as I have been saying all camp, Mike is way ahead from where he was last week because he has been in camp and he has been working. We are going to have to make a lot of decisions on our final roster in terms of the overall makeup of the squad. So, there are a lot of things that will be going into those decisions. But, I think Mike has had a real competitive camp and he will be right in the thick of it.

Q: How important is it to have a guy like Mike Cloud step up and actually be a part of being a backup, how important is having a guy like him?

BB: Well, I think we saw last year how important the depth is on the your team. You need more than 22 or 24 guys to play. You need all 53. Even though you can only activate 45, there is going to be some type of movement with those 53. It won't always be the same 45 guys. So you know, that is very important. I think that is it, depth is a huge, huge thing in this league over a 16 game regular season schedule so it is important at every position, and certainly running back is one of them

This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an issue.

Related Content

Advertising

Latest News

Presented by
Advertising

Trending Videos

Advertising

In Case You Missed It

Presented by
Advertising