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Bill Belichick Postgame Press Conference Transcript

New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick addresses the media at Gillette Stadium following a preseason game versus the New Orleans Saints on Thursday, August 9, 2012.

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BB:Well, we're underway. It was a good week in terms of working with the Saints both in practice and then tonight. I think there're a lot of things we can learn from all three of those days and certainly a lot of things we can learn from tonight. I thought our players went out there and tried to compete for 60 minutes. Obviously there are a lot of things we have to work on, but we're underway. We'll just keep plugging along. Hopefully we can build on tonight, build on this week, and have a good week next week and start piling things up so we'll be ready to go on opening day.

Q:What did you see out there tonight that you liked?

BB:We competed for 60 minutes. I thought we worked hard.

Q:In a preseason game, what determines a success from your point of view?

BB:If we can improve and do the things and execute the things we want to do. We'll look at the film and see how all of that goes and see just what things we need a little bit more work on and what things we're doing fairly well. You could have several guys do things well and have one break down, and you don't have a good play necessarily, but it doesn't mean that some of the other elements and parts of the play aren't there. So, we'll see how that looks. Maybe there will be multiple things that broke down on certain plays and it didn't show up on the play and we got away with it, but we still need to get those things fixed. So, we'll take a good look at the film and correct our mistakes. That's what this is for.

Q:Chandler Jones showed up a few times tonight. Do you think that's just a continuation of what he's been doing in practice?

BB:You know, I think really all the players that I saw – especially the rookies – some of them did some good things. There's a long way to go. We have a lot of work to do. I don't want to get too up or too down on anything. We just want to keep working and getting better.

Q:Given all the moving parts on the offensive line, is it just continuing to be a work in progress?

BB:We've played a lot of people at each position. I don't think there was any position we didn't play a lot of people. That's what these games are for: to evaluate the players.

Q:Dane Fletcher got a little dinged up. What does he bring to the team? What are his strengths?

BB:He's played on all four downs for us. He's played on first and second down, played on third down and played in the kicking game, so he has some versatility. He's had roles on different downs on different times or different game plans. So he's done all of those things to some degree.

Q:Pretty solid offseason so far this year?

BB:Yeah. Yeah.

Q:I know you just got off the field, but any word long term on his injury?

BB:We'll evaluate him like we do with any situation like that and see what the doctors say. I'm not a doctor, you know that.

Q:It looked like you had a few conversations with the officials at various points. Were you comfortable with the way the game was officiated?

BB:I think Mike Pereira has made his comments on the officials. I don't know who knows more about NFL officiating than Mike Pereira, so we'll leave it to him. I'm just trying to coach our team and get our team better. I'm not worried about what everybody else is doing; It's not my job.

Q:It seemed like a lot of the defensive starters played quite a bit. Was it that you wanted to see something specific from them?

BB:We rotated players. I think they all played about – where we had some guys rotate and then they played longer and where we didn't rotate, those guys didn't play as long.

Q:It looked like you bumped Dont'a Hightower into the middle when Dane Fletcher went out. Was that the plan to play him inside and out? Was that just an injury thing that showed versatility?

BB:Well, as you know, he's been playing all three positions all through training camp.

Q:Was that the plan to play him there or was it just because Fletcher went out?

BB:He's been playing there all through camp.

Q:How did Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen look to you today?

BB:Some good things. Some things we've got to work on. But they competed. I thought they made some plays. Probably a couple reads and technique things that could have been better, but you can say that about everybody.

Q:How did Brian Hoyer look to you on that drive? He seemed to have a good grasp of the offense and directed the team.

BB:I wouldn't say we lit it up offensively at any point in any aspect of the game. But I thought each of them had their – we had some good things and we had some other things that weren't so good that we need to improve on, some corrections we need to make, timing things we need to work on. It's like that at every position.

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