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            **BB:**  It was a good day to come to work.  It was a tough game but a good game from our standpoint.  We did a lot of things well.  Certainly it was a battle all the way against Miami.  They have a lot of good players and did a lot of good things too.  But I though our guys stepped up and certainly did enough to win.  We had a couple of tough breaks in the game but we fought through them and came back.  I just have to give a lot of credit to the players for their toughness, for their physical play, and also for the talent.  Everybody talks about being tough and being physical, being mentally tough and all of that, but when you go out there against Ricky Williams, [Chris] Chambers, [Jason] Taylor, [Tim] Bowens, Zach Thomas, [Sam] Madison and [Patrick] Surtain and all of those guys, you have to be able to stand up to them athletically and as a football player too.  They played at a high level and they played hard.  It was a good win in Miami.  

**Q: In the second half, what did you do with your defense on Ricky Williams? Did you do anything different?

BB:** No, not really. We played pretty much the whole game about the same way. We tried to mix it up a little bit. But we wanted to really keep him from getting started. Once he gets his momentum and gets his speed up as a downhill runner he has got such great power and quick cutting ability that you chew up those yards in a hurry. You see a hole and all of a sudden it is 15 yards. The whole idea was to keep that from happening from the first quarter even into the overtime we were still pretty much in the same mentality there.

**Q: Having watched the tape of the game, is there a part of the game that maybe you appreciate more now, maybe a certain play, and say 'wow'?

BB:** I don't know. Both touchdown passes were good plays, good throws, and good catches. Those were big plays in the game. There were some plays that involved close calls or questionable calls. I don't think much has changed on any of those. Miami made some key plays and made some key third down conversions on that drive in the fourth quarter that we would liked to have played better. We got stopped a few times in short yardage that had we been able to convert those, we might have given ourselves a better opportunity to score or control the game a little bit more and control the ball. But that is the way it is in a tough game like that. Yes there are a few that we could have done better that would have really helped us. There were a few that we made that we were able to get off the hook on.

**Q: You mentioned that it was a good day to come to work. I'm curious to know, since all of these injuries started coming about, what it has been like coming to work for you and your staff. After all of these years in the league and another challenge, something that sort of excites you and says how are we going to do this and you get together as a staff…

BB:** I was really referring more to the outcome of the game. The two worst Monday's for me were the Monday after the Buffalo game and the Monday after the Washington game. Negative things come out of the game and anytime you get a guy hurt that is not good but when you win, you at least feel good about the way the team played. You try to work through the injury situation and we have had some of those. I just mean in terms of feeling good about being better than the other team we played on that day.

**Q: I was just thinking about the challenge that the staff has with the situation that you are dealing with and sort of how you have attacked that coming to work each day. Has it been something different for you, I am assuming, over your career, having to deal with that challenge?

BB:** You always have things you have to deal with and we have had some more than others. That is just the nature of coaching and the nature of the NFL. There are challenges every week, new teams, and your own internal situation is always in flux to a certain degree. You have to try to assess it and do the best you can with it. You do that every week. Even in the beginning of the year when we didn't have anybody on the injury list, then the question was, 'Well which guys are active and which guys are inactive?' Now it has gone the other direction but you always have a situation where you have got to make some choices and sometimes they are hard choices sometimes they are obvious. You just take what you have, analyze it and do the best you can with it.

**Q: You games have been fun to watch. It seems like you have a lot of fun, especially at the end.

BB:** Yeah, well it was fun after Troy [Brown] made that catch. It wasn't much fun before that.

**Q: Not being too philosophical but do days like yesterday make you say to yourself, 'Man I am really happy that I am in football?'

BB:** [Laughter] Well, I enjoy every day that I come to work and can coach. Like I said before, it beats working for a job. I enjoy it and I am sure if I weren't doing it, I would put a lot of time and energy and thought into this sport anyway. So to be able to do it as a profession, I am very fortunate.

**Q: I know the folks in the media were saying in week one this team was done and a few weeks later, you guys are 5-2 in first place.

BB:** Well, I think it is that way every year. You are always going to have your ups and downs. There are going to be valley's in every season. I guess the Dolphins went 17-0 one year but there are not many seasons like that. Every year you have your trials and tribulations whether it is tough losses or injuries or bad breaks in one way or the other whatever they are, that is just part of it. It is never smooth sailing. There are always some rough waters.

**Q: Do you watch the TV tape or the coaches copy of the game or both?

BB:** Well I definitely watch the coaches tape more than once. At times I see portions of the TV tape and then if there are certain key plays that sometimes you get a better look at those. We look at those. Sometimes they are good teaching tools especially on a play like a long pass with a receiver and a defensive back where you really get a close up of those two guys and you can see a pass interference or what the call was and really be able to evaluate it relative to the shot from the top of the stadium. It is just hard to zero in like they can.

**Q: The reason I am asking is because I wanted to know if you got a better look at what happened on the coin toss?

BB:** I didn't look at that.

**Q: Did you get any explanation on that from anybody?

BB:** You know, I am not going to comment on that. I will just leave that one alone.

**Q: Is the 7 on the take away/give away kind of mass over some of the injuries and some of the deficiencies on the team?

BB:** Well I think that we all know statistically what the odds of winning are when you are in the positive turnover category relative to the negative one. Just on a game-by-game basis that of course can change in a hurry. You could be 80 and go out there and be –3 the next three and I think we know what is probably going to happen statistically. Sure, anytime you can end up on the positive side in the turnovers, positive side on third downs, and the positive side in the red area relative to your opponent, the odds are going to be with you provided you don't have a lot of negative plays somewhere else, get two punts blocked or something like that just off sets it, [like] having 150 yards in penalties or some other aberration. If the game can be relatively competitive, and it comes down to red area and third down and turnovers, those are the plays that are probably going to turn the game.

**Q: On the pass to Troy Brown, was that designed to go to him?

BB:** Well there were two primary receivers in the pattern. One was Deion [Branch] on the left side and Troy was on the right side. Deion ran a slant route and Troy ran a deep post so the slant was shallow, the post was deep sort of a high-low relationship there. Those are your two options. So Tom came out of there, Taylor came inside, there was a little bit of a congestion there between the line, Madison closed on the slant, Tom kind of got flushed out a little bit to the left. He had a little bit of extra time and by that time, Troy was starting to come over the top between Marion and [Sammy] Knight and Tom had time to step back there and let it go. At that point the slant was too far inside. You wouldn't have been able to throw it because it was running into the coverage on the backside. That is basically the play. It was pretty much a two-man route.

**Q: Last week we asked a little bit about the improvement on the run defense. You said that one of the factors was the team is a little bit quicker. Isn't there more to it than that? There is a fairly dramatic difference special teams least statistically.

BB:** I think overall we are playing a little bit better…relative to last year you are talking about?

**Q: Yes.

BB:** I think we are playing better relative to last year, better fundamentally and that is across the board. Again, no one guy can stop the run. Our secondary is playing better in terms of their run force and not letting the ball get outside. Our linebackers and our defensive linemen are doing a better job of controlling blockers and being in the right spot and overall as a team, we are not missing as many tackles as we missed, which a lot of the missed tackles occurred when the ball got to the perimeter where the runners had more space. You are always going to have more misses out there but you want to have as few as possible. I think it has been a collective team effort in terms of overall playing ability and also more consistency in execution of the techniques.

**Q: Is part of that that there is more restraint in the read and react defense, are guys staying where they need to be?

BB:** I don't think so. I think it is more of just doing it better. I don't think we changed our philosophy, I know we haven't. It is not like we are going from Greek to Italian or something. We are trying to play the defensive concepts that we played last year. We are playing them better and I think that the players are being more consistent with their techniques and they are executing them better certainly in the running game than we did last year. When you have a little more team speed especially in the secondary, and you can get to some of those runs when the runners gets into a little bit of space and kind of make the play before he gets started like Eugene [Wilson] had one yesterday where Ricky bounced it outside, he got outside of the linebackers and the ends. He came up and knocked him out of bounds there and it was about a 1-yard gain. Those are the kind of plays that can turn into 10 in a hurry if you are a step or two late on that and Ricky gets turned up field. All of a sudden, two or three strides, and he has got 10 yards. A little bit of quickness and reaction and good tackling can save you a lot of yardage there. As I said last year, anytime you have long runs/give up long runs those are the responsibility of the secondary. The first 10 yards you can give it to whoever you want to give it to. After that, the nose tackle is not going to make tackles 20 yards down the field. Long runs are the responsibility of the secondary. That comes from leverage, it comes from proper tackling and utilization of the sideline and their other secondary help whether it is another defensive player or again the sideline depending on where the ball is and all of that. That is where those long runs are always going to come into play.

**Q: Can you talk a little bit about the secondary's quickness in the game yesterday in the running game?

BB:** Well it was a team effort. It was a team effort. I think the linebackers did a good job. I think we did a pretty good job upfront. When the secondary was called to be involved, overall, they supported them too. A lot of the plays didn't get to the secondary, which is good. You don't want your corners and your safeties making all of the plays in the running game. When they had to make them for the most part they were there and they made them. We didn't' have a lot of missed tackles. We didn't have a lot of long runs.

**Q: You said that you have ups and downs every season. Would it be fair to say as we sit here this morning this is an up time for your team?

BB:** Yeah, that would be fair to say. That would be fair. We are on a very short-term outlook. It was short-term after the Washington game. It was short-term after the Buffalo game and it is short-term after this game. Right now it is Cleveland. Cleveland is a real good football team. They play their best football on the road. They are coming in here. We all saw what they did to Pittsburgh. They went out and beat San Francisco in San Francisco. They have got a very talented team defensively, their receivers and their skill players on offense. So as much as this win felt good, it is over and really we are onto Cleveland.

**Q: Can you speak on the play of Richard Seymour?

BB:** Richard is certainly on the best defensive lineman in the league. He has done a great job for us. He has got a lot of skill. He is big and can rush the passer. He is strong and can play the run. He runs well in pursuit. He shows up in the kicking game. His game I think has gotten to a more consistent level this year. His pad level has been better. He is a tall guy at 6'6 so it is always harder for those guys to stay as low as some of the 6'1, 6'2, and 6'3 guards. You have to bend your knees and bend your ankles and play with your weight down. He is doing a better job of that. He is getting better leverage on the offensive linemen. His awareness and experience, as you would expect any player in there in their third year, is improving. He has done a good job.

**Q: Was this one of the best feeling wins, obviously not counting the Super Bowl?

BB:** It was very dramatic. I think that added a lot to the game. It was just so dramatic. Sometimes you win and maybe the last three, four, five-minutes of the game you can kind of see it coming. That game it was back and forth and well into overtime and you are on your own 18-yard line, you are not thinking about an 82-yard touchdown. You are trying to make some yards, make a first down, and get into field goal range, get across the 50. You aren't thinking about an 82-yard touchdown. It was a very dramatic play and a very dramatic ending and one I think the team really deserves. That put a little different light on it.

**Q: When is the last time you threw your headset?

BB:** I can't remember ever doing that. I just wanted to make sure it didn't come down on me. That would have been a good ending.

**Q: How please are you with the work of your staff as a whole preparing the team?

BB:** The assistant coaches deserve a lot of credit. We had eight rookies playing yesterday. They spent a lot of time, not just this week, a lot of people think this is the week or this is the time, but it goes all the way back to the Spring when the rookies can in May 16th. All of the extra meetings, all of the extra practice time, the walkthroughs, the film time, taking each guy aside and going through little things that can help them, not just on the x's and o's but just knowing how to play the game and how to prepare and be a professional, be an NFL player and take that next step. I think they have done an outstanding job as well as putting together game plans and calling plays and coaching under pressure. When you are in close games and you have just a few seconds to make decisions, make calls and make adjustments, they change personnel or a situation changes or that kind of thing, that is what coaches do. I am very fortunate to have the staff that I have. Those guys do a good job. They cover up a lot of my mistakes.

**Q: When you 'lost' the toss in overtime, was your main goal yesterday to defend that side because of the dirt?

BB:** That was part of it. The wind was slightly going in that direction, from the baseball infield down. Adam had that first kickoff and it was a touchback, it was deep in the end zone. He hit it well, but I think the wind slightly aided that. But yes, kicking a field goal in overtime, we would've preferred kicking it off grass than dirt, so that was also part of the factor. It all added up and pointed in the same direction, but those were all considerations.

**Q: Has Adam been better in that department—in kickoffs—this year than he was last year?

BB:** His kickoffs have been better this year, yes. I mean they've never been bad, but this year and especially yesterday they were all over a four second hang time and had a good distance on the ball. I think his kickoffs have been good. This time last year one of the biggest problems we were having on our team was kickoff coverage—they were running back to midfield it seemed almost every time. As a team, our kickoff coverage has improved—some of that's the kicker, some of that is the coverage.

**Q: Can you acknowledge that this team, winning the last three in a row, is a little bit exceptional somehow?

BB:** I give the team all the credit in the world. They've worked hard, they've played hard, and they've beaten some good football teams. That being said, we've got a long way to go. We haven't won anything yet. 5-2, that doesn't mean anything. There's nine games left, so we'll see where we are at the end. Right now it's on to Cleveland. We're not going to sit here and have a parade and celebrate because we won five games. We just haven't done anything yet; we have got to keep going.

**Q: Given the fact that your team is playing very well considering the obstacles, why is it that this team buys into what your mantra is whereas, on other teams, it doesn't seem to work that way?

BB:** I don't know. I can't speak to any other teams. We just try to approach it that way here. To me, that's the only way that I've really had any success—by doing it that way. Not worrying about two weeks from now or three weeks from now. Taking care of today and taking care of this week and worry about next week, next week. And I think the players—those that have experienced any success that way—see the same thing. I don't think you can be at your best this week when you're worrying about next week. I'm sure that a lot of players have gone through that same experience, where they've put more thought or more energy into something down the line—more than they probably should have—and they look back on it and say, 'That is the wrong thing to do. Let me live for today and live for this week, and we'll see what happens next week'. A lot of things can change in a hurry in this business.

**Q: Deion Branch is fourth in the conference in third down receptions. Is that just happenstance, or is he your third down target?

BB:** No, he's a good receiver. I think we have a lot of confidence in him, he runs good routes, catches the ball well, can get open. As Troy Brown's been a key receiver on third down, he draws some coverage, and when the coverage is there then the ball really needs to go somewhere else. It's hard for the defense to cover everybody in that situation. Larry Centers was very productive for us—obviously not yesterday, but on third down. We've gotten some production out of our tight ends, and David Patten and [David] Givens. The more balanced you can be—in all situations, but especially on third downs—if you can mix some sub-runs in there to keep them honest, the easier it is to convert. You go to the same guy every time, then they'll load the coverage up on him, so somebody else is going to have to make the play. It is just hard to get it in there when it is thick.

**Q: Is there some chance that Larry Centers will be back?

BB:** Sure, yeah, there's some chance. We did an injury settlement with Larry. Hopefully he will be back.

**Q: How serious is Ty Law's injury—is that day-to-day or week-to-week or is there something more serious?

BB:** Well, did you see him run before the game?

**Q: No.

BB:** Did anybody else see him run before the game?

**Q: Actually, I just missed the warm-ups.

BB:** Well, he was down there on the field, I think anybody that saw him run yesterday—which a lot of people did—could say that he's close. It wasn't like he was out there on crutches. He worked out before the game, and I'd say it was close. We didn't think he was quite ready yesterday; so day-to-day is probably a good way to put it. Some days are better than others, but I think that is where it is.

**Q: When do you anticipate the two Ted's [Johnson and Washington] will be back?

BB:** It's getting closer, they're both doing better. I'd say they're probably both still doubtful for this week. Maybe out, I don't know. We'll list them on Wednesday. I'd say at this point probably doubtful for this week.

**Q: With Adrian Klemm on injured reserve, would you start the clock on Kenyatta Jones this week?

BB:** I think we probably will. We started it on [Tully] Banta-Cain this week. We'll probably work Kenyatta in there this week, yes, because we do need depth there at the tackle position.

**Q: How did Banta-Cain look in his debut?

BB:** Not bad. He played in the kicking game, had a few snaps on defense. It's his first time ever playing for us—didn't play in any preseason games, hasn't done much. There is some new experiences there. I wish he could've held on to that fumble, I'm sure he does too. But I thought he did some positive things. He'll learn from this game, hopefully. The next time he gets an opportunity I hope it'll be better, but it was at least good that he got his feet wet. He got a little bit of game experience, and hopefully he can build on that.

**Q: Not to get into any criticizing the refs or anything, but quick question—is it a uniform coin that's used?

BB:** No.

**Q: What kind of coin was it?

BB:** I wasn't out there. I'm not going to comment on the whole situation. No, it's not the exact same coin all the time.

**Q: Should they have a special coin?

BB:** We can all have opinions on that. My thing is that I want to try and control what I can control. Whatever they do, they have to try and do their job, and I'm sure they're working to do their job better. My focus is on trying to do my job better, get the team ready to go, make sure I understand the rules, make sure I know what the way it is supposed to be done. If they miss it, they miss it. Hopefully they'll get it right the next time. We need to try to do it right. I thought, even though there were certainly a lot of close calls in the game, I thought from a penalty standpoint we were better as a team than what we had been, and that was good. Our penalty yardage was as low as it's been in a while, and the number of penalties was down, and that was good. There were a couple of close calls, there's no doubt about that, and I'm not sure that I saw them the way they were called all the way around. Not just on us but there were also a couple on Miami that were close, but regardless the main thing for us is to know the rules, to coach by the rules, and to try to play within the rules, and that's what we can control. Something happens outside the box, then we have to play through it just like everybody else does.

**Q: Are the corners playing a higher percentage of man [coverage] this year?

BB:** For the year, it's hard to say, maybe a little bit more. In yesterday's game there was a lot of man. There was a lot less against the Giants a week ago. If you had asked that question a week ago, I mean it's one answer. It was a little different yesterday—we played a lot of man yesterday, yes.

**Q: As a general guideline, if you were given it to someone a report on the Patriots, could you say 'we're playing more man this year than last year'?

BB:** Maybe a little bit. I don't think it's dramatically more, let's put it that way. Maybe a little bit more.

**Q: If it is a little more, is that because of Tyrone [Poole's] addition?

BB:** Tyrone's done a good job for us. The corners have done a good job for us, whether it's been Ty [Law], Tyrone, Asante [Samuel], Eugene [Wilson] yesterday, Antwan Harris, all those guys. Whoever it's been, overall our coverage has been better than it was last year. And our man-to-man coverage has been better than it was last year. I think they all play a part in it—Tyrone certainly plays a part of it. Part of it though, is game planning. And part of it is how you feel you match up, not just against the receivers, but how you match up as a team against their team, and whether you want to be in man-to-man. That is the first question we ask every week, 'Do we want to be man to man against these guys?' A lot of the times the answer is no, we don't want to play man against them. Sometimes the answer is yes, and then you still have to deal with those problems, but then your game plan is more that-based. If you're playing man to man and your covering them and it's going well and you're not giving up a lot of big plays, then there is naturally a tendency to call more of it. From that standpoint, I think the confidence level of playing man-to-man is higher this year than it was at this point last year.

**Q: I think last year you said that, as a general rule of thumb, it's easier to play the run from the secondary when you are in zone.

BB:** No question about it. That's definitely true.

**Q: I am just wondering if your run defense is a little bit better, certainly in the secondary, even though you're playing more man-to-man.

BB:** First of all, there's a lot of different ways you can play man-to-man. How you position your safeties can dramatically affect whether your run defense is better or worse in man-to-man. If you move them far enough away from the ball, you could still be in man-to-man and it have a negligible effect on the run game. If you move them a lot closer to the line of scrimmage, then you're really either in an eight or nine-man front, assuming they have two receivers in the game, which gives you all the numbers in the running game. You have either one or two more players than they have blocking. It just depends on where you want to position them. So man-to-man could either be a maximum run defense or it could be a minimum run defense, depending on what you want to do with them.

**Q: Aren't you leaving [the safeties] back a little bit more? Rodney [Harrison] seems to be back a lot.

BB:** We do it both ways. I'm not saying it's all one or the other. We do it both ways. There are advantages in the passing game to playing them deeper and there are advantages in the run game to playing them closer. A little bit of it is a guessing game with what you think the opponents are going to do, and you also want to try and give them the same looks and do different things from that same look. Where they start a lot of times is not always where they finish. For example last week in the running game, the plays that Tyrone Poole made against the Giants, that was in the zone. Had he been in man-to-man on those plays, he wouldn't have been able to come as quickly as he came on those particular plays. So that's one of the things you try to do defensively, is to try to keep the offense honest and show one thing but be able to do a couple of things off it, both in the run defense and the pass defense standpoint. Sometimes they're looking for one thing and they get something else.

**Q: How did Mike Vrabel look yesterday?

BB:** Mike was in for a handful of plays. I thought he did a good job when he was in on those plays, rushing the passer. He's still in good condition, he still has his quickness, and I think he's gaining his confidence back in being able to use his hands and take people on. Hopefully we can continue to increase that a little bit incrementally here. We'll just have to see and take it week by week with him. Mike is pretty realistic about his situation, and I thought he was great yesterday in terms of saying 'Look this is what I think I can do, this is what I don't think I'll be able to do very well'. We tried to utilize him in the situations that we thought fell under those categories.

**Q: Rodney Harrison's track record is pretty well known. Are you getting from him what you expected?

BB:** We expect a lot out of Rodney, but Rodney is a really good football player. I think he is having an outstanding year for us. He's been great in coverage and he's done a good job blitzing. He has been very productive in the running game and short passing game when he is able to make tackles. He's a good tackler, he's made a lot of negative plays for us—he had a couple last week against the Giants on some bounce-out plays. He had good coverage on a couple of tight ends the last two weeks. I know he has had some turnovers, so he's been around the ball a lot, and again as we talked about last week, he has given us tremendous leadership. He has a real presence both on and off the field. I know we all see it on the field, but he has a real presence about him off the field in terms of his commitment to the team and his commitment to football. He's really done a good job.

**Q: How has he taken to the system? He expressed some frustration with it in the beginning but it looks like he has done okay with it.

BB:** I think he's done a good job with it, and we're happy with the way that he is playing and with what he has been doing. How different it is from San Diego— I would take him at his word. He knows that comparison better than I do.