Q:There was a play in the first half where Vince Wilfork was able to drop into coverage on a pass play and ended up shoving the guy out of bounds for a loss. Was that a designed play or was that an example of him reading the coverage and reacting to what was going on?
MP:On that particular play – obviously Vince has a wealth of experience and knowledge of the game –more of just a real good awareness play on his part to understand what the offense was trying to do on that particular play. Just a really good play by him.
Q:Considering Nate Ebner's limited football background prior to the NFL, can you describe the progress that he has been able to make so far?
MP:Nate is going to fall into that category with all of our guys that are trying to improve every week. Nate is studying extremely hard to learn the game of football and understand what we're trying to do defensively within our scheme and our system. [He's] someone who is just really focused on trying to improve himself every week. He is trying to make progress in that area and we're seeing some improvement there which is good. Obviously we have a long way to go with it, but like I said, he's someone that's working really hard to understand what we're trying to do from a defensive standpoint and to gain some experience and knowledge and understanding of the game.
Q:What are some of the defensive areas of focus that you are going to work on improving going into the bye week?
MP:Obviously that's a big part of this week for us certainly, to take a look at everything that we're doing and see some areas where we can improve and hopefully find some areas where we are doing some things that are also OK and good, and things that we can build off of. So we'll certainly take a look at that as well. Hopefully as you're going through all of it try to find a couple areas once you take a look at it and show the players a couple avenues where we can really do some things better and improve that would really make a difference in our team. I think you've got to try to narrow that down after you take a good look at all of it and give them a smaller scope so that you're not just looking at everything and try to get something done instead of just giving them mass pieces.
Q:St. Louis was able to score on a big play on their first drive of the game. Is that a disappointing way to get the game started? Conversely, are you proud of the way that your defense as a whole and your secondary was able to tighten things up from that point on?
MP:I certainly don't think you want to start any game, or any drive for that matter throughout the game, giving up points. That's our goal, to not allow them to score. Unfortunately we didn't do a very good job of that on the first series of the game. Our guys do a great job of understanding that they have to improve on all of those situations, but certainly our guys battled back and really tried to get things corrected, like we do every week, but we also do that within the game. I think that's something that we have to try to build on and keep doing every week – try to get things fixed within the game itself and hopefully try to eliminate any of those situations to start from.
Q:After Week 7 against the Jets, Coach Belichick said Devin McCourty did a good job keeping plays in front of him at safety. Do you feel like you saw the same thing from him this past week in terms of being in the right place at the right time?
MP:Devin goes out there every week and tries to do what we're asking him to do and execute it on a very high level – as do all of our players. It's encouraging when all of them do that and that's what we're trying to do every week. Certainly I would say that he is trying to do the best he can to be a multiple role player for us and help us in all of those areas and improve on them every week.
