Q: How can you explain this?
TB: When you make bad plays early in the game, it just means you've got to make more good plays at the end. As long as there's time left on the clock, you've got a shot. For some reason, I just felt like we always had a shot, even though we were down 27-6. I just felt like we were still in it. [We were] just making plays there at the end, and obviously David [Patten] made a hell of a catch to put us up. Kevin [Faulk] made a couple of great plays, the line did a good job; those guys are good pass rushers. They did a great job. There's not a lot of room for error if you mess up early and you kind of put yourself behind the eight ball. But, we fought our way out of it.
Q: Bill [Belichick] said that last play was yours.
TB: No. Charlie [Weis] and I had been talking about that play for … We had that play in all the time. A quarterback's out there and he sees … I see a lot and I get a feel for stuff. I can go over to Charlie and say, 'Charlie, what do you think about this one?' He'll say, 'Well, let's run it.' But, Charlie always has the final say.
Q: What did you see that made you think that might work?
TB: They had been playing a lot of cover two. I really hadn't gone to the back side of cover two much. I had just been staying to the three-receiver side. So, I figured I'd just try to pump left, pump to the three-receiver side to get the safety off that hash, because I knew that the corner just sits in the flat. David [Patten] got behind him, I threw it, and the guy was chasing David. David came up with a hell of a catch. That was one of the best catches … under pressure, man. That's what David's all about. He's in a tough spot, because Troy [Brown] gets a lot of catches and Antowain [Smith] gets a lot of runs. David's sometimes the odd man out, but whenever you throw it to him in that situation – I think of in the Oakland game last year, the Super Bowl, the Pittsburgh game – in all those big games, David steps up. He's awesome out there.
Q: It had to be special for David because of the way things went early. You guys must have thought it wasn't going to be your day.
TB: Well, at different times you feel different out there. I threw the pick and the strip-sack; you're never looking to do that. Those things happen. They intercept balls. They strip balls. It's about overcoming those. We overcame today.
Q: Where does this rank on your regular season wins?
TB: It's hard to rank them. They all mean something different. This one's obviously at the top somewhere. I haven't played that many games, but I'll never forget this one. It's a big win. We're 5-4 now, and now we've got to go to Oakland. I think all of us have been looking forward to that for a long time, as they have been. It will be a long trip, so …
Q: Did you think that you were going to turn it around even though you were having problems early in the game?
TB: We scored there when we were down three touchdowns. When we scored to get it to two touchdowns, I said, man, we've got a shot. There were four minutes left in the third quarter, then if we stop them and score, it's a one-score game. That's what we did. Kevin scored and made a great play to catch and run and we score on the one that had him wheeling out of the backfield. I threw it to him and he made a great catch. Then we kicked a few field goals and came up with the big play at the end. This is fun. We work hard, and every day we go out there and sometimes it doesn't pay off, like those four weeks where there were four losses. It shows that all those hard times, all those bad times, that's what they're for. They pay off. All that work you put in, sometime it's going to show. When you're down three touchdowns in the third quarter, it shows what kind of heart you've got and what kind of fight you've got and what kind of character you have. Coach has brought in all these guys with high character and toughness and as long as you don't stop fighting, which this team never has and never will, you've always got a shot.
Q: A year ago, nobody would have thought anything of this, but for this team, things are different. Did you guys feel the same confidence that you did a year ago and feel that something was going to go right?
TB: Sometimes it's hard to know what to feel. Sometimes you feel like, 'God, what a horrible throw,' or, 'What a bad drop,' or 'What a bad read.' That's what you're feeling sometimes. Other times, you come up and think, 'If we can just score here and score there, we've got a shot.' I think that's more what it was today. You never felt out of it. The mistakes we made, early in the game we had that play where I faked the screen and Kevin rushed for 40 and they called it back. When you're on the road, those plays hurt. You've got to come back when if you get up on them, it's a different story. Once teams gain momentum at home … In the third quarter, you couldn't hear anything out there. We were just trying to get positive plays. We were trying screens, draws, reverse screens, drop back pass, we were trying everything and nothing seemed to work. Then once you get your momentum back, things do start going right.
Q: How about the replays. Not that you didn't make plays, but every replay that this team gets seems to go in your favor.
TB: They made the right calls. If they get them right the first time on the field, then they don't have to replay them.
Q: Did you think David had his feet in?
TB: When I threw it, I thought he had a shot. He tapped his feet, and it looked like, from where I was 30 yards away … But, the ref made the call and he was right there. He got the call right. They replayed it and obviously they couldn't find anything to overturn it.
