HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK

PRESS CONFERENCE
December 2, 2022

Q: Just going back through some of the situations last night. Just wanted to ask about the end of the second quarter there in the two-minute situation. After Rhamondre's [Stevenson] run there that stopped short on second down. It looked like there was a delay, maybe 10 seconds, or so before taking the timeout. I was just curious what was happening there on the sideline that led to that delay?

BB: Yeah, just making sure we had the situation there. Initially, it looked like we had a first down and then we didn't. So, should've identified it quicker. 

Q: On that are you sort of waiting for the officials to tell you? Is that sort of where that delay happens? Or would you want a quicker timeout in retrospect or a quicker play?

BB: Well, we had to determine whether it was third down or first down. And so, there was a little bit of delay. Then, what was the play? Then we just thought it would be more efficient to take a timeout. 

Q: Then coming out of that timeout, were you okay with the sneak which ultimately led to taking the final timeout?

BB: Yeah. 

Q: You were good with that? So how much of that was consideration you just didn't want to give them the ball back? Like if it was a field goal, that was better than the alternative of giving them the ball back. Was that the thinking there?

BB: No, the thinking was to get a first down and try to score. 

Q: On Trent [Brown], we didn't see him out there on warmups. I was curious did you know he was going to play at that point? Or was that one that came down right to kickoff that you would even have him available to you?

BB: Well, he was active, so we expect him to be active. Yeah, he was able to hang in there and play. 

Q: Mac [Jones] in his availability said he wanted to be coached harder. He put blame on himself for not being perhaps as hard as he could be on him teammates. What do you take from those remarks?

BB: Well, Mac's a very competitive guy. Love his attitude, love his passion for the game. He works as hard as anybody. As we move forward, try to work to find ways to be more efficient, be more productive in every area. So that's coaching, playing, interaction with teammates, etc.

Q: As you look at the offense at this point, it seems like as you reference there's not one particular area that needs to improve. It's different things, leading to different problems in different areas. How do you try to go about fixing this? What's your focus on that?

BB: I don't think that's exactly what I said. But look the bottom line is, we need to just keep working to improve it every week. This week will be different. Arizona's a different defense than Buffalo. Buffalo's a different defense than Minnesota. Minnesota's a different defense than the Jets. So it's not as simple as working against – improving your time in the mile run. I mean that's not what this is. This is about competing against another team. So we'll see what all that entails as we get into Arizona. But we need to continue to work to do things better on our end. Then as it relates to our specific opponent, then match them up and doing well against that opponent. So that's really the process. 

Q: It seems like there's some clear frustration for some of the players on offense with play calling and the general direction of the offense. As the head coach, what do you have to do to get everyone on that side of the ball back on the same page?

BB: Yeah, what I just talked about. It's the same answer we had the last question. Just keep working through it. There's no magic wand here. 

Q: What did you think of the way the offense just competed? I know obviously the results weren't what you wanted, but how did you feel the offense just competed last night?

BB: Yeah, I thought the team overall competed hard. We'll take a close look at the film, but generally speaking, I thought we competed hard. Like I said, we just didn't do enough, in any area really, just do enough to win the game, but I thought we competed.

Q: Marcus [Jones] said that this past week was the first time he was taking reps on offense in practice, just curious why you chose this week to kind of introduce that element to his game and whether that was something that you'd always plan to do since he did do a little bit of that in college?

BB: Right, well Marcus [Jones] is a player who's developed a lot over the course of the season. Wasn't able to do a lot in the spring, he did what he could do, wasn't able to do everything at the start of training camp, but did what he could do. Got into training camp late, into practicing fulltime, late. So just trying to move him along as a player. I don't think you take a player like that and throw everything you could possibly throw at him on the first week of the season, returning punts, playing defense, playing outside, playing inside, at times he has to play safety, play offense, return kickoffs, return punts. I just don't think that's a good idea, so we didn't do that. But his role increased from not much to kickoff returns, to punt returns, to some snaps on defense, to a little different role last night. He's a player who's gained confidence, gained experience, has been used in different ways. We'll see what we do going forward, but I think there's a process of bringing a player along like that and that's what we tried to do.