Bill Belichick 10/16: "Keep working, keep grinding"

Nick O'Malley (0:00)

Morning, Bill, I wanted to know, did you get a chance to meet with any of your former players after the game, like Jacoby, Brian, or Adam Butler?

Bill Belichick (0:12)

Yeah, I didn't get out of the locker room until late. I saw Josh.

SPEAKER_3 (0:30)

Why don't you just kind of get your feelings on how the, you know, starting over process worked in terms of better fundamental play, be more competitive than if you thought that was an effective approach and paid dividends, obviously not in the results, but in terms of some of the process stuff.

Bill Belichick (0:49)

I think we definitely did some things better this week than we did the last week or the week before that. But, you know, in the end, still not enough, but we'll keep working, keep grinding.

SPEAKER_3 (1:04)

And you mentioned you hadn't had up to see some of the penalties last night. I was curious, you thought on, you know, the Henry hold, which negated the touchdown, and also the PI, they called on Jennings, but seemed to be more focused on JC. Jackson.

Bill Belichick (1:21)

Right, yeah, I mean, the calls are the calls, you know. I think there's a couple, but look, this crew, you know, calls a lot of penalties. They called a lot of penalties yesterday.

But that's out our control, other than trying to do things fundamentally as well as we can. So some of the penalties obviously were all our fault. You know, starts, things like that, some of the other ones, you know, we have to play good fundamental football, and that's what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_3 (2:00)

From a coaching standpoint, is there anything, you know, that you would coach Henry differently on that or, you know, JC. Jackson in terms of how he defended on that play?

Bill Belichick (2:12)

Yeah, probably not too much.

SPEAKER_4 (2:19)

My next question is from Nick O'Malley, followed by Zach Hall.

Nick O'Malley (2:25)

On the last offensive play for you guys, the play where Mack took the safety in the end zone, obviously that pressure came on pretty quickly, but what are the coaching points on that play in terms of what Mack should obviously want to avoid the sack there? But what do you want to see Mack try and do to avoid taking that sack in that spot?

Bill Belichick (2:50)

Yeah, unfortunately, there were a number of problems on that play. There were a couple of breakdowns we had, and so we just didn't do a good enough job on it, obviously.

Nick O'Malley (3:03)

And has anything changed in your mind in regards to how you're going to handle a first-team snap for quarterback heading into this next week, especially with Belichick's status changing?

Bill Belichick (3:18)

Right, yeah, Nick, we just got through the game here, so we're talking about next week's game plan and all that. Let's do that.

SPEAKER_5 (3:31)

You're welcome. Morning Bill, on the league, just here is what you saw from him during the lead up to this game that made you want to sign him to the roster officially rather than, say, using a game day elevation for him.

Bill Belichick (3:54)

Yeah, my leg's improved a lot during the course of the year, both at receiver and in the kicking game, and some of the snaps he's taken a quarterback. So, yeah, didn't really get too much of a chance to see him yesterday, and it was a tough situation. They made a good call, hit us on a perimeter blitz there.

But he's been good to work with. He's made a lot of improvement, and we'll see where it goes.

SPEAKER_4 (4:22)

Thank you. Going back to the Thanksgiving game against Minnesota last year, in every game since, you guys have fallen behind, except against the Jets.

Nick O'Malley (4:43)

Fallen behind by double digits.

SPEAKER_4 (4:44)

And it's happened this year, the 16-0 and the 17-3, yesterday as well, and obviously the Dallas and the Saints games. What is it that's happening at the start of games?

Nick O'Malley (4:54)

Are you not prepared?

SPEAKER_4 (4:55)

Are the players not executing? Is this a coaching issue?

What is the issue?

Bill Belichick (5:03)

Yeah, Tom, find the answer to that question.

Maybe it wouldn't be that way. We've tried a number of different things, so we'll keep working on it, and just keep working to try to get better. But yeah, you're right. That's been hard to play from behind. That's not the way you want to play in this league or really in any competitive sport that I could think of.

And we got to do a better job of that. There's no doubt about it. We just have to do a better job. And it's a team thing. It's not one particular thing, but when we get our opportunities early in the game, we just haven't made the most of them, and we have to do a better job of that. So it's coaching, playing. It's all the above.