Bill Belichick on WEEI 10/16: "The record is what it is"

Greg Hill (0:00)

Good morning, Bill.

Bill Belichick (0:02)

Good morning, how are you doing?

Greg Hill (0:04)

Doing well.

You find yourself in a spot that you haven't been in during your time here at one and five. How do you turn this thing around?

Bill Belichick (0:18)

Yeah, no, just keep working at it. I guess there's no shortcut. It's just gotta keep working at it.

SPEAKER_3 (0:27)

Bill, when you look at your team, it's always about putting, you've always said this before, putting the guy in the best possible position to help you win football games. When you're making that decision at every position, what are you looking at, and do you feel like maybe that's a decision that you guys might feel like you have to make at the quarterback to see if you can maybe change some of the momentum?

Bill Belichick (0:53)

We're always looking to do everything we can to try to, like you said, put the team in the best position. That's the coach's job is to put the players in a position where they have a chance to win, and we'll do all we can to do that. That's definitely, that's our job.

SPEAKER_4 (1:11)

Bill, I know you said after the game that you guys have a lot of people injured when asked about making Malik the backup. Is it your plan to keep him there next week against the Bills?

Bill Belichick (1:21)

Yeah, we'll deal with it next week, next week. We'll just finish the game here, and we'll kind of make our decisions on next week.

At a later point in time, not right this minute.

SPEAKER_3 (1:34)

Bill, when you look at the games, obviously past couple of weeks, and we've talked about this before with Mack and his performance, and yesterday he had another kind of bad decision making situation where he threw on the run kind of across his body to an interception.

What are the conversations that you're having with him for him to try to make sure he's taking care of the football and seems like he's been making these mistakes? Is he trying to do too much?

Bill Belichick (2:06)

Well, I don't think it's too much. I think it's just, you know, on that play, it just wasn't a good throw.

He just ran it out of the pocket, Hunter was open, and it just didn't make a good throw. So, I think he's more than capable of making that, but.

Greg Hill (2:25)

Bill, do you feel like this roster is reflective when it comes to the record, a one in five team? Is this a one in five roster in your mind?

Bill Belichick (2:38)

Yeah, well, the record is what it is, so.

SPEAKER_4 (2:51)

Bill, a bright spot for the team yesterday was Ramondre and Zeke, who were able to get in the end zone. Did you see an improvement when it came to your running game, and how did that build upon the past couple of games?

Bill Belichick (3:01)

Yeah, there were some things that were better in the running game, for sure. I mean, just better offensively. We had, you know, two long drives. I mean, three, I don't know, like three drives over 70 yards at a 70-yard touchdown callback.

So there were, you know, so there were some positive moments there, but not enough of them.

SPEAKER_3 (3:35)

Bill, when you look at the team and the situation you're in, how important is it for you? And I guess the question is, how do you go about making sure guys don't get to a position where they, their body language or just mentally, they kind of start to check out a little bit because they feel like there might be no light at the end of the tunnel. How do you make sure as a coach that you don't let that creep into your locker room?

Bill Belichick (4:08)

Well, we would have had every opportunity to do that this week. After the last two weeks, I thought the team had a decent week of practice, worked hard, competed hard in the game.

We just didn't make enough plays to win, and we got to coach and play better, keep working harder to make those plays, execute them in practice, execute them in the game, and we'll have better results.

Greg Hill (4:37)

I think it was 2009 when you famously said to Tom Brady, and I'm paraphrasing here, that you couldn't get through to those guys. Do you feel like you're able to get through to these guys, to this team, with your message?

Bill Belichick (4:57)

Yeah, I mean, that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_4 (5:07)

Does it feel like in the locker room that the guys still have confidence within each other?