Coach Bill Belichick on WEEI 12/26: "It was pretty impressive the effort the players put forth"

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Good morning, Bill Belichick. I hope you had a nice Christmas. How are you?

Bill Belichick (0:04)

Yeah, good morning. Happy holidays to everyone. Yep.

SPEAKER_1 (0:08)

Very, very odd games, Sunday night in Denver. Horrible start with the fumble by Zappe, a phenomenal stand by the defense.

The Ryland performance, and then in the end, you're able to pull out the win with a 58-yard field goal from Chad Ryland. How was the flight back following that kind of a performance heading into Christmas morning?

Bill Belichick (0:32)

Good, good. I think, you know, we had some guys really play a lot of football, and just left everything on the field. It was pretty impressive, you know, the effort that they put out there. And I think there's a lot of tired people on the flight, but very satisfying to come out of there with a win.

Tough place to play. And as you said, you know, overcame some kind of a slow start there.

But our defensive made some, you know, had a couple big series there and, you know, kept them off the board. And then we were able to battle back, take the lead. And the game went back and forth. I mean, it was a wild fourth quarter, but, you know, very, very satisfying to win. But guys put a lot into it. And I think they were pretty worn out after the game, which that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_1 (1:30)

Bill, Sean Payton told the broadcast crew on NFL Network that he wanted it to be clear on film on Monday which of the two teams competing Sunday night had something to play for. What does it say about your program that you had the guys ready to go to meet or exceed their energy and dedication to that win, especially on the road in Denver.

Bill Belichick (1:56)

Thank you. No, I don't know.

Look, our guys have been pretty consistent every day, every week, coming in, preparing, getting ready to go, trying to improve, trying to get ready for the next challenge. Another week of that, and a lot of these games have come down to the final possession, and this one went our way, so it was great.

SPEAKER_3 (2:27)

Bill, Bailey Zappe continues to kind of get better with each start as he stacks more and more starts together. In particular, I felt like he was really effective pushing the ball down the field for you guys. He was like five of six on passes over 20 yards in the game. What have you seen from Bailey through his four starts so far and his kind of evolution as a quarterback?

Bill Belichick (2:51)

Yeah, I mean, look, the quarterback position, most important thing is ball security and protecting the team and not turning the ball over, and so that's definitely gotten better for him. And then he's made some key plays on third down and, as you said, made a couple explosive plays on balls down the field to different receivers, to Parker, to Farrow on the seam route, to Rieger.

And then he had a couple plays, like the throws to Zeke, one we missed out on the flat, and then the other one, he got out there to him in time where he was able to break a tackle and score a touchdown, a big third down, extended play, scrambled it, he hit Mike on for a touchdown. So continuing to improve, and I thought he did a good job in Pittsburgh and Denver handling the crowd noise and the operation of the line of scrimmage pretty cleanly. We didn't have very many mental problems there. I mean, there were times where we got beat and that kind of thing, but as far as just getting the plays called right, run right, block right, he did a good job on that. And Denver had several different looks that we had to deal with. They had a couple different nickel looks, and then their base defense, and then they had a couple of different dime looks. So it was a team that we saw multiple defensive configurations out of, more than what most teams run. And that was challenging, but I did a good job with that. So moving in the right direction.

SPEAKER_1 (4:39)

Bill, Zeke Elliott complimented Bailey Zappe's presence and running of the offense, saying that he's really taken control of the huddle. Have you seen his sort of confidence outside of his performance, his confidence continue to build as he's had more time as the as a starter of this offense?

Bill Belichick (4:59)

Oh, sure. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, it gets accurate.

SPEAKER_3 (5:05)

Coach Bill, you saw the defense was able to sack Russell Wilson five times in the game, three of which came from Christian Barmore, who felt like he was all over the place in that game. He was tremendous.