Bill Belichick Last Quotations

One of the things we wanted to do today was play competitively against a good football team. Obviously, it came right down to the last play. I was proud of the way our players fought. We had a lot of opportunities for a lot of people to play. This was really our last opportunity to do that, so we tried to take advantage of that.

I don't know, ... Day to day. We'll take it day by day. That's the way it's been for the last however many months. That's, I think, the only way you can do it.

I coached this game with a heavy heart. My dad passed away. I found out about it the middle of last night.

I found out about it the middle of last night, ... I coached this game with a heavy heart.

I don't care what happened last week, last year, last month, what the overall record between the two teams was going back to 1947 or whenever they started playing each other, or who wins when the wind is blowing in from the north. I pay attention to what the matchups are for each individual game.

I have all the respect in the world for Rodney Harrison. I told him that when we brought him here, and he's made great contributions to this team. There's no question about it. Unfortunately, he had a tough setback last weekend and so did the team, but that's the way it is. We're playing San Diego this week. Unfortunately, he won't be with us. I wish he was, but he's not.

He's getting better. I just talked to him, he's feeling better. He's a looking better, he's a lot better than he was last week.

Our offensive line did a pretty good job last night. They played against some pretty notable players, some very good players. Yes, we had some trouble. I think they had some trouble, too. We blocked them and there were times where we couldn't get them blocked. Again, that was a pretty good group. I thought our offensive line played very competitively.

I think he's been very productive in preseason. He's shown a lot of explosion and power. He looks a lot better in three-technique than he did as a 3-4 defensive end last year. He's probably playing with more confidence and maybe a little bit more energy. But when you have Ted Washington on one side and Kelly or Hamilton on the other side, (Sapp's) usually isolated on that guard and he's a handful.

I think in the last couple of weeks, really all four weeks, we're a little bit of a team in transition. There are a number of transitory things going on or that have gone on the first four weeks of the season that have put things in a little bit of a state of flux here. They weren't what they were a month ago. Some of them aren't like they were two weeks ago. Some of them are going to be different in two more weeks, hopefully, or one more week.

We'll get a good evaluation of where we are going against a different type of team than we played last week in Cincinnati. We'll have some different challenges that we'll have to meet. They?re a good team and they have a lot of talent.

I was proud of the way we fought. We got a lot of people an opportunity to play and you never know when that's going to be beneficial. That is really our last opportunity to do that, so we tried to take advantage of that.

Well, ... we know that if we have to put him over there that is an option. That is an emergency measure. Just like last year, we hope that we don't get to that.

We played them last year in preseason (a 31-0 Jaguars romp in an exhibition finale the Patriots' regulars sat and watched). We played them the year before that in the regular season. I think there's some application on those games. I'm not sure how much. We'll look at those But this team is this year's team just like we are and everybody else is.

We didn't want to play him on defense last year. That was an emergency, desperation type of situation and of course Troy handled it wall...But he's a better receiver than he is a defensive back.

The Denver Broncos will be our toughest challenge this season. To have any chance, it will take our best game and certainly a lot better performance than the last time we played them.

We've won a few games here the last five, six weeks and hopefully we can continue to play better.

We're going to do what we think is best. What we did against Oakland may or may not be what we think is best against Carolina. Last year we played Indianapolis in one type of a defense. We played Pittsburgh in another type of a defense. We played Philadelphia in another type of a defense. We're going to do what we think we need to do to try to match up and stop the opponents. I'm not making any promises to anything or anybody about what we're going to do.

When you have a football team, everybody has a role on it. And Ro's role, for the most part in the last couple of years, . . . was to get the defense ready. Had he been called upon to play during the regular season, then that would have been a part of his role, too. But, for the most part, it wasn't. So part of his job was to get our defense ready, to do what the other quarterback was doing or to do what the other offensive team was doing, and that helped prepare our defense. In no way can I minimize that.

There certainly haven't been many times in the last few years where you release a player and say, 'Well, this guy couldn't help us. This guy just couldn't do anything,' ... It's more a case of you have a few spots and you have more people than you do spots. So then you have to make a decision as to where you want your depth. Do you want it on the offensive line, do you want it in the kicking game, do you want it in the secondary, do you want it at tackle, do you want it at receiver, do you want it at quarterback?

Almost 75 years of football gave him a vast knowledge and reverence historically for the game that very few could match, ... He coached everything, and his ability to teach and interact with people has really come back to me in my lifetime and in the last few days.

Tell him what you said to the team last night.

There's probably more (quality) linebackers than we've had the last couple of years. Some of those guys have had a lot of production, have had a lot of playing time.

No. I wouldn't say so. The guys played last year against San Francisco.

The last couple of years we've had a lot of guys go in the first round at receiver, mostly bigger receivers, and there has certainly been a trend and a little bit of a stampede to get those kind of guys. It seems like there are fewer of them this year.

Because the offense usually extends a little bit to try to take care of him, they like to bring the linebackers and blitz them up inside. As the line widens to give attention to Peppers, that opens up a lot of the inside pressures for them. We talked about last week (Oakland receiver Randy) Moss being kind of in a special category, offensively, for the Raiders. I think you have to put Peppers in that same, whatever category that is, defensively.

He's feeling better. He's looking better. He's a lot better than he was last week. So he's upgraded from where he was last week.

Honestly, we went through this at the end last year with the San Francisco game (and the starters played most of the game). Were treating this like a regular week ... I don't think anybody else really knows any other way to do it around here?. I don't think the players do. I don't think the coaches do. It's football season. Maybe I'll see it differently next week. I don't know.

He's an impact player. You have to know where he is. You have to defend him. He beat us inside on a rush down there in the preseason game last year, I don't know, for about a 15-, 17-yard sack, whatever it was. We don't have any quarterbacks that can run away from him, I can tell you that. If he's after us, he's going to get us. He's a lot faster than we are.

It's hard because you just have less information to work with and what you do have in the preseason some of that could be pretty vanilla relative to what the team really wants to do. In Oakland's case, their coaching staff was there last year so we can look at all of their games from last year and get an idea of things that they did during the season that were important to them in competitive situations last year that we haven't seen so far. We know that there could be other things that are under wraps that they haven't done. We just have to be ready to make some adjustments during the game. I think that's the way it always is. There's no question that this is the hardest game.

It was kind of like a basketball game. We were playing for the last shot.

It was kind of like basketball. We were playing for the last shot there. If we make it, we make it. If we don't, time expired and we're in overtime.

We talked last week about (Randy) Moss being in a special category offensively for the Raiders. You've got to put Peppers in that same category defensively,

We missed you earlier. We're going to fine you for that, take it out of your last check,

We?re going to try to take advantage of the extra time this week in terms of meetings, and trying to go through some things we feel like, the last six weeks, teams have repeatedly tried to attack us. Those are things we can address and try to improve on.

It was a terrific game, came down to the last play,

I felt that once we got to the 31, 32 yard line, we were in field goal range. We didn't want to get in the situation where we throw a couple incomplete passes and Pittsburgh had another timeout. It's like basketball; we were playing for the last shot.