Bill Belichick Quotations

I grew up watching my dad scout games live. They played on Saturday. Sometimes they wouldn't get the films until Monday. Sunday air shipping from wherever the college team was located - Starkville, Mississippi, or wherever the film was coming from. It took two days.

Game management, game decisions, adjustments, seeing things during games - it's all important.

Bavaro's probably as tough of a - physically and mentally as tough a football player as I've ever coached. So, I would put him in the rare category there.

I think that's part of building your team is trying to anticipate where your team is going and to a certain extent where, especially defensively because you have to react to what they put on the field. Defensively you have to be able to defend those things.

You go to the draft board and think, 'Here's a nose tackle. Who needs a nose tackle?' Well, eight teams in front of you need a nose tackle, and there's two nose tackles. It's something you have to figure out where you can get the players to play in your system.

Only three teams had a better record than them. They have a good running game, big receivers, a good front seven and they play well on the road.

I was really proud of our team. It's tough down here. Miami is a good football team. They're well coached, they're physical and they gave us all we wanted. I'm proud of the guys for hanging in there.

Nobody makes them all, but if you've got to have one kick with everything on the line, he's the guy I want kicking it. It was a great kick, an awesome kick. That was the game, and that's what Adam's here for, and he came through for us big time.

My father was always just part of the team. He willingly accepted whatever responsibility he was given, whether it was coaching the linebackers or the junior varsity.

Of course, the offensive line functions very well together. It just really grows on you. The more you watch them, the more in sync they seem to be. There are very few spaces in their plays. Everything is pretty tightly fit together.

Obviously, we're disappointed. We weren't able to make the plays we needed to make to win, that's why we didn't win.

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.

Maybe they played on their feet in high school, or as a freshman or sophomore in college, and then they got bigger and went down to the defensive line. Sometimes there is something to go back on there -- not always, but occasionally.

need to take advantage of the extra time that we have this week and do a good job trying to solidify everything in all three phases of the game. ... Fundamentally, we have to try to tighten everything up as much as we can.

Obviously, it says a lot for the player and what he's been able to accomplish: No. 1, the skill of the player and, No. 2, his durability. He's carried the ball a lot and he's carried it very effectively. He has a running style that can work in a lot of different ways with his speed, his power, his quickness, and his run vision. It's a very significant individual accomplishment.

Obviously it was a game where they made more plays than we did. I congratulate Mike and the Denver Broncos. They are a good football team. They earned the right to play here (Saturday) and they played well.

Obviously, tonight we didn't match up with the Colts in any aspect of the game,

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 don?t have much to add at this point. Our medical people are going to take a look at them. We?ll find out all the information we can and we?ll update it Wednesday.

We're not defending anything. We're not repeating anything. Nothing that happened in the past really has any bearing on (this year). Don't get me wrong. I'm respectful of what this organization has accomplished . . . but none of that really has any bearing on anything we do.

There are only three teams in the league that have a better record than they do.

We're looking at another really good football team this week in Denver. They're probably one of the hotter teams in the league right now. They're playing very well in all three phases of the game. They've been a good team to watch just because they're executing so well. They haven't had a turnover in three games.

Maybe we can put a ball and chain on him. That would slow him down, ... He's never out of the play. There's a lot of plays that he makes that you actually see him getting blocked and you think, Oh, that was a pretty good job, and then he still ends up on the ball somewhere.

Mike?s always been one of our most versatile players. He?s a smart player. He?s been in a number of different situations and handles them all well. We have a lot of confidence in him whenever he?s on the field. He?s a fast learner and he picks up things quickly.

Mike Tannenbaum is an extremely hardworking individual who moved up from the entry level to the top of his profession. I am happy and proud of him.

Most of the time you'd think of doing this if you're ahead. You're up by six, or 10, or 11. There've been very few times, if ever, where you take a safety when you're actually behind. But think about it. There's not a lot of great options in that situation. I just figured, if you're down one or three, what's the big difference? You've still got to get at least a field goal. This just made the most sense.

Hank is a smart player. He works hard. He is very diligent. He is a tough kid and he really puts a lot into the game.

Kirk was a good fit for us in Cleveland because of the love he had for the game. He had the commitment to quality and the commitment to teaching that helped him succeed. He had expectations, but he was also fair with his players. His demeanor served him well, and I think that has helped him since he returned to Iowa.

Guys that you know you're going to have to make a decision on (soon), you better figure out what extra information you can get between now and then to help you with that decision.

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.

Getting all the run defense, seven or eight or however many guys, in the right places on any given play isn't easy. You can have everybody going hard, 110 percent, but if one guy is out of position, there's space there for the runner.

I enjoy the competition of all the games. I love to coach and be in a competitive situation where we're up against the greatest players and the greatest coaches on a weekly basis. It's very challenging but it's very exciting, and that?s true every week.

If a player has a lot of longevity and production, you're looking at two factors -- skill and durability,

For the short amount of time he was here, he worked hard and picked up things pretty well, assignments and all that. It's tough to bring a guy in here off the street who's not familiar with your system and then put him in the game for a significant amount of plays. To his credit, I thought he was competitive.

I expect Tom to play. How much, we have to make that determination.

I don't think you can do much of anything. I don't know what we're working with (financially). Until that's defined, it seems like an exercise in futility.

Cedric is a guy that has a lot of talent and has had some big time production at Arkansas. He missed a little bit of time but we feel like at that point in the draft that he was a real good value there with the pick. He is an explosive guy that runs well. He can run with power and basically came in and had big production as a freshman and was a four-year producer at Arkansas when he was healthy.

But again, I think that's consistent with his philosophy, ... Whatever Al's philosophy is, it's been pretty consistent through the years, be it the type of players he gets to play corner(back), the coaches, their style of play, what he wears. It's all consistent.

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 don?t know yet. We will take a look at the guys when we get back. Right now, I don?t know anything.

I don't know what normal is. You can go back and look at the past few years. There are always going to be changes.

But that was the whole thing on Simms in the early '80s there. He's a bust. He was always hurt. He will never amount to anything.

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.

I have a lot of respect for what those (three players) have done, especially Rohan, who has been here for three years. He's been a great leader and has done, really, everything that we asked him to.

I have a lot of respect for what Tom thinks and what he says. I don't really have any problem with what he said.

Having those extra mid-round picks in a full draft does certainly give you flexibility to move up in rounds. There's only so far you can move in that first round. From 21 you're not going to be able to get into the top 10, but you could move up a couple of spots.

Here's another startling revelation, on par with those. The sky is blue.

He's a big target to throw to. He's a smart player. He understands coverages.

What we wanted to do was try and run the ball and give our defense a break, ... The defense couldn't stay on the field all day. And the big thing was when we had the opportunities we had to take advantage of them. That's what we wanted to try to do: Play defense, play field position and take advantage of our opportunities.

What you need to think about it is, 'How do I defeat the guy who is assigned to block me?' That's what defensive football really is about,

He ruined (Eli) Manning for about a month. He went in there, they had him double-teamed, he blew past the tackle, strip sacked the ball and messed up Manning's elbow, scooped it up and ran in for a (29-yard) touchdown. It doesn't get any worse than that.

He's a good decision maker. He can take information, analyze it and make a decision. He has a lot of confidence, communicates well and has a good relationship with everybody he works with.

We're on to Jacksonville and we've got our work cut out for us there. Jacksonville's a tough football team. They're physically tough and they're mentally tough. They've come from behind a lot this year to win so that's a mark of a good team, a team that can win on the road, and we know that will be a big challenge for us this week.

I have so much respect for Keenan and I'm really proud to have coached him. I'm not saying that I developed his career or anything, I don't mean it that way, but I mean just what he brought as a player, his work ethic, his attitude . . . He's really a special guy.

I also coached the secondary and Tom coached the receivers, so we worked together on a daily basis with each other,

I agree with Tom, sure. I'm not really losing too much sleep over it. It doesn't really matter what anybody else thinks about our team.

He's played safety. He's played in (the Dolphins') sub defense. He's played down in a linebacker type of role. He has some flexibility and has played in the kicking game.

How will it be going forward? We'll just have to see how that all plays itself out. That's something we'll talk about later on depending on what the situation is.

He was a guy who was able to go hard and run hard on virtually every single play of the game. It didn't make any difference if it was the fourth quarter, in the middle of a two-minute drive, or the third play of the game. He was always very, very close to his top speed. ... Even if he had good players covering him, he'd wear them down.

He kind of knows the right thing to do without being told. He just knows how to get open and he has a good understanding of passing game concepts. He knows where the other receivers are. He understands where he needs to be, and when there are traffic problems, he almost always does the right thing to clear that traffic up.

He certainly deserves, and I'm sure will get, a good opportunity (elsewhere). He's going to be in the league. There's no question about that.

We made too many mistakes in all phases of the game. We've got to do a better job of coaching and a better job of playing.

We have to advance scout all three of them. There are other people in the organization that are taking care of that. It's not really something that the coaches and the players are all that concerned about.

He's had a tremendous career, ... He's been there 40-some years, whatever it is, six decades, (won) three Super Bowl championships. He's been the commissioner of the AFL, been a coach.

He was a very good special teams player with the Giants when he came out. He runs well. He's pretty athletic in the open field. He has some playing strength and some power. He's a pretty instinctive special teams player.

He had some good players to go against in Kimo von Oelhoffen and Joey Porter. Some plays weren?t so good, but I thought he was competitive. He?s been playing both sides for us all year.

He's got some size. He's a fast guy. He's got some experience on special teams. We'll put him into the mix and see what he can do.

He's done what we've asked him to do. I don't think that he's had any problem with it,

He's got a very good complement of skills,

He's a role player. His role's to play every snap. He does so many things well in so many situations. He's so dependable. You want him in there for everything.

He's done everything we've asked, and he's fit right in with the team.

He's been healthier this year. He's been out there every day. He's been durable. He's gotten a lot of reps, so his technique and his timing are better.

He's been healthier this year, ... He's been out there every day. He's got a lot of reps so his technique and timing are better. Tom's a smart guy. He's worked hard to improve his overall body strength since we got him. And he's pretty athletic.

He's been here for three years, won a couple of championships, been a great leader. He's done really everything that we've asked.

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.

He's big. He's athletic. He's strong. He is very smart, so he can handle a lot of multiple responsibilities and he is flexible enough athletically to be able to do a number of things. He can block bigger people. He has a variety of skills.

What Mike does a great job of is he understands defense, and he understands what causes you the most problems and where you don't want to be defensively. Then he tries to put you in that situation as much as possible. Then based on how you react to that, then that's where he likes to attack.

He (Moss) pretty much has all the skill you could look for in a receiver. He can do it all, intermediate routes, deep routes, makes plays after the catch. Just an exceptional athlete.

He made a great catch. That was a huge play. Changed the field position, put us in position to run the clock out. ... He did what he was supposed to do. Tom read it, laid it out there, and Bethel ran it down. I mean, we always tell Tom just throw it out there as far as you can and make him run for it. He can't overthrow him -- he almost did -- but Bethel ran it down.

He does a great job from week to week of matching up his players against your defensive weaknesses. And he also adds little, different wrinkles to it.

He has outstanding ball skills. He's a smart player. He anticipates well. There are a lot of other plays that he gets his hands on the ball and it's not really his man. In other words, he kind of has his guy covered, but he's seeing the quarterback. He sees the ball thrown and then he breaks on the ball . . . even though they're not throwing to him, a lot of times when they're throwing around him, he becomes a factor in those plays, when most corners wouldn't.

He has some experience playing in the league,

He has some experience. We felt like what our needs were and what our options were, that he was the best fit. He's had some experience. He's good running the ball. He's built like Kevin. Not the same, but similar. Short, thick, strong, legs, good balance. He's probably had more production running than receiving, but I think he can also be in the passing game.

He needs to sharpen his game like everybody else does,

He never really got on the field for a significant amount of time. That didn't help him.

Jon has a legitimate detest or hatred for defense. He takes it very personally.

just not healthy. I'm sure it was a factor, I don't think there's any doubt about it.

I wish all there was to it was to take a chair and throw it into a blackboard or something and then all of a sudden, everything is (fine). I don't think that's really the answer.

Some of the things we had problems with the first two weeks I thought we did a little better. I thought the 'fits' were a little better in the front seven.

That always helps. More importantly than that, I think the players that are playing have played better.

Really, that's the best we've played in the red area all year long. We made a couple of stops after a sudden change, after we turned the ball over offensively. We came in there and didn't let them score a touchdown. We held them, based on the field position that we had, so, I mean, there were some positives to build on.

Statistically, we're fighting an uphill battle when we're on the negative turnover ratio and winning games, especially on the road, ... That's not normally the correlation. ... Right now, we're in a little bit of a dry spell.

Pittsburgh's one of the hottest, most formidable teams in the league. Right now we're up against one of the hottest teams in the league. Miami is playing as good as anybody is.

Patrick had some good plays, ... He's been doing that for us all year, and he did it again today.

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 support whatever Tedy does 100 percent. He's part of the family. We all love him. The comments that he made are consistent with what we talked about in the past, so we're going to proceed on that course.

I think Wesly's experience in the kicking game has definitely showed up here in training camp. Between his experience and his playing ability, his toughness and his desire to be a good special teams player, all of those are weighing on the right side of the scale.

I think the real key to having a good offense is having balance throughout your entire unit, not just one guy who can do something. You need a lot more than that to make it go in this league.

I think everyone's happy to see him out there. But we've got to do our own jobs. We can't just rely on him to show up, and everything falls into place.