How Did The New England Patriots React To Clinching A First Round Bye?

Dec 21, 2014; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick during the game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

Shortly after the New England Patriots beat the New York Jets yesterday to clinch a first round bye, players and coaches met with the media to discuss the win.

Here is the official transcript:

Bill Belichick

Opening Statement…
Another tough game down here. It’s good to win. It felt like our team needed to make a lot of plays in the fourth quarter to win and they did. We made them in all three phases. (There were) a lot of key plays at the end. Our players came through on one right after another from the turnover, the touchdown, the sack, long field goal, blocked field goal and running out the clock. We were able to make the plays we needed to make at the end of the game and that’s a credit to the players. We’ll take this one and move on to Buffalo.

On Danny Amendola…
Danny did a good job. (Brandon) LaFell did a good job. Those guys came up with a couple of real big catches for us in key situations. Danny had a big punt return to give us a little spark, not that we were able to do a whole lot with it, but it gave us a spark in the first half. He came up great, but so did LaFell. We were able to get more consistency offensively in the second half.

On the team making plays in the fourth quarter…
That’s the kind of team this is. We all count on each other. Each guy has an opportunity to help us in one way or another. You never know when it is or how it’s going to turn out, but when we need them, we need them. They continue to step up. Different guys in different situations in different phases of the game, but we played good complimentary football in the second half, particularly in the fourth quarter. That’s what we need to do.

On Ryan Allen…
He’s really hit the ball well three weeks in a row. He’s done a real good job. We had a couple of big field position plays in the whole first half. He’s done a good job for us.

On this is the type of game he expected from the Jets…
We’ve played a lot of games like this against the Jets.

On rotating offensive tackles in the game…
They’ve got a real good front. We used Nate (Solder) some at tight end and Cam (Cameron Fleming) a little bit, but mostly Nate. We rotated the guard situation with Josh (Kline) and Cam Fleming. Left guard for Josh and right guard for Cam and (Ryan) Wendell flipped back to left guard. We had a couple of different combinations on the line. They (the Jets) were looking to battle. They have a lot of good players up there. They’re well coached. They have a good front that’s hard to block. We battled.

On Vince Wilfork’s blocked field goal…
I coached special teams for a significant part of my career. I know how that goes. When you see a guy block a kick or get pressure in a certain area, you try to stop that and that usually creates opportunities for somebody else. We’ve gotten it from different guys in different gaps. If the team concentrates too much on trying to stop one guy and there’s an opening somewhere else, we’ve got to be able to take advantage of that. We had a stand right there before the snap and changed our alignment a little bit. It was a long kick like the one we had in New England Like Chris (Jones) did, Vince got his hand up and the ball was a little low. The key to blocking the kick was being in front of the ball. Vince got himself there and made the play.

On the sack by Dont’a Hightower…
It was a real big play. That was a look we hadn’t run all game. I though Matt (Patricia) made a great call in that situation. The sack, I’m not going to say knocked them out of field goal range, but made it a much tougher field goal. It looked like they were going to punt it there with the timeout. It looked like they changed their mind and kicked it but I think those yards had a lot to do with their strategy and the changes there in the end helped us a little bit. The kicked forced a bit lower and had (a) lower trajectory, but that was a big play. We had a number of big plays today defensively. It wasn’t perfect, but we cut down on penalties on defense, so that was encouraging.

On how important the Buffalo game is…
Every game is important. You’re always playing for something. Buffalo has a good football team. They had a big win last week against Green Bay. We had a tough game with them earlier in the year. I have a lot of respect for that football game. It seems like they’ve gotten better over the course of the season, so I’m sure we’ll have our hands full. We’ve got to turn the page quickly and get on to them and deal with what this week is and the challenges. We have to have the same week of preparation. It’s the same for every team in the league. We have to do a good job of (preparing) and be ready to go. Buffalo is a good football team.