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

Dec 21, 2014; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Jets running back Chris Johnson (21) is tackled by New England Patriots cornerback Darrelle Revis (24) in the first half during the game at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

Darrelle Revis

On clinching a first round bye…
It’s great. We are just trying to achieve our goals. It was tough today. We fought hard, made adjustments, and hung in there for the win.

On if he had any exchange with Rex Ryan…
I just told him good luck, that it was good to see him and that was it. I was just showing him respect for coaching me in the past.

On his reaction if Rex Ryan is fired…
That’s not my focus or concern. I have to continue to focus on what we are doing here in New England.

On making plays in key moments…
Like I said, we made adjustments when we needed to and made plays.

On Nick Mangold being injured…
It was very tough. You saw the crowd of players on both teams around him and that’s because everyone has a lot of respect for Nick and what he has done in this league. We are former teammates and it was devastating to see him go down. He was grabbing his leg and screaming so you knew it was serious. You don’t want that to happen to a guy like him, he has great character and I know him personally. My heart goes out to his family.

On the mental toughness of the Patriots…
Through a season there will be ups and downs. When we played the Jets in the first game it was tough. During tough games you need mental toughness, and we show it. The game we showed the most toughness is the Green Bay game where we fought hard but just didn’t make enough plays. It comes down to the wire sometimes and that’s when the great teams win those games.

On winning division games…
Division games are always tough and it doesn’t matter what the records are. The opponent could have a losing record or vice versa, it doesn’t matter. These are the games that you need and they always come down to the wire.

Vince Wilfork

On blocking the field goal…
I just filled a soft A-gap, making sure that I was legal, not covering up the center and at the same time, being able to get vertical in that lane. I felt that I had a good shot of getting some penetration, so it worked out well. That is just one of the plays that (we had) opportunities on. I had a good opportunity to make a play and I did for the team. It was nothing special that I did. I just penetrated a little bit and got my hands up and got a piece of it. I’m glad it helped my team win a ball game. That is what it is all about, the wins, and we walk away with another one.

On if a game like this makes them feel better moving forward…
There were certainly some things that we definitely have to clean up. We definitely have to get better in some situations, some certain things that we did, we can clean up. The good thing about it is we can clean them up. (We) get back to work tomorrow, get home and watch the film tomorrow, come in and get ready for another tough division game against Buffalo, a team that should be playing now. They have a lot of stuff riding on them winning out, so we understand that. It is going to be another tough game. It’s not the end of the season, it is a division game at home. So we have to be ready to play, but at the same time we have to be able to do some things a little differently, play well, better in certain areas and hopefully we can get the job done moving forward.

On what it does for a team’s confidence to win a divisional game…
It just shows the character of your team, the build-up of your team. You can go all game, three quarters, four quarters, all the way down to 58 minutes and sometimes it comes down to one minute or two minutes in the ball game that is really going to define the outcome of that game. Tonight was one of those nights, just fourth quarter making plays down the stretch, on defense not being able to give up touchdowns in the red area and offense being able to give us a score. Then coming back, we throw a pick, stop them, force them to kick, so that whole sequence played out pretty good for us and we executed well. We stood up and executed well. It just shows me that the guys work their tail off through the week. Sometimes we call a play once a game and it is at a critical moment and we have to be able to perform it. We have to be able to execute it and did today. A lot of the credit goes to this team, not just me making that play, but this team down the stretch being able to make the plays that we needed to make just enough to win ball games, but we definitely have to play better down the road.