How Did The New England Patriots React To Crushing The Jaguars?

Sep 27, 2015; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick watches from the sideline as they take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in the second half at Gillette Stadium. The Patriots defeated the the Jacksonville Jaguars 51-17. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

Following their drubbing of the Jaguars, the New England Patriots met with the media to discuss the win.

Here is the official transcript: (via Patriots.com)

Bill Belichick

"BB: Alright, it was a good win today. I thought our team really came out and played well. We had a good week of practice, and I thought a lot of that carried over into the game. We got a lot of plays from each unit – offense, defense, special teams – so it was a good complementary game. We were able to take advantage of some good field position offensively. And defensively getting off to a good start, they were getting the ball for the offense right away; it was good. I thought our special teams, even though it wasn’t a punting game for us, we had some plays in the punt return, stopped a fake punt, Steve [Gostkowski] kicked the ball well. So, it was a good overall team effort. I’m proud of the way they practiced, prepared and played today. Hopefully now we can take advantage of a little bit of extra time this week and work on some of the things that we still need to improve and keep improving on and be ready to go down to Dallas in a couple weeks. Q: You were mixing a lot of people in the secondary. How do you think that unit performed? BB: We’ll look at the film. I’m sure there are some things that we need to improve on. But a lot of players played today – a lot of guys in the secondary, linebackers, the guys in the front, the backs, the receivers, all the tight ends. I think all our linemen played, so we had a lot of people contribute, a lot of people played, so it was good to get those contributions from everyone. It was a good team win. Q: What happened on that fake punt, where Matthew Slater was able to make that play? BB: You know, it was actually a play that we ran in practice and James White got us on it, and we made some corrections on that in practice and then were able to carry those over into the game. Slate got a good read on it, and he’s a hard guy to outrun. It’s hard to outrun Matt to get to the outside. He did a good job of tracking it down and making the tackle. It was a heads-up play by our special teams, punt return unit. We’ve always got to be alert for those kinds of things, whether it’s a fake punt or an onside kick or fake field goal – whatever it happens to be. That’s part of their job, but I thought the whole unit reacted well to it because we had to obviously stop it on both sides. We didn’t know which side they were running it to. Matt had good width and was able to track it down. It was a good job of staying at home, being responsible. Q: You talked about practicing and preparing well and then it translating to the field today. Can you talk about not letting up? I think you guys scored on every offensive position.  BB: That was one of our big themes this week was to start fast, play 60 minutes and play hard all the way through. We obviously didn’t do a very good job of that last week, but I think this week, that was something that we talked about during the week and as the game went on at halftime and into the third and fourth quarter, we just kept everyone reminding themselves about playing 60 minutes and finishing the game and playing well all the way through. I thought the players did a good job of that. They competed hard all the way. So did Jacksonville. Jacksonville had a nice drive there at the end and the drive in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter. But that’s Jacksonville – they play hard, they’re tough and they kept battling us. We tried to just hang in there with them. They had a lot of guys banged up, they had a lot of guys on the inactive list today and then a couple guys went out. At safety, they had a kid playing safety I don’t think has ever played there before that they signed last week. That’s a pretty good football team that was playing kind of shorthanded today, so hopefully they’ll get those guys back. I think Gus [Bradley] and Dave Caldwell and their staff have done a good job with that team, but today our guys just played well. You’ve got to give us credit. Q: Sometimes you were rotating different offensive linemen in and out on different possessions – sometimes during the same series. Is that to give guys more rest or is it scheme-related? BB: I think most of it was by series, but there were some personnel groupings where we had certain players in on certain groupings, and so then we were actually subbing people on particular plays or personnel groups. I think most of it was by series, but we did have some examples of what you’re talking about. But those guys have done a good job – Marcus [Cannon] playing both tackles, Josh [Kline] playing both guards and Sebastian [Vollmer] and Nate [Solder] kind of staying on their respective sides and Tre’ [Jackson] and Shaq [Mason] staying on their respective sides. But Josh and Marcus have kind of been able to make that rotation go a little bit. Of course Shaq played in the backfield today. And David [Andrews] did another good job for us at center like he has all year. I think those guys keep working hard and they keep improving individually and with each other in terms of communication, recognition, so I think we’re on the right track there and we can keep getting better, but they’re working hard. It’s a good group, I really like working with those guys. Hopefully we’ll get Wendy [Ryan Wendell] back sometime soon, too. Q: Can you talk about Tom Brady reaching the 400-touchdown milestone? BB: That, Tom and also Steve [Gostkowski] today. That takes a lot of games, a lot of snaps to do that, and it’s certainly a tribute to both of them, the durability, longevity and obviously consistent production that both of them have had. So, I feel really fortunate to have coached and had guys like that on our team, and those two guys in particular, they had a good day as they’ve had for many, many days in their career. I’m really fortunate to have those guys on this team."