How Did The New England Patriots React To Beating The Bills?

Nov 23, 2015; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick reacts during the first half of a game against the Buffalo Bills at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

Shortly after the New England Patriots beat the Bills yesterday, the team met with the media to discuss the win.

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

Bill Belichick

BB: Always a hard-fought division game with Buffalo, but always good to win in the division, always good to beat Buffalo. I didn’t think that was our best. I think we need to do a better job of coaching, do a better job of playing. But we made enough plays and we got some big plays from special teams, got some big plays defensively. So it was good today and we scored enough points, so we’ll take it and move on to Denver.

Q: With Danny Amendola’s questionable status, who is next man up?

BB: Well, we’ll see what the situation is this week. I don’t know the answers to those questions yet, so we’ll see what it is and get ready for Denver.

Q: What was your understanding of the inadvertent whistle?

BB: Yeah, what they explained out there.

Q: Were you surprised, disappointed or upset about it?

BB: It is what it is. I thought they explained exactly what happened and those are the procedures they follow. I mean, you can send a pool reporter over there and talk to them. I’m sure they’ll tell you what happened. What else is there to do?

Q: How would you assess James White’s performance?

BB: We’ll have to go back and look at it on the film, but he made a nice play on the touchdown run, broke [Corey] Graham’s tackle there on the 10-yard line, eight-yard line, whatever it was. But James has been a dependable player for us. He came through with a couple big plays last week against the Giants and had them today. We need everybody every week and he made some plays for us today. Again, overall I’m sure everybody feels like we could have done a better job. I don’t think anybody was perfect out there.

Q: What went into the decision to try the 54-yard field goal in the third quarter?

BB: We thought it was OK there. He’s hit plenty of those.

Q: What did you think of your defense’s performance in the fourth quarter? It seemed like they made a lot of big plays.

BB: We did, we had some negative plays there. We had some tackles for loss in the running game. We gave up a couple long passes where we lost good field position but in the end made some stops on third and fourth down, made a big red area stop down there and held them to a field goal with like four minutes to go in the game, whatever it was. But defensively, yeah, other than the one touchdown run where we kind of got out of position, we held the points down – that’s really what it’s about.

Q: Being down to just two healthy receivers, how does that affect the play calling?

BB: We had to work around it a little bit tonight, yeah. I mean, we’ll see what it is going forward but tonight we definitely had to work around it. I thought Josh [McDaniels] did a good job managing the game, and we were able to do what we could do. It wasn’t necessarily what we wanted it to be, but it was good enough, so he did a good job managing it.

Q: Brandon King made a big special teams play tonight. What was it that made you interested in him?

BB: That’s really I’d say most of the credit on that one has to go to Joe Judge. Joe dug him out. Brandon is kind of an interesting guy. He’s really played pretty much every position on the field on defense. He played three-technique at Auburn. It’s hard to imagine him as a defensive tackle, but he was and he actually didn’t play bad. He was just obviously undersized, but he had good playing strength and could definitely run. We’ve used him inside on the punt team. Today, we used him as a gunner. We used him some as a gunner last week, another fumble, got another fumble out there on [Leodis] McKelvin, so that was a big play for us. But he’s given us big plays in the return game blocking and also kickoff and punt coverage. He’s kind of given us some versatility. He’s bigger than a lot of the speed guys and he’s faster than a lot of the big guys, so he’s kind of a mismatch guy whether he’s inside or outside if you will. He’s really done a good job of learning multiple positions. Joe and Bubba [Ray Ventrone] have done a great job of training him both in assignments and techniques. He’s been a good player for us. He made plays on the punt team inside, and now he’s made some plays as a gunner opposite of [Matthew] Slater. So if they double Slater – they actually had three guys on him on one play tonight – then that creates some opportunities on the other side. He’s taken advantage of those and helped us. He’s done a good job, but really Joe dug him out.

Q: A word on Tom Brady’s toughness in the pocket tonight? He took a lot of hits but hung in there and made some plays.

BB: I don’t think anybody ever questioned Tom’s toughness, mentally or physically. He’s about as tough a guy as they come.

Next: Tom Brady Speaks