How Did The New England Patriots React To Win Over Texans?

Dec 13, 2015; Houston, TX, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick applauds after a play during the first quarter against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Shortly after the New England Patriots beat the Houston Texans last night the team met with the media to discuss the win.

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

Bill Belichick

“Well, first of all I am real proud of our team this week. It was a tough week. I thought we competed hard all week, in terms of preparation, on the practice field, we practiced in pads and worked on a lot of fundamental things and those guys had a great attitude about it. We played a solid game here tonight in all three phases. I thought we got some good plays out of each group. We competed for 60 minutes and did what we needed to do. It was good and I look forward to getting back and getting on to Tennessee next week. It was good to come down here and come out with a win this week. They are a good football team, they have a lot of good players and they play hard, so it’s good to come down here and win. I felt that we had a lot of guys step up here though and that’s what we need for our team, everybody needs to contribute.”

Talk about the job the front seven did on defense.

“Yeah, those guys did a good job. We played a lot of different people, that’s what we have been doing along the front. Our linebackers did a good job they had good coverage, they gave up three big plays, but on a down in down out basis I thought we competed well, tackled well, we were able to get off the field on third down, had a couple of stops when they got it down there to hold them to field goals and then a fourth down stop there in the third quarter. Our red to high red area defense, third down defense, those are some big keys for us.”

What do you think about CB Leonard Johnson performance after being with them for only a few days?

“He’s a pretty experienced player in the league. He’s come around a little bit and has played that position so, but he worked hard. He worked really hard this week and so did his teammates, Logan (Ryan), Devin (McCourty), Malcom (Butler), Duron (Harmon), Pat (Patrick Chung) in terms of their communication and I thought that the play made on the fourth day play in the third quarter where they had their receivers try to run down underneath, we made combination call on that and he did a good job of taking away the inside route now there and broke it up. It was a long week, it was a lot of extra work, lot of extra meetings, some good competitive time on the practice field so hopefully that’ll pay off. Got to give him a lot of credit, he came in and learned and his teammates embraced it and we got some good plays out of both he and Justin (Coleman).”

Can you talk about what you guys were able to do against WR Deandre Hopkins tonight?

“I mean he made a great play down the sideline. He’s a good receiver. It’s tough, we obviously played a lot of double coverage on him, but we did a good job battling. We left Malcom (Butler) on in some situations and that was competitive. You’ve got to double Hopkins, big receiver, got strong hands, he’s kind of always open because of his size, his length and his catching radius. We got good pass rush and thought we did a good job of battling, making him work to get open and make the quarterback hold the ball. Sometimes we got some pass rush there. He got his hands on a couple balls so, that was a good battle.”

How about the return of TE Rob Gronkowski coming back?

“Yeah, I mean he missed one game, so.”

How was he in the red zone?

“Yeah, it’s good to have every player we get back. We want all the players out there.”

How big is this win after dropping the last two games?

“Every week is a big week in the NFL. The fewer games there are the more important they are. We have four left. This is one of four. Now we have three left. So it would be one of three. Each one gets bigger.”

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Could you tell if DE J.J. Watt was slowed by the broken hand?

“Looked pretty active to me. They move him around quite a bit, get him in some off-the-line positions, playing some outside linebacker, moved (Whitney) Mercilus down inside, so they flip him from side to side. He was everywhere. They put him in a lot of different spots, and some of that probably standing up so he probably didn’t have to block as much with his hands. He has great quickness and he does a good job of ripping across the guys face and next time taking step like he’s coming up across and is quick enough to come behind. I thought we had a couple big play runs that really looked like they were going to gain some yards and then Watt made one and (Jadeveon) Clowney made another one just coming off the back side. We had him blocked too, it wasn’t like they were free off the back side there. They used their quickness to get around the back side and still long enough and quick enough to make the play. He’s tough, he’s tough.”

Special teams responded tonight.

“Yeah, we played hard. Look I thought we played hard all the way across the board. LG (LeGarrette Blount) had a couple tough runs early in the game. Brandon (Bolden) had a tough run at the end of the game to get that last first down and a lot in between. We took good care of the ball offensively, didn’t turn it over, didn’t really have any turnover opportunities that we gave and did a good job of securing the ball so that was good. I thought that we tried to compete against them in the run game. They’re a tough team to run against. Vince (Wilfork) is good. (Jared) Crick and (J.J.) Watt are good. (Jadeveon) Clowney and (Whitney) Mercilus are good. They’ve got good inside linebackers, (Benardrick) McKinney and (Brian) Cushing. There’s not a lot of gimme blocks up there.”

Can you talk about the big end of the second quarter?

“Yeah, you know I thought that was a good, good complimentary football on our part, something that’s really been lacking in the last four weeks. We made a stop on defense. We got the ball back. We got the two-minute warning, got a first down and were able to finish in the end zone with 14 or whatever it was, 15 seconds, 20 seconds whatever it was on the clock. It was a great job by our defense of making the stop. Great job by our special teams of putting us in good field position. Great job by the offense of executing the plays and also using the clock up and we came back in the second half and had the two close plays that were overturned and ended up getting a field goal, so that was a big 10-point swing for us. It’s close to being more had we been able to convert those passes that were overturned. That drive at the end of the half was big and then the start of the third quarter to take advantage of that opening possession. I thought that 10-point swing obviously was a big help for us tonight.”

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