Bill Belichick Bit Quotations

We were trying to take a little bit of the edge off, give everybody a chance to relax. It's been a good hard week with a lot of concentration. We figured we'd lighten up a little here and be ready to go tomorrow.

Cedric is a guy that has a lot of talent and has had some big time production at Arkansas. He missed a little bit of time but we feel like at that point in the draft that he was a real good value there with the pick. He is an explosive guy that runs well. He can run with power and basically came in and had big production as a freshman and was a four-year producer at Arkansas when he was healthy.

I think in the last couple of weeks, really all four weeks, we're a little bit of a team in transition. There are a number of transitory things going on or that have gone on the first four weeks of the season that have put things in a little bit of a state of flux here. They weren't what they were a month ago. Some of them aren't like they were two weeks ago. Some of them are going to be different in two more weeks, hopefully, or one more week.

I think that Nick has done enough in his opportunities this year in preseason and in training camp to earn some playing time. Whether that continues or doesn't continue, I don't know. That will be determined by the way he plays, the way other people play, and again, that just builds a little bit of our versatility.

Overall, we gave a little bit more of a competitive effort than we did the other two games. Some of the things we had problems with the first two weeks I thought we did a little better.

Statistically, we're fighting an uphill battle when we're on the negative turnover ratio and winning games, especially on the road, ... That's not normally the correlation. ... Right now, we're in a little bit of a dry spell.

I think he's been very productive in preseason. He's shown a lot of explosion and power. He looks a lot better in three-technique than he did as a 3-4 defensive end last year. He's probably playing with more confidence and maybe a little bit more energy. But when you have Ted Washington on one side and Kelly or Hamilton on the other side, (Sapp's) usually isolated on that guard and he's a handful.

(Finding a team's identity) is probably an ongoing process. We're a little bit of a team in transition.

We'll have to either make the roster moves and then start the preparations, or start the preparations and then have the roster moves somewhere intermingled in there a little bit with what would be our normal practice week.

We were prepared to play him a little bit less, but he's in good condition. He was doing fine on the sideline.

I've told everybody to be ready to go. I'm sure that we'll look at some of the players that didn't play as much in the Green Bay game a little bit more against the Giants and try to get the best evaluation that we can as we make our final decisions at the end of the week. I'm sure that the younger players and the players who didn't play as much against Green Bay will play more than the ones who did play quite a bit against Green Bay. Let's put it that way.

It was certainly a positive having him out there. I'm sure he'll play a little bit better the next time. It was his first time out all year. He's got a little bit of catching up to do, but he still gave us a good lift and performed well.

It's more of a little bit of a change in what the medical people feel is the quickest road to recovery.

The last couple of years we've had a lot of guys go in the first round at receiver, mostly bigger receivers, and there has certainly been a trend and a little bit of a stampede to get those kind of guys. It seems like there are fewer of them this year.

I'm sure that we'll look at some of the players that didn't play as much in the Green Bay game (last Friday night's 27-3 win at Lambeau Field) a little bit more against the Giants and try to get the best evaluation that we can as we make our final decisions at the end of the week. I'm sure that the players who didn't play as much against Green Bay will play more than the ones who did play quite a bit against Green Bay. Let's put it that way.

I'm sure our younger players will play a bit more than they did in the Green Bay game,

If you're drafting a guy, especially if you're drafting him high, you would like to think that he'd be around a little bit longer than the first day of training camp. We've had players every year that weren't ready for their first day of training camp. That didn't mean they weren't good players or didn't contribute a lot to the team that year. I don't think that's the final evaluation.

Because the offense usually extends a little bit to try to take care of him, they like to bring the linebackers and blitz them up inside. As the line widens to give attention to Peppers, that opens up a lot of the inside pressures for them. We talked about last week (Oakland receiver Randy) Moss being kind of in a special category, offensively, for the Raiders. I think you have to put Peppers in that same, whatever category that is, defensively.

Chad is improving a little bit every day, like a lot of our newer players are, ... I don't think he's ever really played this position. But he's a smart guy. He picked it up well and he's a good football player.