Bill Belichick Team Quotations

We know we're facing different challenges and our team is evolving differently. It's all just part of it. Whatever you have to deal with, whatever changes there are, then collectively as a team you manage them.

We've got a short week this week with New Orleans, ... It's a team we play in the regular season, so we'll try to put more attention in this game than a normal preseason game because it will come up in the regular season.

I was out of the country for a period of time but followed everything closely through other people in our organization and we've made the decisions that we felt were right for the football team and we'll continue to do that and be as diligent as we can going forward.

We've been cooperative with the NFL investigation. We'll continue to do so and we will turn all our attention and focus on to the Seattle Seahawks, a very well coached, talented, tough, competitive football team.

It's the business that you guys are in too. We try to get as much information as we can and make the best decisions that we can for the football team.

Not all teams use the same tests and certainly those tests are far from being 100 percent as well. It's part of the process.

I'm trying to coach the team and that's what I want to do.

I'm not really worried about the other 31 teams.

Each decision will be done on a case-by-case basis and we'll make the decision we feel is best for the New England Patriots football team.

Well this week's all about Seattle, so we've been doing our best to prepare for the Seahawks. I'm doing that, our team's doing that and we'll be ready to go Sunday. That's our focus.

I obviously understand that each team has the opportunity to prepare the balls the way they want, give them to the officials and the game officials either approve or disapprove the balls. That really was the end of it for me until I learned a little bit more about this .

I think it's relatively easy to play defense against a team that can only do one thing. Unfortunately, that's not what we're talking about here with Seattle. They have a great running back - they have a great group of running backs - but Lynch obviously is really kind of in a class by himself. The quarterback's a problem, the receivers are a problem, they have a good offensive line.

I've learned a lot about the process. I had no idea how the balls got from the officials locker room down on the field and so forth and so on and all of that. That's not something I have ever thought or concerned myself about [on] game day. I've concerned myself with preparing and coaching the team.

It's time for the New England Patriots to move on and that's what our job is. And as I said, our goal is the same: to have a winning football team, to be a pillar in the community. That's what our direction is; that's what we're going to do.

In short, we accumulate all the information that we can accumulate, wherever that information comes from, and try to analyze it and make the best decision we can make for our football team on a case-by-case basis. It's the same for every single player; the process is the same.

For a team to accomplish their goal, everybody’s got to give up a little bit of their individuality.

There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation brick by brick.

Mental Toughness is doing the right thing for the team when it's not the best thing for you

There is an old saying about the strength of the wolf is the pack, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. On a football team, it’s not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.

We're looking at another really good football team this week in Denver. They're probably one of the hotter teams in the league right now. They're playing very well in all three phases of the game. They've been a good team to watch just because they're executing so well. They haven't had a turnover in three games.

We're on to Jacksonville and we've got our work cut out for us there. Jacksonville's a tough football team. They're physically tough and they're mentally tough. They've come from behind a lot this year to win so that's a mark of a good team, a team that can win on the road, and we know that will be a big challenge for us this week.

I think it comes down to doing what you think is best for your football team and whether it's two young guys, two old guys, two medium-size guys, two-whatever they are, you work your people.

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.

It comes back to team defense. I think you have to be careful about trying to stop one guy in this league. There are not too many teams that you play that have only have one player. The Raiders are a team that has, when they're on offense, 11 good ones and you better be ready to stop all of them. Not just one guy.

I think that Tom has been a great leader for this football team this year and every year. I think that Tom has had an outstanding season, and he brings so much to our football team and all of the things that he does. His preparation, his work ethic, his toughness. His ability to lead this team and lead the offense. He's an outstanding quarterback. I'm glad he's our quarterback.

I think they're doing a great job all the way across the board. I think there are a lot of positives in the way the team has played. Nick has done a great job after that Cleveland game, whatever he's done in bringing them together. They're playing well.

That was a heck of a football game. I've got to give all the credit in the world to (our) players. This is a team that believes a lot in itself even when others don't.

That?s the passing game in the NFL. It?s pretty involved. I don?t want to say it?s complex, but it is what it is. It?s not like college where they run quick screens and play-action. The sophistication of the passing game in the NFL from a protection standpoint is pretty involved. I don?t care what team you?re with.

We're certainly giving up too many big plays in the passing game, ... Some of it was the technique ... our judgment on the ball, sometimes we just didn't use our help, or where our help was supposed to be, it didn't get there quick enough. ... Some of it is tied into the rush, the timing of the rush, when the ball is thrown. ... The quarterback stands back there and pumps three or four times, that's hard for anybody to cover those routes. We just need better overall team defense.

We played them last year in preseason (a 31-0 Jaguars romp in an exhibition finale the Patriots' regulars sat and watched). We played them the year before that in the regular season. I think there's some application on those games. I'm not sure how much. We'll look at those But this team is this year's team just like we are and everybody else is.

We'll get a good evaluation of where we are going against a different type of team than we played last week in Cincinnati. We'll have some different challenges that we'll have to meet. They?re a good team and they have a lot of talent.

We?re just going to try to take advantage of every opportunity we have to put the best team we can on the field this year.

We're doing what we do every year, every spring, (which) is build our team and try to make it as competitive as we can heading into training camp and the regular season in the fall. That goes for every position and every player, across the board.

We knew it when he went there that he was going to make them a powerful team and a force in the league and a force in this division. He already has. That's no surprise to me, believe me.

We thought it would be in the best interests of the team to be in here. This is probably similar to the conditions we'll be playing in, in terms of wind.

There are 11 people out there playing defense. What makes a difference is how those 11 people play. That's what defense is about. It's about team defense. You are always trying to isolate it into one player, one situation or one thing, and it just doesn't work that way.

When you have a football team, everybody has a role on it. And Ro's role, for the most part in the last couple of years, . . . was to get the defense ready. Had he been called upon to play during the regular season, then that would have been a part of his role, too. But, for the most part, it wasn't. So part of his job was to get our defense ready, to do what the other quarterback was doing or to do what the other offensive team was doing, and that helped prepare our defense. In no way can I minimize that.

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

Tom did a nice job. He did an outstanding job. I thought it was good team play, pass protection, (the) receivers. I thought that the receivers caught the ball extremely well (Sunday).

Tell him what you said to the team last night.

All aspects of it need to improve. It extends to all 11 guys on the field. The running game, it's a team play.

Al's never really hired a defensive coach, Al's hired offensive coaches. That was the first question I asked him when I came out here was, 'What am I doing here?' A big part of Al's involvement with the team is on the defensive side of the ball.

Al's never really hired a defensive coach, Al's hired offensive coaches, ... That was the first question I asked him when I came out here was, 'What am I doing here?' A big part of Al's involvement with the team is on the defensive side of the ball.

They're one of the hottest teams in the league. They're always a difficult team to play, no matter where you play them.

A big part of Al's involvement with the team is on the defensive side of the ball. ... I'm sure his philosophy and impact on the defensive side of the ball has been very noticeable.

It's all just part of it. Whatever you have to deal with, whatever changes there are, then collectively as a team you manage them.

It's been a while since I've seen a more dominating team than what Pittsburgh has been in these first two regular-season games. They really haven't been in a competitive game. ... They're the best team in the league this year.

It's been a while since I've seen a more dominant team than Pittsburgh's been these first two games, ... They really haven't been in a competitive game.

That is a lot to make up against a team like this. We didn't play well enough. I think that goes across the board.

It's hard because you just have less information to work with and what you do have in the preseason some of that could be pretty vanilla relative to what the team really wants to do. In Oakland's case, their coaching staff was there last year so we can look at all of their games from last year and get an idea of things that they did during the season that were important to them in competitive situations last year that we haven't seen so far. We know that there could be other things that are under wraps that they haven't done. We just have to be ready to make some adjustments during the game. I think that's the way it always is. There's no question that this is the hardest game.

It's not about any one stat or any one unit, although they are all important. It ultimately comes down to how your team is able to perform on a collective basis for 60 minutes. That's what the score reflects; that's what the game reflects.

If you don't stop the running game, it doesn't matter whether you can stop the passing game or not. They don't ever have to throw it if they don't want to. To me, against a team like Atlanta, if you can't stop them from running, it doesn't really matter what else happens.

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.

I think all of the players on the team understand that they are going to be called on to do certain things, and for us to win and be successful, they need to do it, whatever it is,

He's really given us more team speed on the field and he's done a good job of tackling.

I don't really care about that. I'm really concerned about what our team does. We all have a job to do here.

I appreciate a compliment, I'm not saying that, ... But what it comes down to is how our team performs against the opponent we're playing against. There's a lot of things in this game that I can't do. There's a lot of things in this game the players and other coaches can't do, either. They just have to do their jobs, and collectively we have to do ours a little better than Denver is going to do theirs, and that's a big challenge.

You could put your team out there and something could happen to anybody on the first play of the game. ... What are you going to do, 'Well, this guy is out so we can't do any of those things anymore?'

You can?t worry too much about other guys on your team and what their situation is because you can go out there the first day of training camp and that could change on one play. I don?t feel like we can look at it that way - and we don?t.