There was nothing specific about Bill Belichick’s postgame press conference following his first shutout loss as coach of the Patriots that merits a headline or a stand-alone post. But, generally, the whole thing was classic Belichick.
So here it is, in full and as circulated by the team.
We hope you enjoy reading it more than Belichick enjoyed creating it.
BB: Alright, well obviously we didn’t do much of anything well enough to win today, so we’ve just got to do a better job, turn the page here. We think we’re a better team than we showed today but we just didn’t do anything well enough today. So, we’ll get back to work and get ready for Cleveland.
Q: Can you talk about the challenge your team faced trying to stop Tyrod Taylor and LeSean McCoy all game?
BB: Yeah, they’re good players. We obviously didn’t do a good enough job of it.
Q: After seeing Julian Edelman’s long catch and run get called back on the first offensive play of the game, did that make you think that the team was prepared well enough to execute the rest of the game plan?
BB: Yeah, we just didn’t have a very good day today.
Q: Can you talk about the offense’s inability to execute on third down?
BB: It wasn’t good enough in any area. Obviously, we were in a lot of third-and-longs so that wasn’t good. A lot of third-down problems are related to first and second-down and it wasn’t good enough on third-down. It’s pretty obvious.
Q: When was the decision made to not be able to use Jimmy Garoppolo today?
BB: When we made him inactive.
Q: Was that today or did you decide that yesterday?
BB: We did the inactives today.
Q: Did you know yesterday he wasn’t going to play?
BB: We did the inactives today.
Q: What was your reaction to the pregame scuffle between some of the Bills’ players and your own players?
BB: I wasn’t out there.
Q: With the defense giving up only 16 points would you characterize that as a good performance?
BB: I said at the beginning nothing was good enough today.
Q: What are your thoughts on Tom Brady’s return tomorrow?
BB: Right now my thoughts are on the Buffalo game.
Q: Was the biggest problem on offense the play of the offensive line?
BB: I didn’t think anything was good enough. Nothing was good enough at any position, in any phase of the game. It just wasn’t good enough.
Q: Did they do a lot of things differently offensively now that they’ve switched offensive coordinators?
BB: No, I wouldn’t say that. I mean that’s what we’ve talked about all week. They have a pretty expansive running game, which they showed and they ran today.
Q: Was part of the problem today trying to tackle too high, especially on Tyrod Taylor?
BB: Tackling was definitely a problem, period. One of many.
Q: Can a game like this serve as a wakeup call for a team that started out 3-0?
BB: Every week is a challenge in this league. We all know that. We just have to perform better. We have to coach better. We have to play better in all three phases of the game. It’s like that every week in the National Football League. If you don’t perform well, you don’t do well. Every team is good in this league.