Patriots head coach Bill Belichick addresses the media during his postgame press conference on Thanksgiving, November 25, 2010.
Opening Statement:"Happy Thanksgiving everyone. It was a good atmosphere there in the locker room. I really appreciate what these guys have done so far this year. To be where we're at has taken a lot of hard work. It hasn't always been perfect. It hasn't even been good, but it is what it is. We've got a good opportunity here ahead of us, so we're going to relax here - kick back for a couple days, try to take this opportunity to rest and spend a little time with our families and be ready to roll here next week with the Jets. As far as today goes, it was a real good effort in the second half. We outscored them 35-7 in the second half. A lot of things have to go right. Certainly our offense did a real good of making big plays, getting the ball in the endzone, taking advantage of a couple turnover opportunities that we had. That was a big play by Devin (McCourty) there that kind of really swung the game a little bit, with giving us the field position and putting us back where we could be on the even-par with Detroit instead of chasing them all the time like we were in the first half. In the end, it was just a lot of guys stepping up and making plays. They're a good offensive team and they played well today. I think Jim has done a good job with this team. They're much improved from where they were the last time we saw them. They're very competitive, very good offensively. There's a lot things we need to work on obviously, but we'll just enjoy it here for a couple days and then start grinding it out for the Jets."
On how important it was to slow down Detroit's pass rush:"Of course anytime you can be balanced and hit some runs in there and force them to defend the running game and the passing game, that opened up a few play action opportunities for us too. We had a couple good shots on play action. Of course you know, Deion (Branc) had - as Deion usually does - had two really outstanding individual routes there. He came open and made big plays, scored touchdowns for us. That was big. (We) definitely tried to slow the pass rush down with the running game and a little bit better protection. The Lion's are fast up-front. They've got a couple really good inside guys. They've got a couple good outside guys that can rush around the corner and hit us on a couple blitzes there early. They have a very disruptive front."
On if there is a snowball effect from turnovers:"I hope so. I don't know. Believe me, we were trying o get them in the first-half too. I know it didn't look that way, but we really were. We were trying to get the ball out. We had opportunities - we had a couple balls, kind of like last week, where the ball was tipped up in the air and we couldn't quite get it, but we had our hands on some balls and fortunately we caught a couple of them. They did a good job offensively. A couple times we felt we had Calvin (Johnson) covered and he made a great play, Shaun made a good throw, Calvin made a great catch. Those are two really good players. You can't give them a lot of room or a lot of space. They'll make you pay for it. They did."
