New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick addresses the media during his postgame press conference from FedEx Field on Friday, August 28, 2009.
BB: I thought we played pretty competitively tonight against a team as good as the Redskins. We went in there 17-17 at the half. They're a real good football team. They have a lot of talented players. I thought our guys hung in there and battled pretty good here on the road. We had so many guys playing at the end of the game. I was glad to see us make enough plays to win. I thought Patrick [Chung] made a nice play, obviously, on the punt return after we were able to make the stop on third down and then kick the field goal. It was a good, competitive game on the road. It was what we needed. Certainly, a lot of things to build on here and corrections that we need to make. But — overall — I was pleased with the effort that we put out there and the competitiveness of the game.
Q: How is Tom Brady?
BB: I'm sure he has some bumps and bruises like everybody else that played in the game.
Q: Was the plan for Brady to just play the first half or did you have to deviate from that after he took the hit?
BB: We wanted to look at Kevin [O'Connell] and Andrew [Walter] in the second half.
Q: So any injury situation didn't change the plan?
BB: We wanted to look at Kevin [O'Connell] and Andrew [Walter] in the second half.
Q: It looked like Brady had come out at the start of the second half on the sideline and then went back in.
BB: Who did?
Q: Tom Brady.
BB: I don't know.
Q: It looked like he walked off with a team doctor. What was the assessment when they looked at him?
BB: He didn't play in the second half.
Q: Do you expect Brady to play in the final exhibition game?
BB: We really haven't talked about the final exhibition game. We haven't talked about how we're going to handle the rotation or anything on that. We'll talk about that a couple of days before the game.
Q: How do you think Brady looked while he was in there?
BB: I thought our team played competitively. I thought that we did some good things. They're a good defensive team. They gave us some problems. I thought Tom [Brady] handled himself well; most of the offense did.
Q: How good of a test was their defense? With the way that Tom Brady and Randy Moss connected in the first half, did you see what you wanted to see from your offense against their defense?
BB: Like I said, I thought it was competitive. They made some plays on us. They gave us some problems. They've got good secondary people. They've got good linebackers and I thought that at times we made some plays and at times they made some. Again, it wasn't a big game-plan game. It was just go out there and try to compete against them; I thought we did that.
Q: What did you see on Jonathan Wilhite's interception?
BB: It looked like he under-cut the route. He got a good block from [Richard] Seymour on the quarterback and went back 95, 100 yards, whatever it was.
Q: It looked like you threw a lot of different personnel formations out there, especially with the first group. Was that part of the plan?
BB: We do that a little bit anyway. You use different people and move them around a little bit. It wasn't a big game-plan thing. It was just more of letting different people do what they do. I think that went well, communication wise — it was alright, not perfect. Certainly, there are things that we need to work on. We got a lot out of it, in terms of seeing different looks. That's kind of the way we play the game, with substitutions, formations and things like that.
Q: Obviously, Chung had the fumble on the punt return early on, but he was in there when it counted. Did you stick with him for a reason or was he just the only guy?
BB: He ran the return the whole game. He catches the ball well in practice. He handles the ball pretty well. He mishandled that first one, obviously, but he does a good job of handling the ball. He's got good hands and good judgment. We were going to go with him the whole game, regardless.
Q: Why did you go with Andrew Walter on the last series?
BB: We probably could have gotten him in there a little bit sooner, but they were driving on the series before. We could have done it earlier.
