New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick addresses the media during his postgame press conference at Gillette Stadium on Thursday, November 13, 2008.
BB: I would say it was a tough loss. I thought our players fought hard. We made a lot of plays, the Jets made a lot of plays. In the end they made a couple more than we did. Give them credit. We're close, just not quite good enough tonight.
Q: Do you feel like it took a lot for the team to come back from such a big deficit?
BB: Yeah, well we dug ourselves a hole and we made some plays to get back in there. We missed some good opportunities in the third quarter to really close the gap. But that is the way it goes.
Q: It seemed like on the last drive, the game winner from the Jets, Dustin Keller was a killer?
BB: Yeah, he converted a couple plays for them. He hurt us tonight.
Q: Was it missed coverage?
BB: A couple times we hit him [Dustin Keller] right there when he caught it and a couple times he was open. We have to do a better job on him.
Q: (On the Jets special teams and Leon Washington's 92-yard kick return for a touchdown)
BB: Yeah, that was a big play. We didn't cover it. They are a good return team we know that but we have to… That was a big play. We didn't play it very well.
Q: What were some of the adjustments you made - you seemed to slow them down in the second half?
BB: We pretty much did what we did the whole game we just tried to do it a little bit better there. Like I said, it was better in the third quarter [but] we missed some opportunities offensively. They converted some third downs on that last drive, got the holding penalty on their last touchdown – that was a big play. Like I said, they made a few more plays than we did tonight. Not many but enough.
Q: Can you remember a game with that many ups and downs?
BB: There have been a few of them. The championship game two years ago. Every game is different. Some games go like that and some games go differently. They are all different.
Q: What were they doing in terms of coverage?
BB: They were overloading their coverage a lot to [Randy] Moss and [Wes] Welker at times. So, that pushed the ball back to the other side of the field at times.
Q: (On adjustments made on defense)
BB: No. We pretty much did the same thing, we mixed it up some. Some plays were better than others but it wasn't a big adjustment game.
Q: Did you see any positives from your team?
BB: Yes. I thought we made a lot of plays tonight. They made a few more than we did. I thought there were a lot of good things out there but not enough to win.
