New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick addresses the media during his postgame press conference at Gillette Stadium on August 7, 2008.
BB: Well, I think that was a good learning experience for our team tonight. Baltimore is a pretty physical club and it was a very competitive game all the way. I think we got a lot out of it. Certainly, there are a lot of things we could do better but I thought there were some positives out there to work with. We will come in tomorrow, correct those mistakes and try to move forward here. We have a big week. We have a couple extra days, some extra time to try to improve our football team and that is what we will be working on this week. I thought the players competed hard. Some good things to work off of and some other things obviously we need to improve on. We can't turn the ball over five times and win too many games in this league and we know that.
Q: Talk about the play of [Jerod] Mayo?
BB: It's hard, I can't watch what everyone is doing out there. I thought defensively we competed pretty well. They only had the one touchdown from the 2-yard-line but other than that, I thought we did a decent job. I'm sure all those rookies had some good plays and had some other plays that probably weren't so good but we will wait until we look at the film.
Q: (On the rookie linebackers' playing time)
BB: We didn't have a lot of linebackers so it gave them opportunity, same thing at corner. We pretty much went the whole way with two cornerbacks. So there was a couple spots that we just didn't have a lot of depth and it was a good opportunity for the guys that played to get a lot of playing time.
Q: Do you think Pierre Woods works hard and is seizing the opportunity now that he is getting some playing time?
BB: Pierre [Woods] works hard. He is one of our hardest working kids. I think he has improved every year. He has had a good training camp this year and it looked like he got in a few plays out there today. Again, we will watch the film and have things to work on but Pierre [Woods] has been improving for us and he's had a good camp.
Q: Can you talk about Ray Ventrone playing on both sides of the ball [offense and defense]?
BB: Ray [Ventrone] is a very competitive guy and a tough kid. He plays in all three phases, offense, defense and special teams. He works hard, tough kid and he's a pretty good football player. He's got a good set of skills, has some quickness, speed, he's tough, he's a smart player who is instinctive and he's shown up positively for us in a number of different roles and in different games. It's a real credit to him- his work ethic, his toughness. He came from a relatively small school and is trying to carve a niche for himself in the NFL and is competing hard.
Q: (On Ray Ventrone trying to carve out a space for himself this early in the season)
BB: He is doing a little bit of everything. He keeps working hard at it and keeps showing up. That certainly deserves credit.
Q: When you look at the plays the running backs made in the kicking game, do you look at the individuals or the offense?
BB: We will look at it, figure out what went wrong and where the breakdowns were. We will take a close look at those plays and several other ones too.
Q: Are you also going to look at the quarterbacks' and wide receivers' breakdowns?
BB: There were mistakes everywhere we need to correct, coaching, playing, receivers, quarterbacks, offense, defense and special teams. You know, it was our first game and I think there were some good things out there and some other things that weren't so good.
Q: Was this good from a coach's perspective? It gives you plenty to yell at them about and make them correct mistakes?
BB: It's the first preseason game. That's the perspective. We have won them, we have lost them and we lost this one by one. This is the first preseason game. There is plenty of things to work on and plenty of things to correct with everybody. I don't care what the score is or who you play or anything else. That's what we will do.
