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Replay: Patriots Unfiltered Tue Oct 29 - 02:00 PM | Thu Oct 31 - 11:55 AM

Bill Belichick Postgame Transcript: 'We have to improve in every phase of the game'

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick addresses the media following the team's Week 1 game against the Miami Dolphins.

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Opening Statement:  **Alright, it was obviously a disappointing start for us today. We just didn't do anything well enough that we needed to do in the game all the way across the boards. We gotta get back to work. We have to improve in every phase of the game. Playing. Coaching. Offense. Defense. Special teams. You name it. It just wasn't what we needed to do today and therefore we got the results that we did.

Q:For execution offensively in the second half, was conditioning a factor?

BB:No, I don't think … We just didn't play well enough or coach well enough. We didn't do anything well enough.

Q:Was play of the offensive line, especially in the second half, a little disconcerting?

BB:We didn't do anything well enough in the second half, period. A lot of long yardage situations. Too many penalties. Turned the ball over.

Q:Did you plan on having a little bit of a rotation? Was that the plan coming in?

BB:We played everybody today. I think probably every player played today. We used everybody … or almost everybody.

Q:How much credit does the Dolphins defensive line deserve for their performance in the second half?

BB:They did a better job than we did.

Q:Problems with Dolphins' RB Knowshon Moreno rushing the ball, obviously. Any particular reason for that?

BB:We didn't do a good enough job defending him. We just weren't good enough.

Q:How did you feel about how TE Rob Gronkowski did in his first game back?

BB:I'll have to take a look at the film. I think everybody needs to do a better job than we did today. We need to perform better than this.

Q:I can't image there was any inclination at half time … the first half wasn't bad. You were up 10, playing pretty well.

BB:We had a few problems in the first half too. Penalties. Long yardage. Personal foul. Offsides.  

Q:Penalties were obviously part of the situation. Those hands-to-face things, is that … DE Chandler Jones had two of them. Are those forgivable, excusable?

BB:We gotta find a way to play without getting penalized. How many did we get penalized today? One hundred and I don't know what is was. It's just too many.

Q:Bill, do you look back to the TE Michael Hoomanawanui penalty, I think it was RB Stephen Ridley, down the right side for about 20 yards. He gets called for holding. Does that have a psychological impact, a momentum shift perhaps, in the game?

BB:I don't know. We had too many penalties. That was another one that hurt us. Way too many of them, period.

Q:Bill, were they doing anything tremendously difficult? Scheme-wise? Were more guys just not able to make tackles?

BB:We just didn't defend well enough defensively.

Q:Bill, between going back and forth with the offensive linemen, it seemed like you were going back and forth quite a bit. Is that a matter of you flushing things out there?

BB:Like I said, I think we played just about everybody in this game. That was the plan and that's what we did.

Q:Was that the plan going in because of the heat? To try to make sure that guys stay fresh for the 60 minutes?

BB:That was our plan for the game, period. There's a lot of things that go into a game plan.

Q:Is it particularly challenging when you come off of a preseason where obviously you're not going to play your regulars a great amount and then put them out here in this kind of conditions against a pretty good football team?

BB:I didn't think the conditions were that bad.

Q:It seemed hot and humid.

BB:That's opening day for everybody.

Q:Can we assume that it was the same thing for the secondary as well?) I think we played just about everybody in the game at all positions. QB Jimmy Garoppolo didn't play but we played just about everybody in the game. I don't know how else I can put it.

Q:Are you worried about a sense of panic coming over the players? Do you maybe want a sense of panic to come over the players?

BB:We need to do a better job than we did today. That's the bottom line. It's as simple as that.

Q:Anything in the second half that they did defensively that just threw you off? It was like two different games it seemed like.

BB:We just didn't do well enough offensively. We were in a lot of long yardage situations. We had a lot of penalties. We didn't perform well enough to move the ball consistently.

Q:Is it simple to fix?

BB:That's what we're going to do. We're going to go back to work this week and try to improve it. There's certainly a lot of things we need to work on.

Q:The hits on QB Ryan Tannehill looked like clean hits on the replay … he's in the act of throwing. What do you say to your edge guys moving forward?

BB:We got to play with fewer penalties than what we played with today.

Q:Would you say you underestimated the Dolphins?

BB:Not at all.

Q:Coach, you lost your season opener before back in 2003 and came back to win the Super Bowl. How do you get this team to bounce back and gear up for the next one?

BB:We got to go back to work this week on Minnesota. We obviously have a lot of things we need to work on. We need to improve and play and coach better next week. We need to work on that.

Q:If you were to prioritize the things that you need to work on, what would you say is foremost?

BB:We'll look at the film tomorrow and talk about that. Some of it's this game and some will be things that apply to next game that won't have as much application as it will in this game. We'll have to balance that out. But there's not getting away from fundamentals. That will always be there.

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