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Replay: Patriots Unfiltered Wed Nov 20 - 02:00 PM | Thu Nov 21 - 11:55 AM

Bill Belichick Press Conf.

Foxboro Stadium, Foxborough, MABill Belichick speaks to the press.

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            **B:** After watching the tape this morning I didn't really see too much differently than I did yesterday or comments I made after the game. We just played poorly. We didn't do the things that we need to do to win particularly on the road. Offensively we dropped balls, missed some assignments, had too many penalties, stopped ourselves on practically every drive and defensively we didn't tackle well enough and we gave up a lot of first and second down completions that moved the chains and contributed to too many points. We didn't make too many plays in the kicking game. It's not the way we need to play, like I said I thought we were past that, but I guess we are not. We need to play better. We need to find a way to play better against Buffalo on the road.  

Q: Are you questioning effort at all at this point?

B: I question our whole performance. Everything that goes into performance is not anywhere near what it needs to be.

Q: What else can you try at this point? Have you tried everything to motivate or get these guys to play well?

B: Well yes, but we are not going to stop trying. We are going to find a way to play better next week against Buffalo. That is what this week will be about. The first thing we will do is try to correct some of the things that happened yesterday. I think right now the biggest problem we have is the New England Patriots, not our next opponent. When you have nine penalties on offense and have some of the coverage breakdowns that we had yesterday, don't handle the ball on kickoff returns and things like that those are problems that are self-inflicted that's not really about your opponent that is really about yourself. It is hard to win when you beat yourself.

Q: You mentioned yesterday after the game the fact that obviously they have to learn to mature and play on the road to grow up, but when you look a big portion of the defensive seven were on the 1996 Super Bowl team seemingly they would have already learned, does it just go away the knowledge of knowing how to play on the road?

B: The problems we had on defense yesterday were a little bit different than the problems we had on offense, but the bottom-line was the performance and defensively our performance wasn't good enough and it wasn't good enough offensively. It was kind of a different set of problems, but defensively we just didn't do a good job of defending what Chicago was doing and what they did wasn't any big surprise to us we just didn't do a good job of it.

Q: So when you were referring to guys needing to grow up that was more or less an edict for guys on the offense where as the defense…

B: I don't know if grow up is the right word I think it is learning to do what you have to do to win on the road and that encompasses a lot of things. It encompasses an attitude, a temperament, an energy level and also it includes execution particularly early in the game. It is always going to include responding to adversity because sooner or later in every game in this league if we are playing on the road the other team is going to make some plays. They are going to have a little momentum, the crowd is going to get into it and if you want to win on the road you have to respond to that situation and answer the bell and we didn't do a good job of that in Detroit and we didn't do a good job of it yesterday.

Q: Most teams with poor records a lot of them are young, a lot of them don't have a lot of stars this team does?

B: The bottom-line is how the team functions as a unit, as a total group players, coaches, everybody that is wearing the Patriot colors out there and it wasn't very good yesterday and I am the one responsible for it so I will take the blame for it. I think that is probably where most of it rests.

Q: You talked about some breakdowns on the defense, are they still having trouble executing your system on defense because it is obviously different from last year's have they not picked it up as quickly?

B: It certainly wasn't played as well as we wanted it played yesterday. Some of the numbers and all the rushing yards per carry and all wasn't that bad, but we didn't do a good job on the running game when we needed to. There were some key times when it broke down and we are not consistently playing some of the plays the way they need to be played so we will have to try to continue to correct that.

Q: On the offensive line are you still forced to go with that, with those guys in there or is there something you can do to change that?

B: We had seven linemen at the game the five who played and Grey Ruegamer and Grant Williams so I would say it is going to come out of that group.

Q: Any bumps or bruises, Terry?

B: Nothing serious at this time.

Q: Did Raymont Harris get his bell wrung on that play?

B: Yes he and Parish hit and they both went down and he was out for awhile.

Q: Now that your last two games are against competitive teams who may be playoff bound is that a sort of motivation that you guys might pickup on?

B: I don't know I would like to think that the motivation should be there I mean there is only sixteen regular season games and they are all important. We are getting paid to play them or coach them and that's our job and that should be our focus. Really to me it shouldn't make any difference who it is against it is about liking the game, liking football, enjoying the job working hard, have enough pride and confidence in yourself and each other to do well. That's something we have talked about all year long that's not going to change.

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