BB: Well, I thought overall we did a few good things tonight. I was pleased with some of the progress we made in terms of the offense. We got the ball in the end zone a couple times. We missed on some other chances, but we did get it in there. We got a couple turnovers on defense, and that was good. Overall I thought that we did a decent job of running the ball and controlling the clock a little bit. That helps our overall play.
We made the switch with [Tom] Brady because we wanted to get [Drew] Bledsoe a two-minute drill there at the end of the half. We still tried to balance out the plays, and that worked out pretty well. Damon [Huard] and Tom were able to split the second half.
We did the same thing with the running backs. We wanted to Antowain [Smith] a few more carries. I think he and J.R. [Redmond] had roughly the same amount of opportunities. Both of those guys are doing a pretty good job. We also got a little production out of our fullbacks. That was good. We got to play a lot of the receivers, so offensively we saw a lot of people.
Defensively, it was a pretty good team defense. Guys are starting to communicate better than they did last year. We have been able to anticipate some things and alert each other out there. I was happy to see that. It's good to be able to pull everything together on the road.
Q: Is the improvement in the defense more noticeable because the team is in the second year of learning the system?
BB: I don't know. I think we have a couple different players in there I think we have done a good job of instilling a good team defensive attitude with the communication. Guys are playing with some confidence. I think being in the second year helps, but there are other factors at work too. I think [defensive coordinator] Romeo [Crennel] and the other defensive coaches and players have all done a good job of really coaching team defense and not being selfish out there. We are just trying to help everyone on the team do their responsibilities.
Q: Will you be able to do more this year defensively because you are in the second year?
BB: I hope we can do things better. Let's put it that way. I don't know if more is better, or less is better. However we can limit the opponents to fewer points, that is what I am for.
Q: You moved receivers in and out a bit. Was that to see what your groups look like without having Terry [Glenn] out there, or were you just looking to see how players handled situations?
BB: This is more of an evaluation. We're not looking necessarily to shuffle them in and out. We want to give everyone an opportunity here in these preseason games because I do think the competition is close. We had a number of guys make plays in the passing game tonight. We will evaluate everybody and see how it best fits together. Hopefully we can emerge with a couple guys who will start and take some of the load. We want to have good groups for multi-receiver sets in third down and two-minute situations. We want to be productive that way.
Q: Are you surprised at the way Antowain has been able to break out considering that he got off to a slow start, failed his conditioning run and had to be held out the first couple days?
BB: He only missed two days of practice. He has run the ball well in practice as well. He showed he can run the ball well and he's got some good endurance. We've been going at it a long time in training camp, and he's doing pretty well there.
That reminds me. For training camp, we changed the schedule a little bit. I decided to break camp tonight. We are going to be at the stadium on Monday.
Q: What is the situation with Robert Edwards?
BB: Well, Robert didn't make the trip. We see what kind of progress he has made these last couple days. We'll evaluate it when we get back.
Q: It looks like [Richard] Seymour was making a few more plays…
BB: Yeah, I think he's making a little bit of progress. He's got to learn to be on the field when we call a regular defense. He blew a timeout there; I don't know what he was doing. He's making some progress. He's a big guy, and it looks like he can be a little disruptive on the quarterback and can get his hand on the ball. We really need to get him on the field when the defense is supposed to be out there.
Q: Can you talk about the progress of Arther Love?
BB: Arther Love is probably a few weeks away. He's not ready yet.
Q: Can Patrick Pass be a Richie Anderson-type of player for this team?
BB: I think there are some similarities between Patrick and Richie, yes. That's really not a bad comparison. Patrick catches the ball fairly well, and he's a big kid for a running back. He's small for a fullback, so he's a little bit of an in-between guy there. He's pretty good with the ball in his hands. If we can get him to just improve his blocking a little bit and keep him out there on the field, I think he can be productive for us.
Q: The offensive line only gave up one sack tonight. Was that because you weren't going against the likes of Michael Strahan?
BB: That probably had a little bit to do with it. We were also able to run the ball a little bit better, and that helped keep them off balance. We wanted to try to run the ball and get both Antowain and J.R. and the fullbacks some carries. Hopefully that helped balance things off a little bit.
