Q: After looking back at yesterday's game, is there anything new that pops into your head?
BB: I don't think so. We had our chances; we just didn't do a good enough job.
Q: How close are Chad Ochocinco and Tom Brady to being on the same page? They say that they're close but when you watch the tape, are they that close?
BB: We go out there and practice every day so I think there're plenty of good examples. They're not perfect, but it isn't with any - there are always things to work on. They've made plenty of plays. Tom's made them with all the receivers. Hopefully we can make more of them in the game.
Q: I know you can't speak for Tom Brady, but is it a matter of trust? Does he not believe that Chad Ochocinco is going to be where he's supposed to be? Are you seeing that on tape?
BB: No, I wouldn't say that.
Q: So Chad is pretty much where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there?
BB: No, you asked if that's what Tom thought. I said I don't think that's what he thinks.
Q: Would you say Chad's where he's supposed to be?
BB: I'd say overall our execution level is at times good, at others times not as good as what it needs to be. That's the difference between completing them and not completing them.
Q: You guys offensively seem to be successful running the no-huddle. Are you running it as much as you were earlier in the season?
BB: We've kind of go in and out of it. If we feel like it's advantageous, then we'll do it. If we don't, if there are other reasons to not do it, then we won't. It's not a set formula. Obviously if you're behind and you don't have much time, that's one thing. But other than that, it's a question whether you feel like you're getting an advantage versus what you're giving up by not huddling and not substituting and all of those things. [You] just have to decide what you feel is the better option there.
Q: When you do decide to go to it or away from it, is it more based on the defensive personnel or the down and distance?
BB: I think if you're in it, you're kind of in it regardless of down and distance because you can't really control the down and distance. If you run a play on first down and you're going no-huddle, it could be second and one, it could be second and 10. Unless you want to get in it or get out of it based on one play then you kind of lose the tempo of it. I think if you're in it, you're in it. If you're not in it, you're not in it. Again, it just depends on what you're trying to gain from it and then what you give up by not being able to substitute, not being able to call a play, not being able to utilize motion or things like that. Again, you can't run every play that you have from no-huddle unless you had a much smaller selection of plays. But the plays we have in our game plan, not all of them are no-huddle plays. I don't want to say it takes you out of it, but it would take you out of certain plays during that sequence. If you want to be out of those, or you don't care about that then you gain the advantage of the tempo. If you want to be able to do some of those things, then you have to be able to huddle up and go back and do it. It really keeps you out of the no-huddle. We use them both. They both have advantages. We've had production doing it both ways. We try to do what we think is best for that particular situation in the game.
Q: Did Kevin Faulk not recover as quickly as you would have liked, did he have a setback or was he a healthy scratch?
BB: We felt like there were other players that were a little more ready than he was yesterday. But it was close; he probably could have played.
Q: With Tom Brady early on, he seemed to be more inaccurate than we've seen. When looking at the film, was it a fundamental thing that he spotted or you guys spotted?
BB: It wasn't anything I spotted - I mean like one particular thing, like his grip or whatever, no.
Q: The offensive players who talked after the game spoke about execution being a problem. Was that something on your end or something that was a result of something the Giants were doing to disrupt the offense?
BB: Of course you have to deal with the defense. I don't want to take anything away from them, but there's also just doing what we need to do and I think we all feel like we need to do a better job of what we're doing and how we're doing it and how consistently we're doing it. I don't mean that negatively toward them because we control what they do - we have to block what they give us or run the routes based on the coverage they use. But we can control what we do and I think that's what we're saying is that we need to do a better job of what we're doing - coaching, playing - we all need to do a better job.
Q: Tom Brady threw one interception and one batted pass into the Giants linebackers. What were they doing to cause that? What did you see?
BB: I don't think they did anything that we haven't seen before. This wasn't like there were some new plays that nobody had ever seen before. They read the quarterback; they did a good job on those plays. I'm sure Tom would like to maybe have a couple of those back. [When] a quarterback has a good arm like Tom does and is accurate, sometimes you feel like you can get a ball into a receiver and a lot of times he does and sometimes he doesn't.
Q: Is there anything Bill O'Brien can do as a play caller help to find a groove earlier? Did you guys take steps to do that?
BB: We always try to do that. We try to go into the game, try to run our plays well, try to get off to a good start. Believe me, we never go in there and say 'Let's have a couple of three-and-outs here and then see if we can get it going in the second quarter.' We try to go in there and sometimes it's better than others but certainly something that we have addressed, we will continue to address. We want to start fast and we want to finish strong and all in between. Like I said, we need to do a better job all the way across the board.
Q: I don't believe Albert Haynesworth was on the field after the Brandon Jacobs touchdown. Was that related to that play or just to what you were trying to do during the game?
BB: We had a lot of defensive linemen active and so they played in different rotations. Vince [Wilfork] is a guy obviously that we don't want off the field, but the rest of those guys, they can't all play. One guy plays for awhile and then somebody else plays and they rotate.
Q: It seemed like Brandon Deaderick really came on strong yesterday.
BB: He did a solid job, yes. Shaun [Ellis] wasn't active so Brandon did play quite a bit at left end out there because Shaun wasn't up. That was a little different situation. I was talking about the inside guys that we had: Kyle [Love], Vince [Wilfork] Albert [Haynesworth], Gerard [Warren] and Ron [Brace]. We kind of had five guys for two spots there, so it was a little different situation. I thought Brandon did a good job - did a nice job in the running game, used his hands well, played with good technique and he got up the field and got close to the quarterback a couple times. [Kareem] McKenzie is a pretty good tackle, I thought he competed well.
Q: I saw a much longer stretch that Albert Haynesworth was out in the second half than previous games. Was it injury related? Performance related?
BB: It was rotation-related.
Q: His number never came up after nine minutes left in the third?
BB: No.
Q: It seemed like he had an animated discussion with Pepper Johnson on the sideline. Was that related to an assignment? Did that factor in?
BB: Whatever we talk about as a team during the game or in meetings and all that, it's between the players and the coaches.
Q: Taylor Price wasn't on the injury report for a couple of weeks and then we got notified on Saturday night that he was added with a hamstring injury. Can you pull a hamstring in a walk through?
BB: No, it kind of tightened up on him. He worked and then it just, it just tightened up a little bit to where it really wasn't 100 percent. He practiced; he did practice. I'm sure he'll practice this week unless there's some unforeseen setback. It wasn't after the practices. After the week of work, it wasn't 100 percent.
Q: In regards to injuries, how much influence does a player have? Can he influence you other than what he does on the field? If maybe Kevin Faulk says, 'Coach, I can go,' do you take that into account?
BB: Absolutely, sure.
Q: To go back to our no-huddle topic, when Tom Brady is calling the plays, is he getting them one right after the other or do you guys typically have a series that he knows, say the next three are going to be this and he already knows what he's calling? Or does it happen right after the last one?
BB: Definitely the latter occurs, but it's a combination of things. We go on the field with usually an idea of what we want to try to do in that series. It isn't just, 'What am I going to call here?' 'We're going to line up in this formation and run this play and then if that play goes okay then the next thing we're going to do is this and the next thing we're going to do is that' and that kind of thing. Now, you get a 40-yard gain or you get a holding penalty, then obviously that could change things. But it's kind of one play sets up another or one play complements another in some way, whatever it is, whether it's a formation or look or maybe you want to move your players around so they have to adjust to it. Or maybe you don't - maybe you want to leave them there so you see it the first time and then you kind of can see it the second time - is it the same or are they doing something different? It just depends on how you want to do it. We talk about that and assuming things go according to plan, then the plays would probably come off about as we planned on it. Of course things could change or sometimes the play goes to another hash mark and you have to flip the play or something like that. At the end of the play, then it would be called into him, yes. 'Okay, let's get them into this formation and we're going to run that play,' and then he would communicate that to the team. But a lot of times there's an anticipation of what's going to happen, so it doesn't really catch anybody by surprise. But again, occasionally sometimes things change and something might come up that we didn't say going onto the field 'this is something we're going to want to do.' But now the situation has presented itself and then we would call that formation, call that play. It's a combination of both.
Q: Any indication on Brandon Spikes of whether that might be a serious or long-term injury?
BB: No, he's having some tests done today and we'll see how he responds. It's hard to tell right after the game - a lot of adrenaline going and all that. Take a look at it today and see what it looks like tomorrow. Sometimes those things clear up and they're bruises; sometimes they're more than that and it takes a little bit longer. Probably a little better idea tomorrow and we'll see whether he can practice on Wednesday.
Q: When you look at balance and predictability and you see that at the end of the game there were 15 targets to Wes Welker and 10 targets to Rob Gronkowski, do you come back and say 'That's too much. We have to figure out a way to get away from that?' Or is it OK if the defense was dictating that? Is there a fine line between the defense dictating and knocking on the same door too often?
BB: I don't know if it's defense dictating it, but I think you want to try to get the ball to your playmakers. Those guys have made a lot of plays for us, so I'd say if we threw that many passes and didn't throw it to them, then you'd be coming in here saying, 'Hey Bill, you threw all these passes, how come only two went to Welker and one went to Gronkowski? How come you didn't throw it to them?' I think they're good options if they're open. If they're not open, then hopefully there's somebody else that is. They're two of our better players. I don't think there's anything wrong with throwing it to them if they're productive and they were both productive yesterday. A couple of times, could we maybe have gone somewhere else? Yeah, we probably could have. Maybe a couple of times if we went somewhere else, could we have gone to them? Maybe we could have. But I'd say Tom [Brady] generally makes real good decisions with the ball. Has he had plays he'd like to have back? Sure. Have I had calls I'd like to have back? Sure. That's part of the game. But I'd say he makes pretty good decisions with the ball - where to go, who to throw it to. We trust him doing that. I'm not going to second guess him on those.
Q: There was a rotation at safety with James Ihedigbo and Josh Barrett. What are the differences between those two guys? What do they bring to the table?
BB: Josh hasn't played in awhile, that's one difference. But both those guys are really on all - and so is Sergio [Brown] - they're involved in all the kicking game plays. I'm talking about the big four: kickoff, kickoff return, punt and punt return. You have them involved in those special teams plays and then also defensively. Josh hasn't been available for the past few weeks. In order to help keep everybody on the kicking game but also be able to utilize them on defense, those guys both played, I'd say, about the same number of plays roughly. We try to balance off the roles because before James was playing a lot of plays on defense [and] he was also playing a lot of plays in the kicking game. He's in good condition and can play them, but still it's a big workload, so we try to spread that out a little bit.
