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**Q: Tell me what is the difference between this rebuilding program and the other three that you had? Where was the dynamic difference?

BP:** I would say this would be a little bit more like the Jets in terms of what was available here. The uncertainty certainly was basically around the quarterback position, which we did have that at both New England and the Jets when I first got there. That is the common denomination with all three. At least in my mind, there was uncertainty about it. But I think there was a little bit more in place here in some respects than there were at say New England for example, when I first started there.

**Q: Was New England the tougher one to deal with?

BP:** Yes it was, at the time. But not only because they had had such a poor record over the prior three years, but the organization itself was in kind of a flux in terms of ownership. There were a lot of different compartmentalized…you guys know better me, hell what am I telling you…there was a lot of different agendas. That was what really was the thing that you had to overcome initially.

**Q: What has it been like working with Quincy Carter? That's a surprise improvement in one guy.

BP:** He has been, pretty much, what I hoped that he would eventually become in terms of a student. He has been very diligent in his preparation. He has been really overboard in terms of trying to get ready. Now, when you are young and inexperienced, you don't always know what you are trying to get ready for. So just because he's watching film or doing something, that doesn't mean he's always channeling all his energy in the right direction. He's putting the time in, but there are things that he's not experienced enough to understand. So we go piecemeal and try to accentuate the things he does well and try to minimize the things he is doing poorly. Much like when I was there with Drew [Bledsoe]. When we first started, we weren't just dropping back and throwing it all over the place. When he first came in, we were trying to do a little something to take a little pressure off him. We have definitely tried to do that.

**Q: You were 52 years old when you came here. Ten years have gone by. How have you changed in terms of how you deal with the day-to-day grind of being a head football coach in this league?

BP:** The main thing I can say now is that I really do have advantage of a retrospective view. I don't fight windmills I use to fight. I use to fight every windmill that was out there. I don't do that any longer. Having been as experienced as I am in coaching now, I have so many more points of comparison both with players and situations. I have so many reference points back to this happened, this is similar to this; this player is similar to that player; here is a player that I had some success with and he looks like this player; here's what that player could do; here's the situation personnel wise. You have so many points of comparison that you don't waste a lot of time sorting things out. So I would say, in that respect, I am better off. Actually they just asked me in the press conference here, 'Some of your friends and coaching friends and people you know say that you are happiest when you are unhappy.' I think that's true and I tried to explain to them that on Mondays that is the hardest day for me. I just don't have a mental defense for some of the things that happened to me emotionally after the games. I don't sleep well. I get fatigued on Mondays. It takes me until Tuesday before I can really settle back in. I have tried to analyze that and I just say that I don't have a mental defense for this emotion, because you are not happy much of the time in this business. Even if you win, there is always something that happened: You didn't manage the game well, your team didn't play well in a certain area, you have an inordinate number of injuries. Whatever it is, it seems to take center for me and that is what bothers me the most.

**Q: When you were here and then when you went to the Jets, you generally brought a group of coaches along with you. Sometimes not as many as others, but had basically the same core of people. Outside of Maurice Carthon now, you really have had to train a whole new staff on the way that you do things, on the way you want them. Has it been difficult? Has it been a time drain? Or has it gone a lot more easily than you thought it might have?

BP:** I have some very good young coaches here. There are three things that I would mention in that regard. First of all, they have energized me a little bit because they are so enthusiastic and they are eager to hear my philosophy on a lot of things. Just like when you get a young player that wants to be coached or yearns to be coached, when you have young coaches that want information on things, it inspires you to give it to them, because you know there is a genuine interest and a genuine desire to learn. The second thing is that the defensive coaches that, Mike Zimmer particularly that I decided to keep as a defensive coordinator, are here is a coach's son. His father was a coach; he is from Chicago. For some reason, those guys just seem to have…they get it. Much the way Bill Belichick gets it, because his father was a coach. That really is helpful there. The third thing, and you are going to get a kick out of this, two of my offensive coaches were with Tom Coughlin. The philosophy there isn't a lot of different than what I bring, so they were kind of use to Tom. And I think Tom and I have a lot of the same…listen, I wish I had some of the characteristics as Tom has. But I think philosophically, we are reasonably in line on how you try to do things.

**Q: You and Belichick go back many, many years. Given what happened with the Jets, what are your feelings about him as a coach and as a person?

BP:** I think he has done an outstanding job in New England. I am glad things have worked out well for Bill. I have no hard feelings about anything. It's the truth. I know it has been characterized otherwise, but that's not the case at all. I do wish him well. He has done a good job for their franchise and I am happy things worked out for him.

**Q: Can you talk about Terry Glenn's performance this year with the Cowboys? And also expand on his comments that he made that he apparently hates everything about New England?

BP:** He has done a good job for us here and the only time I have been exposed to Terry certainly was the one year at New England. He did an outstanding job for me there. I think what was characterized as a volatile relationship between Terry and me, nothing really could have been further from the truth. Anybody that was really on the know on that knew that that was not the case. I don't really know what happened in the interim time. I had only talked to Terry, maybe, three or four times in the course of six or seven years. He had called me a couple of times just to talk and that kind of thing. But this year, this spring, when I found out he was going to be available I asked Mike Sherman for permission to talk to him. Mike gave it to me and we had a good, long talk then. He's come down here. He's adjusted well. He's done well for us in the games. He hasn't missed a practice all year. He is trying real hard. I'm just glad that Terry has himself going in the right direction to because he has a little family here and he seems to be settled. There just haven't been any issues right now.

**Q: What is your take on Tom Brady as a quarterback?

BP:** I'll tell you, I think what he has done has been remarkable, to be thrust in to the situation a few years back and to do what he has done. I know, just from talking to Scott [Pioli] a long time when I was out of coaching, I know Scott had strong feelings for Tom early on. I think the coaches there felt like he was going to be a prospect, but really what he has done has been pretty remarkable.

**Q: He gets rid of the ball so quickly, and you bring pressure very quickly it seems. Is he a quarterback who is well suited to countering?

BP:** I'm sure he is. Yeah. I know philosophically having been with Charlie [Weis] and actually brought Charlie into the league, they are going to try to do something to combat pressure and I think they have a good guy there to try to do that in Brady.

**Q: Will you have time to see your granddaughter Mia [Pioli], or is this strictly business?

BP:** I'm hoping I get to see her. I haven't ever seen her. I am going to hope that I really get a chance to see her. I'm going to speak with my daughter Dallas later on in the week and see if we can't work something out. Being that it's a night game Sunday, hopefully we can do something.

**Q: What happened with you and Bill three and a half years ago?

BP:** I'm not getting into any issues with that. I told you a minute ago, I'm glad things worked out well. There are no hard feelings on my part and he has done a good job there. I'm happy for you.

**Q: What about the dynamic for you personally, you have a lot of friends up in this area still…

BP:** That doesn't really have much to do with this game. I've been through this now so many times. I do have a lot of friends in New England. I vacationed there this summer some. I love that part of the country. I've told you that for twenty years. I come there all the time. I have family there. It's a place that I have good friends and I have good feelings about and that is never going to change.

**Q: Can you talk about Randall Williams and what he brings to your team?

BP:** A lot of speed, a good size for a receiver and he's an outstanding special teams player, which is a luxury in the NFL.

**Q: How did you decide to name your daughter Dallas?

BP:** My college roommate's wife was named Dallas.

**Q: Had nothing to do with the Cowboys?

BP:** Nothing to do with the Cowboys.

**Q: How has your relationship with Scott been since you have rejoined the league?

BP:** It is just father-in-law/son-in-law. We try not to infringe on each other's territory. Everyone knows what the boundaries are, and that is only incidental. All I hope is that Scott has been a good husband to my daughter Dallas and a good father to my granddaughter. That is all I care about. I don't care about anything else.

**Q: There probably was a time when he wanted to forge his own identity as a personnel guy. What is your take on the job he has done?

BP:** I think the whole organization has done a good job. It is not about drafts. Drafts, that is the most insignificant thing. It is about talent acquisition and there are a lot of vehicles to do it. It looks like New England has tried to use all of them. That is what I try to do and that is what my background is. The coaches that were there know that is what we strived to do in the past. That is what they are doing there. It is the way to try to build a team successfully.

**Q: A lot of people try to make it like there is such a difference between you and Belichick as people. As coaches would you say that you are very similar, very detail-oriented guys?

BP:** I would certainly say that Bill is a little more studious than I am. I would say that he probably detail-wise might be a little bit further down the road that I am on that. I try to prepare my team in the best way that I can do it in the manner that I feel is best for them for this particular game, and week and season. Hopefully I cover enough of the details to make sure that my team is prepared and that is both of our goals, I am certain, is to prepare our teams to the best of our ability. We have a little bit of a different way of going about, obviously, but that would be true with any other profession as well.

**Q: Do you take any pride in what he has accomplished and that you helped?

BP:** I think what he has done up there, he has done on his own. I give him the credit for that. Hopefully he carried something forward from his experience. I'm certain that he did and if that's the case then that's good.

**Q: You have some experience in television, why do you suppose that the schedule makers last spring decided that a Sunday night game with the 5-11 Cowboys?

BP:** It seems that every time I have been up there, it has been at night. So maybe they think I look better in the dark.

**Q: Is there any real pitfall to your team's 7-2 start?

BP:** We have a very young team. We are really inexperienced in a lot of respects. I'm not crying wolf here at all, I'm just telling you that this is a work in progress. We have had some good bounces. We have had some lucky bounces. We have also played poorly on a couple of occasions. Actually we have played poorly and won a couple of games as well. This is a young team. It's in experienced. And we have a very, very, very, very difficult schedule starting the year and we are right in the middle of our most difficult part of it. I told the team starting two weeks ago, at the end of November we are going to find out what we are. We'll know whether we are going to be in contention. So far we have won two of the five games that we had. We are going to have five games, starting November 9th, in 25 days, because we do play on Thanksgiving. We've got three games coming up here in 12 days. It is a key part of the schedule for us.

**Q: Bill Belichick mentioned that you gave him an awful lot of latitude with the defense when you were with the Giants. What prompted you to do that?

BP:** He is a creative guy. He is smart. He knows what he is doing. He knew basically philosophically, what we were trying to do. I see a lot of evidence of technique on the film in New England that we were using in 1981 at the Giants.

**Q: Ray Perkins told me that he learned a lot of defense from you. Do you remember having late night sessions?

BP:** Not so much. When I first went to the Giants, I was the defensive coordinator and Bill was the special teams coach, but I could see that he could handle help us out on defense so we asked Ray [Perkins] if I could start using him a little on defense to help us. That is really how Bill got started. I saw his potential and that is why I made him the coordinator when I got to be the head coach. The rest is history.

**Q: Do you remember first meeting him when you with Army?

BP:** Yes I do remember that. I was friends with his dad for many years.

**Q: Can you characterize?

BP:** Well he had just graduated from college then. I believe that was 1974, if I'm not mistaken, or 1975. I'm not sure which year it was, I think '75 and he had just graduated from college. His dad was coaching at Navy and he was scouting Army. That's when he introduced me to Bill [Belichick].

**Q: Your team does a heck of a job on first down and it sets up the ability to blitz on first down. Is that the true key to your team being able to blitz as much? Or can your team blitz on third and short and figure your defense is going to be all right?

BP:** I think each game is different and the way it unfolds will be different. That pretty much dictates what you try to do. It's difficult to say, hey we blitz this and we blitz that. We are just trying to do what we think gives us the best chance to be successful, that changes a lot from game to game, and down to distance and by what the opponents are doing