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Replay: Best of the Week on Patriots.com Radio Fri Dec 20 - 10:00 AM | Sun Dec 22 - 01:55 PM

Dave Wannstedt Post Game

Wannstedt: The sacks weren’t any elaborate blitzes; we just didn’t block them well enough really.

**Harvey Greene: One note, players are off tomorrow and Tuesday, so the first player availability will be Wednesday. Normal Wednesday schedule…

DW:**

What I told the players, it's obvious that the division title is over, but our goal, our ultimate goal, is still attainable. We just have to go about a different way to get there. And the way to have an opportunity to do that is to find a way to line up and beat Philadelphia. Today, there was some good things out there, some very good things done out there. It was pretty obvious that we couldn't get anything going on offense. When you turn the ball over and you get sacked like you did, it's going to be very difficult to win, especially on the road. I don't know…the conditions and all that stuff had nothing to do with it. Both teams played in it. We just didn't handle it as well as what we needed to. I thought it was an excellent defensive effort, but obviously you win and lose as a team. Our focus now needs to be on regrouping and getting ready for Philadelphia. That's where we are at.

**Q: On the offensive problems you had, would you say that they showed you defensively that…

DW:** No…no, no. We just didn't block them up front, one-on-one. We didn't get the job done. We didn't block them consistently enough. There were some plays to be made and we just weren't sharp. We didn't…Jay [Fiedler], I think, got under pressure early. He got hit a few times and then whether he was getting rid of the ball too quick or whatever, and then the conditions were a little bit of a factor. We just left too many plays on the field.

**Q: Was there a major difference in the direction you were going?

DW:** Yeah, but it really didn't have any bearing on the outcome of the game at all. We are down in there in position to make it 3-3. We get sacked and fumble the ball, on a quick play action pass trying to get the ball to [Rob] Konrad in the flat. About as simple and safe as you could do. We made an attempt at running the ball. Ricky [Williams] had 15 carries at the half as you know, and they were making it tough there. You have to be able to throw and run. You've got to be balanced if you are going to beat a good football team and we weren't able to do that today.

**Q: What did you see on that play when [Jay] Fiedler was sacked? What was the break down on that?

DW:** We turned somebody loose, mental mistake, on the blitz.

**Q: Was it Randy [McMichael] that was suppose to pick up the blitzes?

DW:** Uh, yeah…. Yeah.

**Q: Can you talk about that first and ten from the four?

DW:** Yeah, well we…our best opportunity to throw the ball was on first down when they had Ted Washington and their big guys in there. That's when we had hit a few passes previously. In third down, we were not very comfortable. We did not feel confident at all as far as throwing it, so we needed to get out and make some first downs. It was a play action pass to the guy on the flat, or just a five-yard slant to Chris [Chambers].

**Q: Who was Jay [Fiedler] throwing to?

DW:** Uh…I believe he was throwing to Chris [Chambers].

**Q: You were happy with the play of the offense, the offensive line rather, the last couple of weeks, do you sort of take a step back…

DW:** I think it's pretty obvious that we weren't effective enough, running or passing. When you have four or five sacks like that, as a group that's not good and a couple of turnovers resulted from it. I think just as an entire unit, I don't think you can really pinpoint one position, but we didn't block them well enough. And I said all week long that this game would come down to blocking and tackling and we didn't get that done.

**Q: In the beginning of the fourth quarter, you guys decided to punt on the 38. What was the thinking on that, instead of going for it?

DW:** Going into the wind, I think it was. Yeah. The wind had something to do with that.

**Q: You spent a lot of offseason talk energy on winning the division, now that you can't do that, how do you…

DW:** Well, you don't have a choice. You don't have a choice. Our guys…we have enough…we have great guys on this team from a leadership standpoint, and today they are not going to feel…. They are obviously very disappointed, as we all are, and we should be. But tomorrow and Wednesday, we'll come in here and we'll get geared up for Philadelphia. We are battling for that wildcard spot and there is not much room for error right now. We know that. We have enough of winners and character guys on this team that that's not a concern at all to me. It's a disappointment, obviously the division thing, but we just got to go about it another way. That's been done before. We are not the first team to be in this situation, won't be the last.

**Q: What did you think of [New England]?

DW:** I thought they played well obviously. It was as…they did a good job. They are obviously a good football team. But we didn't execute like, we didn't play like we needed to play. We didn't play at that level that we needed to play at to win this game.

**Q: What did they do to make them…

DW:** Oh, nothing different than what they've done before. The sacks weren't any elaborate blitzes; we just didn't block them well enough really.

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