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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

Drew Bledsoe Press Conference

Foxboro Stadium - Foxborough, MADrew Bledsoe speaks to the press.

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            **Q:  What changes or adjustments has the offense made from last week?**  

B: Well, obviously we're not going to do exactly the same stuff this week that we did last week, there are changes each week as you approach a new game. Some of those changes are going to be directed at correcting the mistakes that we made in the past game. There were a number in this last game. I know I had a couple myself that possibly could have changed the game in our favor. There are two ways that we're going to approach this week's game: Number one is we're going to address the mistakes that we made, correct those, a lot of them are correctable. Number two is I think our coaching staff is willing to try and give us things that put us in a more advantageous position to win this week based on who we're playing this week.

Q: Do you expect the defense to play the same way it played with Bill Belichick as the defensive coordinator?

B: I think it will be similar. Belichick and Al Groh worked together for a number of years, and I think that the looks will be similar. The Jets defense in recent years has had a whole lot of success in defending me and defending our offense and I wouldn't expect them to do a whole bunch of different things. I'm sure that there will be change-ups in terms of what they're giving us. I'm sure they will try to take some pages from what the (Tampa Bay) Buccaneers did to us. They'll try to get some pressure on me, slow our offense down, but I think it is obvious that there are similarities between the coaching staffs, there aren't a whole bunch of secrets, there's not a whole bunch things that we're going to do to fool them and there's not a whole bunch of things that they're going to do to fool us. Ultimately what it will come down to is which team can do go out and execute the best, which team can play with the least amount of mistakes and then it will come down to who will make the big play in the game.

Q: Are you glad Bill Belichick is on your sideline and not on their sideline?

B: Yeah, as I've said before is one of things coming into this year is that I didn't have to face Belichick anymore. Unfortunately, I still have to face Al Groh. I have a great deal of respect for him, he was here and did a lot of good things as a defensive coordinator. I have a great deal of respect him as a coach. He's going to present problems for us and that's something that Belichick did previously.

Q: Do you look forward to playing the Jets anymore than you used to?

B: Yeah, I've kind of flipped out of my mind. I kind of look forward to it. It is a rivalry week, it is a geographical rivalry first of all. I don't think that anybody is going to pretend that it has the same history or weight as the Red Sox and Yankees, but it is the same two towns we're talking about. The history there is obvious in recent years, the coaches and players that have gone back and forth between the two teams. I think Otis Smith has gone back and forth a few times himself. It is a rivalry week and those kinds of things you look at, whether it is high school football, or college football or professional football and you have a rivalry type of game people are going to get more excited about it. I don't think there is anything wrong with being excited about it as a player.

Q: Does Troy Brown continue to surprise you?

B: No. To be honest with you, he hasn't surprised me in a number of years. He's a guy that I expect exceptional things from. He's a guy that when he touches the ball he can do great things with it. It is not surprising.

Q: What do you think of Troy Brown?

B: I think Troy is a guy that each year has improved and that is saying a lot because he's been pretty good for the last three or four years. I think the number one thing that I've seen that has been a change from his rookie year to now is that he is faster. He's faster guy than when he came in as a rookie. That's part of the reason that he didn't see a bunch more time when he was a younger player was that people felt like he was too small and too slow, but he's faster now than he was. He's a guy who trains himself very intensely. For that reason, he's been able to improve himself as a player.

Q: You've publicly criticized your offensive line. Does there come a point where you have to call them out and wake them up a little?

B: Here's the way I approach that: When I come out of a game and can tell you that I've played perfectly, then I will address somebody else's play. I haven't done that yet and there are a few times when it is my fault. When I can come in here and tell you that everything that I was responsible for in the game was perfect then I'll give you somebody else's name. But until that point, it is not something that I'm going to do. The guys that made mistakes in the game know who they were. Often times, you guys don't, and the public doesn't. The public doesn't understand exactly who was responsible for what. The guy that ultimately looks like he missed a block, maybe it just looks like that because it was my responsibility on that play and he was just trying to do something extra. Ultimately, the responsibility for the mistakes is only known by the guys who are on the team that watch the film and know their individual responsibilities. But as I say, the only thing that I will be critical of somebody for is a lack of effort. Watching the film, I didn't see that. I didn't see a lack of effort.

Q: Do you want the blocking scheme changed?

B: The idea there is, and this is something that I will continue to lobby for, is that I will always push for more options in the pass route and less in protection, just because that's what I like to see. I like to have an option, Whether the guy is coming free or not, I like to have somebody to get the ball to rather than having somebody sitting there blocking. I will always lobby for that side of it. The coaches will have to temper that and at times keep other guys in to protect. You can go one of two ways with it, you can keep everyone in to block, run two-man routes and you have a chance to cover those two guys and then what do you do? Or you can send everybody out in the route and take a risk of taking a hit here or there. My preference is to send everybody out, invite them to come and get rid of the ball.

Q: Will the wide receivers be more involved this week?

B: I think everybody knows, I think the Jets know that Charlie (Weis) is going to use various personnel groups, various formations and use those kinds of things to make it difficult for the defense. So, you'll continue to see lots of different guys on the field at different positions in ways to try to make it hard for the defense.

Q: Will Terry Glenn's role increase this week?

B: Going into the game, I really wanted to see the ball in Terry's hands a lot. Not to make him happy or anything like that, but it gives us a chance to win the game when Terry touches the ball a lot. He's a game-changing type of ball player and the more he touches the ball the better chance we have to win. For that reason, we try to put to ball in his hands.

Q: Is this year's offense easier to stop than last year's?

B: I think that most people understand the ways that this offense is different than last year's offense philosophically. Last year the idea was that we're going to do what we're going to do and if we execute it well enough then you can't stop it. Whereas the philosophy here is we're going to make things complicated for you, we're going to challenge you to make the adjustments and play smart on every down and really challenge you schematically with this offense. That makes it more difficult from a scheme perspective defensively to face this offense.

Q: Does the lack of continuity on the offensive line bother you?

B: I think that with an offensive line, if you can have the same five guys that consistently work together, that's to your advantage because you can get your timing down passing off the games and the twists, you get guys on the same level depth wise in the protection, I think that is ideal. Right now, the problem is we have to find out which those five guys are. I don't think we know that yet.

Q: Do you like playing on Monday Night Football? Is this game more important because everyone else in the division won in week one?

B: To answer your first question, yeah, playing on Monday nights is fun. I've always enjoyed playing at night, under the lights. I think that goes back to growing up with my dad as a football coach, we always played Friday night games. When I was real little we'd go out there under the lights and it had a special feeling to it. When it comes to Monday Night Football and you've grown up watching Monday Night Football it is special. It is fun, and it is an opportunity to play in front of a huge audience in prime time and that's exciting. As far as the importance of this game to us: I think that is pretty obvious, we're playing in a very competitive division all of the other teams in our division won, except us, and very quickly we have to get back to 1-1. We have to get back to .500. If you're looking for positives from the Tampa game, one of those is that it wasn't a division opponent. When you lose to a division opponent it is like losing two games, and when you beat a division opponent it is like winning two games because you put a loss on their record and you put a win on yours. So, this game becomes hugely important to us because we lost the first game and because it is a division opponent and because we're faced with an uphill battle in this division.

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