**
Q: You guys have been able to spread the ball around these past couple games. How important is it to the overall production of the offense when guys capitalize on their one or two opportunities? **
JM: I think that's really the way that the passing game works the best. Whatever the scheme you put out there is, it can be anything, and if the quarterback reads the coverage and then throws it to the guy that is either open or has the best chance to have single coverage or whatever it may be, and I think Tom is doing a really good job of getting the ball to where it's supposed to go. Sometimes guys, the ball comes their way a lot, [and] sometimes it may not come their way as much. But whenever it's their turn to be targeted, I think our guys are trying to do a good job of making the most of those opportunities, and we had some guys who did that yesterday.
Q: With the loss of Stevan Ridley, what are your thoughts on James White? I know he's been inactive for most of these games, but do you think he's ready to take on a bigger role moving forward?
JM: Well, I don't yet know the whole situation with Stevan, but certainly if he's out then we're going to need the rest of our guys, the rest of our group, to play more snaps and to take on a bigger role. James works hard in practice and has been prepared each week, had an opportunity in the Kansas City game to go in there and touch the ball a little bit, did a nice job. We have confidence in all our guys. This is the norm for the National Football League, and our job is to have the guys that are here ready to go, and they'll certainly work hard to do that. We have a lot of confidence that they'll do the job we need them to do.
Q: When you guys have success deep down the field as you did yesterday, how does that open the field up?
JM: I think that the more you can throw the ball to each area of the field and make the defense defend not only the width of the field but also the depth of it, that obviously would create more space as the game goes along or as the season goes along. Again, it comes back to reading the coverage and doing the right things on each play, and you have to be disciplined enough to do that because there are guys back there deeper than you and are taking away those plays, and definitely you want to come to another option shorter than that or intermediate, whatever it may be. If they give an opportunity to throw the ball behind the defense then you've got to try to take advantage of that. That's something that's [on] a play-by-play basis, and you've got to do a good job of reading it out on every snap.
Q: The touchdown pass to Brian Tyms was reminiscent of some things he did well in the preseason. What makes him so good in jump ball situations and things like that?
JM: Brian has shown an ability to … He's got good speed, so he's had an ability to get down the field. In those situations, many of them become a one-on-one type of a situation, and the defender is going to fight for the ball, and you've got to go up there and try to fight with them. He made a really nice play yesterday. You'll see the coverage wasn't bad. [Stephon] Gilmore had an opportunity to get the ball out there, and Brian went up and hung on to it. I thought that was a good play, and he's shown through the course of the preseason and the early portions of practice and then this week that he's capable of doing those things.
Q: How has the confidence in the offensive line increased in the last couple weeks?
JM: Look, we've had a lot of confidence in them. Again, we talked about in the early part of the season just needing to kind of build on things and improve some of the areas where we needed to make progress in. We've certainly had a lot of players play on our offensive line and a lot of different combinations due to a number of different variables and factors, and yesterday wasn't any different. But I thought those guys were well prepared. [Offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo] did a great job of having them all ready to go, and they went in there when their number was called. We had some moving parts there this week with Bryan [Stork] being out, and [Ryan] Wendell going to center, and Josh Kline playing, and Dan Connolly going out, and Jordan [Devey] going in and being ready to go. [DeGuglielmo] deserves a lot of credit for that, and I think he did a great job with the group. Those guys are all working hard. Our focus isn't going to be any different this week – just get better and try to make progress from where we were at last week and see if we can't be an even better group this Thursday night against the Jets.
Q: What stood out to you about Tom Brady's performance in the second half yesterday?
JM: How decisive and accurate he was. We mixed different types of throws in there, but he was very decisive, knew where he wanted to go with the ball, read the coverage very well. That part was pretty clean for him all day. He was getting the ball in his hands, seeing the defense and then getting to where he was going to go with it. And then he threw the ball very accurately and gave our guys an opportunity to make some plays. Whenever he plays fast like that, it's obviously a good thing, and he really got into a great rhythm, and I thought that really helped us get the drives going. And then he made a lot of plays and big throws as the second half went on.
