HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK
BB:Alright, well I thought we competed well out there tonight. Obviously, we played a lot of young players. Some of those guys got a lot of playing time - every play - let them play in the kicking game, too. I thought we competed hard, certainly saw some encouraging things, but we'll take a look at the film and take a little closer look at it tomorrow, and then we've got to move on pretty quickly here to get to Pittsburgh. I feel like we've improved over the course of preseason, but we'll find out for sure a week from tonight.
Q: How relieved are you to no longer have the uncertainty of who will be playing quarterback?
BB:I'll just talk about the game - any questions about the game.
Q: What were your biggest takeaways from the way Ryan Lindley played?
BB:I thought he did a good job. There were some times where we didn't protect very well. We had some new people at receiver and we were kind of limited with the number of plays we could run and some of the things we could do. But I thought he handled himself pretty well. The early snap, making a play out of that, the two-minute drive at the end of the half - I thought he did some good things. I thought he handled the team well. We didn't have a lot of formation errors and delay of game penalties and false starts and all that kind of thing. I thought he did a good job.
Q: Did you shake it up on the play-calling tonight in terms of the coaching staff? How did that work out?
BB:Good. Pat [Graham] and Brian [Daboll] called plays. I thought it was good. I thought the players were well prepared and had a good understanding of what to do. I don't think that was a problem.
Q: You did that on both offense and defense?
BB:[Yes.]
Q: In reality going into tonight, were there a lot of roster spots open?
BB:I'm sure there were. I don't know.
Q: In your mind, did you already have an idea of what the team was going to look like?
BB:I think we have an idea, but we'll look at it and just see how much some of these guys improved from last week. And we have a lot of young players on the team. I think a lot of them are making progress. We'll just have to figure out the whole roster, practice squad thing. They play off each other. There are some injury decisions we'll have to make or look at and figure those out. We'll just put it all together, but we certainly got a lot of information tonight, got a good body of work from a lot of players, a lot of plays, so it was good.
Q: Without the ability to really game plan in the preseason, how happy were you with the communication in the secondary, as you prepare for Pittsburgh and the speed they have outside?
BB:I think that's a good question. I think you never really know that until you get into the regular season and you get tested. I don't think we tested a lot of the teams we played, and I don't think they really tested us with game plans or a real degree of difficulty - things that you have to handle. We've practiced those, but how we'll be able to process them and adjust to them in the game remains to be seen. So, I think there will be a lot of challenges in the early part of the season with all that communication, adjustments and doing things that are a little bit unconventional, which we didn't see a lot of that in any of the four games. We certainly didn't see it tonight, and we didn't do much of it either. It is what it is. We'll be challenged, though. Pittsburgh will be tough - they'll be a tough team to handle.
Q: Is this week a quick turnaround for you guys with cuts looming Saturday?
BB:I think we're kind of on a normal week. We play on Thursday, but we can kind of move ahead a little bit and start our Wednesday practice on Saturday. Now when you add in all the roster moves and everything else, that adds something to it. But every team in the league has got to go through the same thing, so we'll just do the best we can and just get done all that we have to get done. It's a little more challenging, but that's this time of year - that's the way it always is.
QUARTERBACK RYAN LINDLEY
Q: How did it feel to get back out there in a game?
RL:Great. Like I told the guys beforehand, I was just excited to get out there and play. That was kind of the idea, the attitude we all had going in. We had a good group in there that was getting a chance.
Q: How did the game go for you personally?
RL:OK. Here and there, there were definitely some throws I'd like back. Others were just kind of throw-aways, but there are always maybe a half dozen. You want to cut that down to play good football, but there's stuff to build off of. And I'm happy with what I put out there effort-wise as well.
Q: Did you feel rusty at all after not playing in a game for eight months?
RL:You know, a little bit at the beginning. I just think you kind of... you're antsy. You want to get out there and get that first completion, so on a couple of those, that one to Reggie [Wayne], kind of stepped up and tried to get out there real quick. I think that's what happens. You've kind of got to slow yourself down and play within the scheme, play within the system, so that's probably my one critique - to start off a little better. But you can't... I think everybody out there gave their best effort to the end. That's all you can ask for.
Q: How much of a challenge has this been for you as far as being relatively new here and having really one shot to show the coaching staff what you've got?
RL:I think it's just... any opportunity is a good opportunity, and I've learned that. In the National Football League, any time you get a chance to lead 11 guys out on the field or 10 other guys out on the field, it's a wonderful opportunity, so you take that and run with it. You don't really look at the, you know, this isn't an ideal situation, because not many of them are unless you're the number one guy anywhere. So I just took what I had, what we all had, and we ran with it.
Q: Did the Tom Brady decision change you knowing whether you were starting or not?
RL:No, I made it a habit to make sure I wasn't checking anything. I wasn't looking at anything. Someone else told me when we got in the locker room, but for me, it was all about you want to just put something out there for a résumé. And I knew I'd get 60 minutes of good football. It was up to me to see how good that would be, and I feel comfortable with the way I played. Hopefully somebody will feel the same way about it.
Q: How relieved was the team when they found out that Tom Brady would be back?
RL:You know, I'm not sure. We were kind of all focused on game day, and then the guys who weren't playing were kind of doing their own thing. So we were just dialed in on the Giants.
Q: Did you and Brady talk at all about how you approached the game today?
RL:Yeah, we just knew obviously he was going to be ready if something happened, but I knew we were just going to go after it. He was a great help on the sideline, and I've tried to help him where I can in the preseason and just kind of that quarterback backup relationship or the group of quarterbacks relationship. You want to help a guy out if you see something, and he sees a lot of things out there. So it was helpful for him to kind of throw some things my way when it came to the sideline.
Q: How tough is it to deal with the uncertainty in terms of being here or being with another team? Do you think that there's a chance you could be here?
RL:Yeah, to address the first part of that question, I think everybody - about 50 percent of the NFL - is under an uncertainty week to week. You learn to play with that, and a third-string, second-string, journeyman quarterback is in that group of people who kind of have some uncertainty. So I've dealt with that in the past couple of years, and you just control what you can control. And you kind of go out and put your best foot forward whether it be in practice, whether it was on scout team all the last three weeks while I was here or anything else to let these guys know that I'm a hard worker and a team player and I'm a good guy in the locker room. And the chips are going to fall where they will whether that's here or some place else, and all I can do is put my best foot forward with what I'm doing on the football field.
Q: Do you feel comfortable in this system?
RL:Yeah, I joked around a couple of weeks ago that I'll never be on Tom Brady's level, but I felt comfortable. I felt like we executed tonight, and we had a good group in there. We played with some pace, and there's some stuff that I think they're going to like on film.
LeGarrette Blount, Running Back
*(On the news regarding quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension being dropped) *
"We ain't really been focused on that. We've been focusing on the [New York] Giants and playing this game today and, you know, try to do things right."
*(On if there was a sense of relief knowing that Tom Brady would be playing the full season) *
"I'm ready to play with anybody. I'm ready to play with any quarterback we have, so you know, that [decision] was not really high on my priority list, you know."
*(On if the mood of the team is excited regarding the news about Tom Brady) *
"Everybody was out here worrying about that Giants' game. I can't speak for the whole team, but I know me personally was just worried about this game right here."
(What were you personally worried about heading into the final preseason game)
"I'm just focused on how many reps I was going to get, you know, and make sure that they were the best reps I can get."
(Do you think you got reps late because you're not playing Week 1)
"I don't know, you know what I'm saying? That's something that you will have to ask Bill [Belichick], but they call my number, so I'll be ready to play."
Logan Ryan, Cornerback
*(On how tonight went) *
"I felt like defensively we played well; we competed. We didn't let up any touchdowns, which is always good, but some things to clean up and get ready for the regular season."
*(On how he would assess his performance over the summer) *
"I think I'm right where I want to be, playing pretty well, getting ready for Pittsburgh now. Preseason is always just a way to work on your craft and get some action in and now is when it matters."
*(On if he is nervous about Saturday's mandatory NFL roster cuts) *
"Not really. It's out of my control. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, so not really."
*(On the players' reaction to the Tom Brady news today) *
"I don't know. Personally, I was just trying to get ready for the game. I knew I had a game to play and wanted to make the most of my opportunity."
*(On if he is glad to have Brady back) *
"It helps, so I would say yes."
James White, Running Back
(On getting the ball in space and making a play)
"Whenever I get the ball in space, I try to make a play for my team, especially when there's a one-on-one situation. You've got to win those situations because they don't come around very often."
(On knowing if you'd get a lot of touches coming into this game)
"Whenever they put me out there, I'm going to go out there and do what I can. Today, I got a lot of reps and tried to make the most of it. There's always stuff to improve on, but I feel like I did pretty well."
(On whether it's helpful to get on a roll rather than getting a snap here and there)
"It's definitely helpful. The more you're out there, the more you get a feel for the game. The more you get a feel for the defense, the more comfortable you get."
(On the intense competition for a running back position on the Patriots' roster)
"There's a lot of great competition going on. We're all competing with one another. We've all made plays, but the decision is out of my hands. It's up to the coaching staff. We just have to do our best and the decision is theirs."
