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            **TB:**   Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  There's not that many people here today.  

**Q: How important is it to know that week in and week out the defense is going to deliver you guys a performance that is going to allow the offense to in some cases get itself together?

TB:** Yeah. Definitely. I think those guys really set the tone. They have for a bunch of weeks in a row, and I think they do a great job of keeping the offense off balance. I think they can do a lot of different things. They have a lot of guys who fill a lot of different spots. There's a lot of depth, so they can stay fresh out there. Hopefully they keep it up. Some of these weeks we are going to need to score a lot more points than we did. We had some opportunities today, but we really just didn't take advantage. At some point, that's going to bite you in the butt. So we are going to have to be better in the red zone. I think we moved the ball pretty well today. I just don't think we took advantage of those scoring opportunities that I wish we would have.

**Q: Is there any danger in that, if the defense is playing that well to maybe allow yourself to subconsciously get reliant on the fact that "they'll take care of business for us"?

TB:** I don't think we think that way. I just think we expect to go out there and play well. Every week we practice third down stuff, we practice red area, we practice first and second down passes, we practice inside runs, outside runs. I think for some reason, we're just not getting it done in the red zone. I could care less what the defense does to tell you the truth. I'm just more concerned about how the offense is playing. Whenever we're out there and we get those opportunities we have to do a better job of getting the ball in the end zone, so obviously it takes less pressure off that defense.

**Q: So the defense isn't mad at you in anyway?

TB:** They better not be. If so, they haven't said anything.

**Q: How about the play of Adam Vinatieri? You've got, obviously, one of the best kickers in the league. A day like today, he accounts for all of the scoring. How nice is to have him come through like he did today?

TB:** Yeah. I think he's the best in the league. He's proven it, that he can make the best kicks. Out there it's tough. If you guys see the middle of that field, it's a sand pit out there. He's going in there, in the toughest conditions with the wind and the rain, typical Foxborough weather. We practice in this, and we practice on fields like that. Adam does a great job.

**Q: Take us through your Oscar performance when Troy Brown got under the center, you're back there acting…

TB:** That ended up being a big first down for us there, late in the game. It's something we've been working on. I think Troy did a good job of selling it pretty good. That's tough. He's going back and forth and our guys just acting like a dummy out there. It doesn't look like it's that tough for me to do.

**Q: How about Daniel Graham? Is it a coming out party maybe for him a little bit?

TB:** Yeah. I think everybody's been waiting for Daniel to really step up and do these type of things. He had some good opportunities today. You get a lot of plays in this plan that were going toward him. I think when those plays came up against the particular defenses…he does a great job of run after catch. He's just a load to bring down. He's got great hands. He's a smart kid. Hopefully we can just keep him involved like that. Whether it's Dan this week, or Troy [Brown] this week, or Deion [Branch] the week before that or David Patten, I think we do a good job of spreading the ball around. Everybody stays involved. Bethel [Johnson] had a big catch to start the day. We are going to need to continue to distribute the ball to keep defenses off particular people.

**Q: Did you have some match-ups for Daniel [Graham] that maybe you liked that maybe you saw pre-snap?

TB:** I think the times when I went to him that was where I was intending to go based on the coverage. Some of the formations we had got Daniel in good positions to get the ball versus what they were doing. He just made good plays on the ball. Those seam routes that he was catching, those aren't easy catches. There are a lot of guys coming and you know you are going to get it. And he makes the catch and sure enough he breaks a few tackles. He's really done a good job.

**Q: Can you talk about the play with Troy with the direct snap to him, and you were waving to the receivers?

TB:** Yeah. It's a sneak to him. We start in an empty backfield and it looks like a pass, he goes in motion and stops under center. I'm out there trying to distract to everybody and Troy takes the snap, and actually makes a nice play, because both of those tackles came inside and took away the inside and Troy bounced it out. Nothing we really can expect, but you get the ball in his hands he knows…

**Q: What were you thinking when you got the ball to run it?

TB:** Well we had been working on it. I thought that was a good call in that situation. What was it, third-and-one, third-and-two? I was just hoping it would work. Troy [Brown] did a good job of ducking inside and bouncing it out. It was a good call by Charlie [Weis]?

**Q: Can you comment on the play of Mike Vrabel, especially coming off of injury?

TB:** Mike. Him getting hurt in the second week of the year, third week of the year, that hurts us. He plays hard every week. The guy loves to play football. I think he can do a lot of different things. He can rush the passer. He can guard the guys one-on-one. He can drop into zone coverage. He's a very smart player. Very tough. Great athlete. He made some big plays today. Few big sacks in there. Came up big, came up big for us. I think everyone is glad to see him out there again.

**Q: Does the "tuck rule" being called today bring back any memories for you? And was it a legitimate call from your point of view?

TB:** It was funny, when it happened, we were on the field and they cleared us off the field. The ref came over and was like, 'This was the 'tuck rule.'' And I said, 'Oh, we're familiar with that rule.' [laughter] And we just trotted off the field.

**Q: Did he ask for your advice on the call?

TB:** In that case, I'm always going for the quarterback. So I think that definitely was a good call.

**Q: Can you talk a little bit about the running game and especially Kevin Faulk, he had a career day today?

TB:** Kevin's been in and out. I think he's been banged up a little bit, but he shows you what he can do when he's healthy. We have some really solid backs, with Antowain [Smith], with Kevin, with Mike Cloud. Those guys can all run the ball and they run it well. It seems like the more each of them gets an opportunity, the more each of them take advantage and they really step up and do some good things. Kev does a great job of making people miss. He's a very smart player, very tough, runs hard every down. The running game was very, very, very effective today.

**Q: When you see a game like this, a defensive battle, as a player do you change?

TB:** I don't think so. I think you just continue to try to hit the open guys. I think sometimes when you have a lead, you just try to gain field position and be a little bit smarter about it. But at the same time, you are still trying to be aggressive. The coach calls the plays, and I read them out, and throw them to whoever is open. You would like to play the same way whether you are up seven or down seven, you really want to stay disciplined, stay within the plan. I think desperation is a little different, but we didn't really face that today.

**Q: What's the main thing that makes their defense so difficult to move the ball into the endzone?

TB:** Cleveland's defense?

**Q: Yeah.

TB:** I think if we watch the tape, I think we would all like some plays back. Just our execution. I think the penalties in the red zone have hurt us this year. I am probably not making, well I'm definitely not making as good of throws as I would have liked down there. You get in the red zone and you play these teams that play this zone coverage, everybody plays it, you've just got to, as our coaches say, you've got to stay on track in there. You can't go backwards. You can't have drops. You can't have bad throws. You can't miss open guys. You can't take sacks. These are the things that have just really kept us from putting a lot of points on the board. We were in there four times and we kicked three field goals. We would have liked to score four touchdowns. It would have been 28 points and we would all be sitting here talking about how great of a win it was. That's not the case. I think we're glad we got a win, but at the same time we need to go out there and focus and work harder at the red zone and work harder at getting ball in and be better. That can only help us.

**Q: Halfway through the season, you are 6-2. Can you talk about how hard it was to get to 6-2? And what it does in terms of a foundation for the rest of the year?

TB:** Yeah, starting out the season losing 31-0, that was tough. That was tough. I think we had a bunch of guys hurt after the second week and at that point we are 1-1 and we are reeling. We're saying, 'God, what type of team are we going to be? Is this going to be one of those years of bad luck?' I think the team made a decision that no matter who was in there, we were going to go in there and fight. And we were going to fight as hard as we could to win each game. I think we've done a good job of taking it one opponent at a time. There's been no talk of, 'Hey, let's get to this record.' Or 'Let's get to that record.' It's just been 'Hey let's win this week.' Like with Miami last week, we weren't even thinking about Cleveland last week. We were thinking about beating Miami. And sure enough, we pulled that one out. Then there was this week. This was nothing about beating Denver, it's about beating Cleveland. And next week, it's going to be Denver. I think everybody's looking forward to, after this week, getting a week off and regrouping, seeing where we are at. And then really making a push for the second half of the season.

**Q: How much fun is that Monday night game for you in Denver. Monday night game, as a pro, is it something you really look forward to?

TB:** Yeah. Everyone's watching. It's your spot light game for the year. We've played [Denver] the past two years and haven't done very well. So I think we owe them something