Patriots quarterback Tom Brady addresses the media during his postgame press conference at Gillette Stadium on Thursday, August 26, 2010.
TB: Well, we lost. The first half we didn't play our best, certainly wasn't very complimentary. We just couldn't stay on the field offensively and defensively, they just couldn't get off the field. We weren't complimenting each other very well. We put four touchdown drives together there in a row, which was good, but we obviously don't have everything solved at this point. So, we've just got to come back to work.
Q: What positive can you take out of this game?
TB: It's a little too early to tell. Some guys made some really good plays. The tight end position was really productive for us again. Alge [Crumpler] really sparked us with that one play on the sideline, which was an incredible catch. I am sure there were a lot of guys who did some good things, but you know overall, it's obviously not a game we want to play.
Q: How about Rob Gronkowski's catch and then dragging the linebacker into the end zone?
TB: He's such a good player. He's such a big kid. It's hard to tackle him because he's so strong and that second touchdown catch was equally impressive. He went up and got it and that's what we are going to need this year. We're going to need a lot of guys to make those types of plays. Because we aren't going to be wide open on every play and I'm not going to have all the time in the world on every play. We've got to be able to make the plays when they are close.
Q: What do you hope that the younger players take from a game like this?
TB: We all have a lot to take from it. I certainly didn't play perfect out there, and there are things I need to do better and it's really early. It's really early; it's the third preseason game, so what it means is there is a lot more to evaluate tomorrow and it's kind of another game in the books and everyone competes. And I think Coach really challenged us at halftime to come out and play a lot tougher than we were playing and I thought offensively we did a couple good things. But in the end, it comes down to losing the game and no one ever feels good about that around here and I don't think that will ever be accepted by our head coach and certainly by none of the players. We've got to do a better job of scoring points than they do.
Q: Is it good to get hard evidence on what you need to work on?
TB: I rather not have them, but you know every time you go out there you're not going to score a touchdown. I've been in plenty of games that we haven't scored any points at halftime and today we had 14. I'm not saying I was perfect and there are certainly a ton of things we can do better, but I think what you can take from it is, 'OK guys, we dug ourselves a hole here. How are we going to get out of it?' And whatever we did the first half, let's put that behind us and move on because you can dwell on it and lay an egg in the second half too, but I thought we responded and we're going to continue to need to do that.
Q: Were you curious at all about what Sam Bradford could do?
TB: They were moving the ball pretty good and it's obvious that he was doing a good job at finding the guys that were open. Honestly, I didn't watch a ton of it, but he got them in the end zone.
Q: Can you take us through the play where you fell down and got back up and made the pass to Alge Crumpler?
TB: They were pressuring us and [when] I was dropping, the guy kind of reached out at me. And I'm so slow I can't get away from anybody, [so] I tried to kind of wheel out of there and fell because I thought he literally was going to fall on top of me. And then I heard Sammy [Morris] just 'wham' and I said, 'I better get up and try to throw this thing.' I saw Alge and I was trying to go a little bit behind him and he made an incredible catch. It was pretty lucky on my part. Alge made a huge block on the kickoff return for the touchdown. He made a huge catch to spark us there in the first half before the half. He's been a really great addition for us. Not only his attitude, but his toughness and his willingness to really do whatever it takes.
Q: And the long bomb to Randy Moss?
TB: Yeah. You know, we missed one last week, so you've got to sit with that for a week. Randy is tough. When he gets behind those guys, there're not many people that are catching him. It's amazing to me how he catches the ball like he does. It's so hard to do, obviously. To run full speed like he does as fast as he does, your head is bobbing up and down [and] it looks like there are three balls up there, and he just puts his hands out there like they're baseball mitts and the ball never bobbles or anything like that. He's an incredible player and athlete and I'm glad he's on our team.
Q: You've always had good receivers. With the two young tight ends and Brandon Tate does that give you a lot more targets?
TB: Sure, yeah. And Julian [Edelman] is in his second year. Add that to Wes [Welker] and Randy and the running game and everybody being together for another year. I think that's something that has been really positive to see over the course of this training camp – just the guys that you have built a lot more trust in.
Q: We haven't seen much of Brandon Tate.
TB: Sure. Well, he's got very good skill s as a player. I think there are some definite qualities that he has that allow him to get open. He's got very good quickness, as you can see. He's very good run[ning] after catch, which you saw in the kickoff return. He's got very good hands, which you saw in the first game with the Saints where he caught the ball on the sideline. He's a very mature kid even though he's young and he just continues to learn and get better. I think that's a great thing for all of us.
Q: How vanilla was this team tonight, offensively and defensively? Had this been a regular season game you probably would have done more to combat St. Louis. In this game is it more just worrying about getting things right on your own team and worry about us and not them?
TB: Sure. We just have to execute better. I think that's what it comes down to. In the first half, like I said, it's about making plays on third down. The first drive we didn't. The second drive we got sacked and I was holding the ball; I shouldn't have been holding the ball. The third drive we didn't do anything. The fourth drive we didn't [do anything]. It gets pretty old pretty quick when you keep going to the bench after three or four plays. We just had to get a bit of a rhythm out there. We found it a little bit there at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second, but in the end it wasn't enough.
