Indianapolis Colts coaches and players discuss their upcoming game against the New England Patriots in Frankfurt, Germany.
On Playing the Patriots for the third time in three seasons...
"Yeah, it's definitely – especially when it's not in your own division. Being able to play them a couple of times, this will be my third time in a row – there's some familiarity with some of the players there and also just watching on film how they attacked the defense and stuff like that over the past couple of years."
- Colts Defensive Tackle DeForest Buckner
"It's big. It's big because you kind of know your opponent. Even though they have a different offensive coordinator this year, they kind of still look similar to what they did last year. So you know exactly the mannerisms of the back, the quarterback, stuff like that. When you face a team over and over, you kind of get a feeling of what they like to do and what they don't."
- Colts Linebacker Shaquille Leonard
On Bill Belichick...
"Just being on the opposite sideline watching what he's done over his career is phenomenal. Just what he does, he's always switching things up. He's a brilliant coach, a ton of respect for the guy. He's been doing it at the highest level and has been the best doing it for I don't know, the last three decades? Whatever it's been. But just a ton of respect for what he does on a weekly basis. Every week he gets his team ready to go."
- Colts Head Coach Shane Steichen
On the Patriots offense...
"We saw that every team now in this league can score a lot of points if they have the opportunity. We have a lot of respect for what Buffalo does and New England scored 29 against Buffalo and won the game. We just got to do a good job. I think last week we went back and said, 'Let's get back to being fundamentally who we are and get back to doing the things that we do.' Shane's (Steichen) big words were execution, communication, being on the details. I think that we went back more to that. Really, this opportunity – New England does a good job, I've got a lot of respect for them. But we've just got to continue to get better in some areas. I don't think we tackled as well as we needed to at times last week. There's a couple of areas that we really need to focus our attention on making another big step. Now, it's against New England. We have that opportunity against them, a team that we highly respect."
- Colts Defensive Coordinator Gus Bradley
On the Patriots defense...
"I just think they play hard. They play together. They do a good job schematically with the what they do defensively. They've been doing it for a long time. We just got to be on it with details and communication."
- Colts Head Coach Shane Steichen
"Always pretty multiple, can do about anything, will show you a bunch of different looks. They can run stuff. I think you just really have to be dialed in with your looks, be very solid with what we have going on and stick to our rules."
- Colts Quarterback Gardner Minshew II
"The Patriots do a good job with their front. They've always done a great job with their front. So, I think we'll have to be a little creative there – find ways to get explosive in the run game and be able to pass enough to keep them off of us."
- Colts Quarterback Gardner Minshew II
On the importance of this game...
"Every game at this point is counting from here on. It's almost like a playoff atmosphere – we have to win. I think we go in, have a good game this week, should feel really good about where we're at and have a lot of confidence."
- Colts Quarterback Gardner Minshew II
"We know this back half stretch is where teams have to bolster up. You're either going to go up or you're going to go down. It would do a lot in order to make sure that we can continue to trend upwards."
- Colts Running Back Jonathan Taylor
