Bill Belichick: 'I'm really proud of our players'

October 09, 2011|By Chad Finn, Globe Staff

By Chad Finn, Globe Staff

There was plenty to talk about after the Patriots' 30-21 victory over the Jets that improved their record to 4-1, and coach Bill Belichick was in a mood to elaborate during his postgame press conference. Here's what the coach had to say about BenJarvus Green-Ellis's big rushing day, the defense's hard-nosed performance in the absence of Jerod Mayo, another huge play from Wes Welker, and much more.

Belichick's opening remarks: It’s good to come in here after a win against the Jets. It always is. A division game, a hard-fought game like it always is. I’m really proud of our players. We stepped up and that was a great drive there offensively to answer the touchdown, field goal. I thought we played better on defense. There were some good things to build on. We’ve still got a long way to go, and we’ll see them again in a month, as well as the rest of our division teams later on this season. It’s good to win and I'm really proud of our team. They had a good week of practice, they worked hard, pushed through a lot of bumps and bruises — banged up and a long trip back from Oakland and all of that, but they hung in there and I thought they really did a good job this week. It was one of our good weeks of practice, so hopefully that was reinforced by what we did in the game.

I looked like BenJarvus Green-Ellis was able to put together some really good yards, especially in the second half. What allowed him to be so effective in there?

Belichick: I think everything helped — throwing the ball, they played a lot of sub defense, a lot of extra DBs. Our line did a good job. Our tight ends did a good job. Tom [Brady] checked some plays and got us into some more favorable runs that maybe what were called. I think it was a good job all around. Benny ran well, of course, like he always does, runs hard, gets a lot of runs after contact. It was a good solid job all the way around. The receivers, they blocked on that last third-and-four play we ran around the end, we got a couple good crack blocks from the receivers. So, everybody did their job.

Can you talk about the way the defense responded with Jerod Mayo being out?

Belichick: We had our moments. We had our moments. We had some three-and-outs. We didn’t play very well in the red area and we still gave up 21 points, but it was enough to win. Certainly, there are things we can improve on, but I think we have improved and hopefully we keep building on that and continue to get better each week.

You talked about Tom Brady getting into some better running plays. Was this a game that was heavy on needing to make adjustments at the line based on what they were doing?