Patriots 25, Texans 22
BILL BELICHICK: Good to come down here and win. We haven't done that in a couple years. I thought that, you know, certainly wasn't perfect but we battled and played better situational football than we have than some of the other games. That was a plus. Got to give a lot of credit to Josh, offensive coaches, offensive line, especially. They did a good job of hanging in there.
I thought they really, you know, went about the challenge this week of replacing some good players in that group and I thought they played hard and we got some runs there to balance off the game a little bit. Defensively, didn't have a very good first half but made a big stop there at the end of the half, so those ended up being important points.
I thought the blocked punt was a key play in the game for us, even though we only got a field goal out of it, which ended up being a three-point game. I thought that was a big momentum play and thought our kicking and special teams played well. Roberts is a tough guy and I thought we covered well on him both on puts and kickoffs, especially kickoffs. They are good in the kicking game. They covered well against us, too. But blocked punt really was a big play and of course field goals were obviously very important in the outcome.
Yeah, just keep grinding here. Just keep trying to keep doing things better and stack good days together in our practice and preparation, and continue to grind and improve here.
Q. What were some of the things the defense did well?
BILL BELICHICK: The biggest thing is third down conversions. They converted almost every third down in the first half. Penalties, we had a couple -- well, one penalty on third down conversion, hit a couple slants, short yardage plays, scramble play it. Was just a -- not a good -- not very good on third down. We got them in third down. Just couldn't win on third down. That changed in the second half. So you know, I thought the running game, that settled down but it was really the third down conversions that ended up being, you know, a big difference for us defensively -- time of possession, they weren't able to sustain the drives like they did in the first half.
Q. Have you been in a game with four backup --
BILL BELICHICK: I was thinking about that, other than the replacement games and all that back in the, you know, what was that, '87, but you can't count that. But no, Ted and James gave us a lot of experience and stability inside with David and you know Justin's been playing tackle for us and put them over on the left side for I say and Jaki played on the right side. I'm not saying it was perfect but I thought they battled and for the most part, Mac had some time to throw and you know we made some errors in the running game, so they balanced. Run the ball in on the goal line so that was a good thing there, too.
Q. Did it help that you were moving all week in practice?
BILL BELICHICK: Yeah, you know, we are hopeful that Mike might clear but he didn't, you know, he didn't make it obviously. So hopefully we can start to get somebody back here and start to get some reinforcements but we've just got to, you know, make sure we don't have another, you know, have anything else happen. It's always kind of feel like a walk on the tightrope there.
Q. What did you see from Mac's leadership, especially on the game-winning drive?
BILL BELICHICK: I mean, Mac gave it to us all day. I thought we moved the ball. Thought he made a lot of good decisions. There were some checks that he had to make that he made throughout the day but really the last drive was third down conversion to Hunter and then we had a couple good runs in there. But yeah, Mac's been good for us all year in terms of his leadership, his resilience, and kind of always counting on him to do the right thing and you know, he really does it at a high level, so it's been impressive.
Q. What did you see on -- the pre-snap --
BILL BELICHICK: Looked like they were in some kind of gadget punt formation, I think probably getting us to check into a safe look and prepare for the fake, and you know, that strategy, it takes you out of return, right.
So if you think they are going to fake it and you're just going to stand there and wait for them to run a fake and then they don't, then you just don't get any return setup.
But we had -- we were able to get the call and pressure that, and we had some big guys in there so that if they did fake it, we felt like we were covered but at the same time we felt like we could pressure as well. I'm not sure exactly what happened but we had guys coming, whether it was a fake or not, and like I said, obviously they missed it there and LG made a great play.
Q. David Culley now being a head coach, did you have a relationship with him going into the game?
BILL BELICHICK: I've never really crossed paths with David too much. Everybody else down here, but not him.
Q. With the way the game went, especially with the offensive line, did the way that they played allow you and Josh to call the game any differently? Were there things that you were willing to do later because of how they performed earlier?
BILL BELICHICK: We pretty much -- no, we didn't -- he we didn't make any -- there were some adjustments during the game, not saying that, but they pressured us more than other teams in the past but we kind of expected that based on the situation. But no, we were able to pretty much run the plays that we had planned on running. We ended up being a little bit more two-back with Jak -- two-backs in the backfield, either Jak or Damien and Andre in the second half but we have done plenty of that all year so that really wasn't a big thing. First half was more two tight ends and one back, a little more of more two backs and one tight end in the second half.
Q. How do you think the secondary did without Jalen Mills today?
BILL BELICHICK: I don't think we played well in the second half, period, so we have to do a lot better than that. Give up two 20-yard drives, giving up 80-yard touchdowns, that's not very good.
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