Miami Dolphins 22, New England Patriots 12
COACH BILL BELICHICK: Yeah, well, it's obviously a disappointing day for us. We didn't do anything really well enough to win the game. We just didn't coach well enough. Didn't -- missed opportunities and they were just better than we were today. That's the bottom line. We all just came up short, so to win these games, we got to do a better job. I got to do a better job and collectively as a staff and a team, we've got to perform better than this.
Q. What do you think contributed to the run defense struggling today?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: If we coach better, we got to play better, we got to tackle better. A combination of all those things.
Q. At the end of the game, down by the ten, how much consideration was there to maybe kick the field goal just to get three, hopefully on the board, and then knowing you needed a touchdown after that instead of going for it?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: We thought about it. It was fourth and two. So you know, we needed a touchdown at some point. Tried to pick it up on fourth or two and we didn't.
Q. Last one, did you have a chance at all to catch up with Stephan and any update on him?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: No, I don't have any update.
Q. You guys had them pinned back deep a few times today, doing pretty well with field position and they sustained several long drives. How frustrating was that?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: Yeah, we didn't do a good job in those situations, we had the field position, we didn't keep it. We didn't get the ball back to the offense and get field position. That all certainly contributed to the -- you know, to the performance of the day.
Q. Certainly a hallmark of your team over the last 20 years has been improvement throughout the season. Second straight week the run defense has been gassed pretty badly. What do you see going on there? How frustrating is that?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: Yeah, all the things I just said. Same, again. It's all the same things.
Q. There were a couple of instances where receivers would fumble the ball immediately after catches. I assume that's something you guys work on quite a bit. How do you work on improving that?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: We just keep working on it. Nothing more important than ball security. Ours wasn't good enough. We didn't have good enough ball security today. Didn't hurt us as much as it could have and it will hurt us more if we don't do a better job.
Q. What do you tell the locker room after this loss to fight for the rest of the season?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: Well, that's what we do.
Q. Was there anything with their run game that they threw at you guys today that was new or unexpected? I know they had some key pass catchers that were out for them, so I'm curious if anything changed with their run game today from what you had seen before this week?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: I think I've already talked about that. We have to do a better job coaching, defeating blocks and we certainly have to do a better job of tackling. It's a combination of all those things.
Q. With this loss you were eliminated from playoff contention, first time since 2008. Wondering your reaction to that.
COACH BILL BELICHICK: Yeah, well, disappointed, but we -- we didn't deserve to win today, so...
Q. I know it hard to hook ahead, but does it change your message to the players that the playoffs are officially off the table?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: No, not too much.
Q. Just wondering what happened on the 12-minute on field penalty there.
COACH BILL BELICHICK: We had a substitution error.
Q. Are you disappointed that this late in the season you're still having things like that?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: Of course.
Q. Jumping in late if you've already been asked this but in the second half they get three touchdowns in their first four possessions. Anything schematically that you thought was an adjustment from the first half?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: No. Not really.
Q. Is there anything you would explain away or ascribe that big jump in their performance, at least from a scoring standpoint there from what you had seen in the first half?
COACH BILL BELICHICK: No. Just a continuation of the same thing.
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