CHICAGO BEARS 33, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS 14
ME. Good evening. So just to recap the game. Obviously, we had a good start, started off 10-0 there. That was really good by our football team, playing some complementary football. And, obviously, you know, the Belichick teams, they come back. And they did a nice job of making it 10-14. Had those two quick scores once they switched quarterbacks. I thought we had to do a better job on defense adjusting there. He had a couple nice plays on us. And then we ended up coming back on them.
To me, it was more about the same. It was our ability to run the ball and ability to convert on third down. And that's what we worked on all week during the mini-bye. And I thought the guys did a real nice job of that and ended up getting a takeaway right before half and ended up going up 20-14. That was excellent.
Then the second half, our halftime has always been where we look at it, what can we do better. Okay. And what can we do different. And so we always do that. We always look at that. We always try to anticipate what the other team's doing. And I thought our guys did a real nice job with that. Came out, kicked the field goal on the first series there. And I thought we played complementary football throughout the rest of the game.
I thought we did a really nice job of getting the takeaways at the end and then converting those to scores, again still executing on third down. That really helped us. That was a big part of the game plan, a big part of what we did. We also had the Dante Pettis. It was a little bit of a low kick on that one, but he ended up returning it, a short field there. We ended up scoring on that one as well. And then from there, we were just in a four-minute mode. And I thought the guys did a nice job of sustaining drives in the four-minute.
But, overall, a lot of things we worked on this week with the players. That was a big piece of this. We wanted to work on fundamentals and techniques of your position. My hat's off to the coaches, hats off to the players for really doing a great job with the fundamentals of the game. And you say that, you know, you can only do that in one week. Yeah, you can, because we've been working on them. And I think we did a really good job of that during the course of the week. We extended individual periods so we could get that done. I thought that was a big part of it because what wins football games is the fundamentals. And I thought we did a nice job of that today. I'll open up to questions from there.
Q. Matt, what does it mean to you personally to see all of the work translating, you guys having an advantage in all three phases?
ME: I think that's really an effective stacking good practices together. And I've said it in the media, in the Chicago media that, hey, we've had good practices. We've been putting good things together. And I think that this is a culmination of that.
We had a chance to take a breath during the bye week and really figure out what we needed to do and needed to adjust what we're doing well. And some things we needed to tweak a little bit and no big changes but just some things that -- to enhance our player skill sets. And I thought we did a good job with that. My hat's off to Getsy, Hightower, and Alan for leading their units. And they did a nice job.
Q. You mentioned your staff. I imagine it's pretty satisfying to see everybody dig in come up with changes that paid off (no microphone). What does this portend for the future?
ME: Like I said to the guys, hey, this is one victory. I thought we played complementary football. I thought we improved in our fundamentals, but we still need to improve. We're a young football team. We have a lot of improvement to do in practice before we play our next opponent. So it's on ongoing process.
Q. What did you think of Justin's total impact in terms of passing and running?
ME: Yeah. I think that creates an issue sometimes for the defense. Depending what defense they're in, certainly when you have a quarterback that can -- has the designed runs with the run pass off of it, you know, and then also doing some things have the ability to scramble and make first downs. I think that's a big piece. And it's hard to defend those guys. And we've all seen them around the league. And Justin did a nice job of executing today.
Q. Did you have a sense that you'd see more than one quarterback today?
ME: I did have a sense. I don't know. I don't know. I just thought we had a sense for that and -- because the other guy's been playing really good the last two weeks. We thought that if they started with 10 we might see both of them in a planned role, a planned rotation. We didn't know, but we certainly had a plan for that.
Q. How do you guys get Justin to go from you occasionally see this to this is his baseline, this is how he plays, this is not a surprise when it comes to this?
ME: I think it's stacking games together. He's just got to keep stacking games, stacking practices and keep executing. Executing is simple. It's know what to do and know how to do it and do it for the guy next to you. And that's what we're doing. And that's what he did. Know what to do, how to do it, make sure you know your job, and execute that job. And if each guy does that, the play that we're running is going to be decent on offense, defense, or kicking.
Q. What did you see that encourages you to make sure he can fully ascend to this level where these are not peaks and valleys?
ME: I go back to practice. I go back to practice, what we see in practice. When we see it in practice first, we're going to see it in the game. When you see consistent execution from any player in practice, you're going to see it in the game. And then the game matters because that's performing, right? So you've got to perform in the games. So that's an important piece to practice -- drill work, practice, game. So that's -- but you've got to do it one week at a time. This league is one week at a time, and we've got to make sure we're squared away, get back to work on Wednesday.
Q. Question regarding designed runs for Justin.
ME: Just being smart how we use him, you know, with whatever we're going to do, whatever the run design is, and then him being smart when he's in the open field like that. Body ball boundary get out or just make sure he's getting down quick enough. And he did a nice job with that
Q. With Tuttle, did you see what he did?
ME: I saw it. Yeah. Totally in the wrong. He should not do that. And I told him right afterward. And that's not what we teach. We don't teach that. It's not good football.
Q. (No microphone) ...benched and then by the end of the first quarter he's in back where he was.
ME: Yeah. That's the old thing in pro football. Rosters are really small and one thing happens and you're back in the ball game. Sam did a great job of having a positive attitude during the course of the week when we made the move. And he's a consummate pro. And he's the toughest guy on the field, I promise you that. And he did a really good job of coming in there and executing.
Q. How hard is that to keep your head? I'm sure he didn't like getting benched.
ME: I don't think it's that hard when you have character like him. He's got such high character that's not an issue ever. So he's not going to have an issue with that.
Q. Is that a long term injury for Lucas Patrick? How serious --
ME: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know the terms of it. We'll have to look at it and I'll let you know later.
Q. Is it a broken toe?
ME: I don't know.
Q. Question about rookies and interceptions.
ME: Yeah. First of all, the one Brisker had was pretty amazing. That was a really good play for him, that concentration, get his feet in bounds. That was excellent. And then really the other two interceptions were tips. There were some tips there. But the one that Gordon had I think it was maybe tipped twice. He had to tip it to himself there and then the return. He did what -- you know, take it up the sidelines. Did a nice job with that. But that fosters confidence, the ability to take the ball away. I think that's a big part of winning football. And he did a nice job.
Q. Did you raise objection to a couple plays before that when Brister got kicked by Mac Jones?
ME: No, no, I didn't. I didn't see that that way.
Q. In terms of -- you've got another goofy week coming up here. (No microphone)
ME: Yeah. The guys just have tomorrow off. We're going to get back late tonight. I give the coaches a bit of a break. They can go home and sleep for about three hours and come back. And then we've got to get going on to Dallas. But the players will have off. Wednesday we'll do a walk-through practice. We'll have long meetings and we'll install first and second down. Get guys off their feet the next day. And then we'll roll into Thursday. It will be 1st 2nd 3rd. Friday it will be red zone. Saturday will be our normal Saturday. And then we'll travel. So that will be it.
Q. To do this on Monday night football, I know everything is different for you guys, but did you sense that it mattered to your teammates -- or to your team to go through this on national television? And if so do you think a statement is made when you go and have a game like this against a team like this?
ME: I just think that it's one performance, like you said, but it is important. It is important. The whole country was watching us. And I think that's important for confidence for the guys.
And it's not about that. It's really about for each other. It's about trusting the guy next to you, knowing he's going to do his job and you're going to do yours because why? Because you care about each other. And I think that was important what we did tonight.
Q. Do you think this is the best performance you guys have had?
ME: Like I said, we're just trying to stack them together, get better. We could see it in practice. We were getting better in practice. We're going to hopefully stack these up and get better every week. Thank you.
DRAFTSCRIPTS BY ASAP SPORTS
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports