New England Patriots

Transcript Provided by New England Patriots
FOXBOROUGH

BB: That was a good win for us out there today. I thought we played real well in the first half [and] did a lot of good things. Miami played us tough all the way through, though. We made a couple plays there early in the game but they were tight and I thought they did a good job in the second half, especially defensively. It was good to win. We had a lot of people contribute. It would be hard to single anybody out. We had certainly a lot of production offensively, our defense came up with a couple big stops in the red area and [we had] a solid day on special teams. [I'm] happy to win. It's good to win the division, sweep the division, and we're getting ready to move on to New York next week. [It's a] short week, [with the] holiday and all that, so we have a lot in front of us. We'll have to pack a lot in in just a short amount of time this week, but hopefully we can do that.

Q: Can you talk about Laurence Maroney today, both his two long runs and overall?

BB: He's done a good job for us all year and it's nice - It's always nice to see a back break through the line of scrimmage clean, especially a guy like Laurence. He's got great speed. [He can] get out there and he can turn a short run into a long run in a hurry. Similar kind of to the short-yardage play we had against Jacksonville last year, where he split the line of scrimmage. Not a lot of guys can run him down. It was a nice play, well blocked. It's good.

Q: Was it nice to see Troy Brown back?

BB: Of course. Yeah. Troy gave us - He played a few plays on offense and then a little bit in the kicking game, returning. It's always good to have Troy back.

Q: In the second half, were you trying to force some plays to maybe get records for Tom Brady or Randy Moss?

BB: Trying to run our offense. That's all we did. We didn't really have much of a tight end offense. We eliminated that going into the game, and so we went with what we had. That's really all we did the whole game, other than a few short-yardage plays, but the rest of it was some type of mainly four receivers, a little bit of three receivers, but that was it. That's all we had. We planned to go into the game with that, and that's what we did.

Q: Could you talk about the historical significance of 15-0?

BB: It's good to win and we're not really too hung up on that. We're just - We'll get ready for next week. We'll take one week at a time and get ready for next week. I'm sure that's what you were looking for.

Q: Were you concerned about the turnovers in the second half?

BB: We never want to turn the ball over. Believe me, we don't call plays and say, "Well, we might turn this over." That's - We don't want to do that. Yeah, taking care of the ball… What did we have, three today? That's three more than our goal is every week. It's not to turn the ball over at all and so, unfortunately, we had a couple. [We] want to try to eliminate all of those.

Q: You talked about Maroney getting through the line clean. Was that also a function of being able to read his blocks and reading where the holes are so he can get through?

BB: Sure, yeah. It's a combination of good blocking and good running, yeah. Having some patience in there. Sometimes it's hard to see how those interior line blocks go from the sideline. I couldn't tell you exactly how, but the short-yardage, obviously we split that one. And we had a couple good runs on -- as we had to spread our offense out a little bit, we were able to hit a couple of creases in there and get Laurence through the line. I mean, that's great. [It] gives us good balance offensively.

Q: How do you plan on spending Christmas?

BB: With my family. I hope we can all do that as a team.

Q: I assume your approach will be the same with the people you play in the final game?

BB: We'll do what's best for our football team, same as always.

Q: How do you feel about the idea of playing next week and being 16-0?

BB: We treat every week the same. [I'll] try to do what's best for the football team next week, same as we always do. It's nothing different. Whatever it is, that's what it's going to be.

Q: What's best for the football team - trying to win next week or looking at the big picture?

BB: Whatever is best for the football team, that's what we'll do. If it's to run it, if it's to pass it, if it's to blitz, if it's to line up in an unbalanced line, if it's to put - Whatever.

Q: Will the Giants dictate what you do, as far as resting players?

BB: We're concerned about our football team. I'm not worried about anybody else. There's no other team that concerns me. I'm worried about what our football team does. That's the only one I coach.

Q: Did you sense there was any lack of focus in the second half or was it strictly the Dolphins making adjustments?

BB: No, I thought it was a competitive game all the way through. I really did. As I said, a couple of the plays that we hit were close plays. We hit a long run there, but the Dolphins did a good job. We've seen them all through the year. They've played a lot of close games, played well last week, have been in a lot of tight games. I mean, they've lost some tough games. They're a good football team. They've lost some tough games and I thought they played us well, just like they did in the second half down there.

Q: You didn't feel once you got up 28-0 that your guys let up a little bit, unwittingly?

BB: No, I don't think so. No. I mean, I don't think we - offensively, especially - that we executed as well as we could have, but you know, I give the Dolphins credit for that, too. They've got good players and they made some plays. 

Q: You always talk about taking one game at a time. Are you saying there's no special significance that the next game could put you on a historical --

BB: Well, we look at each week as its own week, so I'm not going to worry about what happened last week or two weeks ago or five weeks ago. It doesn't make any difference. Right now all we're concerned about is this week and that's what we'll put our focus on. At some point there might be a time to reflect back on it, but right now… We'll do that some other time.