FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick held a conference call with reporters on Sunday (noon ET), and here were a few of the notable topics following the Patriots' 27-25 win:
Following up on unnecessary roughness penalty. When offensive lineman Jordan Devey was penalized for unnecessary roughness late in the second quarter Thursday, some viewed it as a penalty worth taking because he was sticking up for quarterback Tom Brady, who took a hit from Jets linebacker Antwan Barnes that was borderline late. But how does Belichick and his staff view the penalty? Asked if he was more tolerant to those types of infractions because it came while defending a teammate, or if it was more of a non-negotiable situation, Belichick said, "I would say more the latter. We have to find a way to do things without getting 15-yard penalties. That’s the bottom line. We’re not OK with it. We can’t get a 15-yard penalty."
Recapping final offensive drive vs. Jets. In our fourth-quarter review, the balance of being aggressive versus conservative was highlighted on the Patriots' final drive against the Jets. Belichick was asked, in retrospect, if he might have approached things differently. "Well, obviously we didn’t want the game to end the way it ended on the last possession. We wanted to do better and do more than we did," he said, before detailing what unfolded from there. "On the first-down play, we forced them to use their final timeout [with a run]. Then on the second-down play we ran it down to the two-minute warning. We lost yardage on that; that was just obviously a bad play. Had a play gone differently, we might have considered our play calls differently. On the third-down play, third-and-13, the chances of getting a first down aren't great there. They were out of timeouts so at that point on third down, we felt like the best thing to do was to run the ball and try to make them drive it with no timeouts. But first and second down, neither one of those plays turned out the way that we had thought or hoped they would turn out, so that led to a bad third-down situation. We have to do a better job with that, no excuses. We just have to do a better job with it. We're fortunate that we came out OK but it wasn't great."
Early scouting report on Bears. Belichick shared a few early thoughts on the team's next opponent, the Bears, and the things that stood out were his viewpoint of them as a heavy zone-coverage team on defense; Jay Cutler, a quarterback who can make all the throws; and a varied offense that has pass-catchers who often box out defenders and go up to make the catch. "We’re not familiar with the coaches and the schemes. We’re not familiar with the players. We haven’t played the Bears in four years and that was a whole different staff," Belichick said. "We have a lot of preparation work to do, so that will be challenging."