Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick Transcript

PRESS CONFERENCE

August 27, 2022

Q: Assuming you had a chance to take a closer look on the flight back, anything stand out to you in terms of contributing to some of the inconsistency that you had sighted last night?

BB: No. Not really. It’s a combination of things. It wasn’t any one thing.

Q: Along those lines, when we had talked at training camp you had mentioned how sometimes like a bad play can actually turn into a good play with one thing, and vice versa a good play might actually be a bad play. So I just didn’t know if there was a mix there from last night in terms of that?

BB: Yeah, no. I’d say there was plenty of that.

Q: A couple of player things I was curious about, Jack Jones was pretty disruptive in terms of getting the football out a couple of times. What have you seen from him when you reviewed the game, and how reflective of that is what you’ve seen from him in camp?

BB: Yeah, I think Jack’s competed well. I mean like all the young players there’s a lot of things he still needs to work on. But he’s been out there every day and that’s certainly contributed to his improvement and development.

Q: First time we’ve seen Jabrill [Peppers] at safety, what did you take from his 23 or however many plays he played? What did you see there?

BB: Yeah, good to get him out there. Good to get him involved. First step, but good to get him on the field.

Q: What does he bring to the defense? What style of play?

BB: We’ll see. Yeah, we’ll see. At this point it’s good to have a player who really hasn’t played all preseason be able to play.

Q: Did Ty Montgomery travel back with you guys? Do you have an update on him yet?

BB: He did travel back with us. We’ll see how it goes today. I’m not sure. There’s no update at this point on him. He’ll get looked at this morning, like we usually do. We’ll probably know a lot more after 12 or 24 hours after the injury instead of trying to make an instant diagnosis.

Q: What had he brought to the position group this summer?

BB: Ty’s had a good camp. Versatile. He’s played some multiple positions, played in the kicking game. Smart kid. Good level of experience.

Q: What kind of progress have you seen from Raekwon McMillan over the course of camp?

BB: Again, it’s been good to have Kwon out there. Hasn’t missed any time, he was ready to go in training camp and been a steady participant. Again, that’s always bodes well for improvement, consistency, especially the position like the one he plays, where he’s depended on by so many people around him and a major person involved in the signal calling. So, he’s come along well defensively and in the kicking game.

Q: Did you surprise you at all to see Isaiah Zuber out in the secondary for them last night? Was there anything about his skill set when he was in Foxborough that you made you think maybe he could play both sides of the ball?

BB: I think that was an emergency situation to finish the game.

Q: It looks like Kevin Harris made some good plays last night. Where do you think him and Pierre [Strong Jr.] are in their development? I know you mentioned earlier in the camp how picking up the passing game and special teams would be crucial for them in getting a role. So where do you think they are in terms of progress in those areas?

BB: Better. Improved. Still like all rookies at that position, there’s a long way to go. But, headed in the right direction. There were some encouraging things last night. Both those guys are, again like most rookie backs are, better with the ball in their hands than all the things they have to do without it. But that’s pretty normal. So continue to work on those areas. Vinnie [Sunseri]’s done a good job with those guys, bringing them along and teaching them what to do. There’s a lot of things happening at that position. Like I said, especially when the ball isn’t in their hand that’s kind of the, I don’t want to say easy part, but the part that they’ve had the most experience with, it’s all the other things. But they’re definitely improving.

Q: Just going back to the run blocking, how do you balance the idea that you guys might be trying some different things and you want to see what it looks like and that you haven’t really been able to do that in practice, but in a game situation versus the result of the play.

BB: Anytime you run a play there’s some kind of comment or correction on the play, so yeah either ‘this is what we’re looking for or is this what we want? You know, this is a mistake or this is how we need to do it better,’ whatever it happens to be. I know there’s benefit to running every play and talking about what happened on the play, good or bad, so everyone has a better understanding of it. Whether it’s a running play, passing play, a pass or run defense or a pass coverage or a pass rush. All those plays are learning plays and they’re all valuable. Obviously that wasn’t a good play for us, but we’ll talk about it, correct it and I’m sure everybody will understand better what we need to do going forward or at least I hope so.

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