Bills/Patriots Postgame

BUFFALO BILLS HEAD COACH DOUG MARRONE

Q: Injuries?
A: Scott Berchtold: The only injury we’ve got on this one is Ty Powell with an ankle.

Q: What happened with Aaron Williams and Mike Williams being inactive?
A: Well, Aaron wasn’t able to go. Mike Williams’ situation was really a tough call and it really wasn’t the direction that we probably would’ve gone. It happened late in the week. We really didn’t realize until Friday night that Kyle Williams was going to be able to play. By that time we had put so much in game plan-wise for a three tight end package that we practiced quite a bit and that we played today. Then you’ve got to look through the roster and you’ve got to say, ‘Okay, you’re not going to not play Kyle if he’s healthy.’ So you start to go through and see where we were banged up a little bit, where we needed guys to play, where we needed special teams. You go through all of those different scenarios and it’s not an easy decision. We went with that decision. The process to go about it, we were really surprised he [Kyle Williams] was able to play, which was good. I brought Mike in on Saturday and I told him I needed him to do this for the team. I said, ‘It’s not a great situation, but it’s due to the special teams and everything that we needed to cover.’ We talked to him and he handled it like a pro and he’ll be ready to go next week.

Q: It looks like Chris Hogan is ahead of Mike Williams on the depth chart.
A: No. He’s an outside receiver. What we had today was the three tight ends up, we had things in the plans for Chris and then, obviously, Scott had a very good game. We had a lot of things that we wanted to take advantage of with the tight end play. Really it comes to that. If you look at what we’ve done before, we had one of the tight ends down and Mike was up.

Q: Did you ever believe that Tom Brady might not play?
A: No, but I think that when you look at that stuff and you see what goes on around the league, it’s very difficult, once it gets to questionable on players. Most of the time, players are going to play in this league. We prepare that way. We prepare to see the best that each team has and go about it from there. We came into the game feeling like he was going to play.

Q: Today your defense wasn’t very good in the second half.
A: At the end of the day, when you’re minus three in turnovers and it equaled 13 points, I thought the defense did a heck of a job early on in that first half. We had a bunch of straight three and outs. I thought, offensively, once we had gotten into a rhythm we were able to move the ball, but we were three and out quite a bit. The runs were up and down being productive and not productive, which is not what you want to do. We tried to jam a guy at the line and they wound up making the big play there. We had the pass interference that was a big play. Penalties definitely hurt us. We’ve got to do a better job coaching it from our standpoint. In the second half, yeah, they did win the execution battle.

Q: Did they make an adjustment in the locker room coming out in the second half?
A: No, it’s always automatically a chess game and you’re playing it against one heck of a player. You’re trying to change things up constantly to keep from giving them the same type of looks and things like that. He’s going to be able to exploit it and hats off that they were able to. I shouldn’t say exploit the weakness of things. They were able to win on those matchups.

Q: What led to some of the rotations at safety, with Duke Williams and Corey Graham starting?
A: Matchups. We had matchups in of who we wanted Corey to matchup with on certain packages that we call.

Q: How deflating was CJ Spiller’s fumble right before the first half?
A: All turnovers are deflating, so I want to make sure that we start off by that. Our thought process there was that we wanted to run the football and we knew that if we get this first down that we’re going to take a shot on the next play. If we weren’t able to the yardage that we needed, then we were just going to sit on the ball and come at halftime. But we were going to play the game aggressive and try to take those shots down the field.

Q: What went into your decision to give Boobie Dixon more touches?
A: We just wanted to get him in. We felt like we might have gotten away from him a little bit. Early on in the Chicago game he did some good things in the beginning of season. Then we’ve just kind of lost track and we wanted to come back and try to get another boost to the running game. Trying to get it started. We haven’t run the ball particularly well; not to our expectations. We were looking to get a boost out of that.

Q: Did Fred Jackson’s ankle affect his game at all?
A: No. It really didn’t. It really didn’t.

Q: Was Scott Chandler part of the game plan today or did that just happen?
A: It was part of the game plan and that’s what went into the decision. When Kyle (Williams) was active and I had to put someone down, I couldn’t put a tight end down because it was such a big thing in the game plan. We can best cover ourselves, not to say that we’re going to be as strong with making the decision, with Mike. That was tough, but yeah it was part of the game plan. The tight end stuff, that was part of the game plan and what we wanted to do.

Q: How did you think Scott played?
A: I thought he played very well. He made some really good catches. Big catches. He was able to win on the matchups and did a nice job. I just wish we could have done some other things better. For everyone to win the game, which we didn’t as a team.

Q: What are your thoughts on what opportunity was lost here today?
A: I think you have an opportunity to beat a divisional opponent. We lost that opportunity at home. That’s the one that gets you. At home is a big advantage. It’s difficult to win on the road in this league and you’ve got to win your home games. When you lose one, now you’re banking on when you turn it around at the end of the year, to try to get it back. Advantage to them.

Q: Does it seem like it takes perfection to beat the Patriots?
A: I have a lot of respect for them, but when you’re minus three in the turnovers, your chances of winning the game, I don’t even know if it’s 18 percent or something like that. I don’t have everything right now. There’s a million numbers going through my head, but it’s very, very difficult. Now, you take minus three and you play a good football team and those minus three equal points for them, you’re digging yourself in a hole that’s very difficult to come out of. Even the best teams have a difficult time coming out of that. That’s disappointing. We knew going into the game. That’s the first thing we’ve talked about. Creating turnovers, we had some opportunities. Weren’t able to get it. I thought our guys were trying to do a good job with that. We had the three. The first one, they were in robber coverage. Jamie Collins looks like he’s buzzing a flat. He came back in. We didn’t see him. Good job by them. He [Kyle Orton] saw him go out and the, all of the sudden, he just hit the brakes and came back in. That’s tough on anyone. Sack-fumble on the next one and then obviously C.J.’s. You guys saw that. They were in man and we were waiting for him to get open and we had a holdup in the protection.

Q: Does it simply come down to the fact that they have Brady and you don’t?
A: Don’t get me wrong. He’s an outstanding football player. Is there anyone else in this league that has someone like him? I don’t know. Probably not like him, but there might be three or four other guys in that same class of player. My personal opinion is that I think it comes down to things like execution and turnovers. You have to play a very good football game to beat them. They did, today, a very good job of not doing anything to beat themselves and made plays. We did things to beat ourselves. We took away three points with the penalties down there at the end. We were able to overcome some penalties too.

Q: Did you hope your defense was beyond the point where it would give up four scores on four straight possessions?
A: You’d like to say yes. Our defense has been playing extremely well. They were able to make the plays and we weren’t able to make the plays against them. We’ll go back, we’ll sort it up, we’ll change some things up and go.

Q: What were your thoughts on the number of penalties and the substance of the penalties?
A: They had nine for sixty. We had eight for 107. Untimely penalties and things like that, it’s tough. When penalties lead to scores for the opponent, it’s difficult. When penalties take away scores or take away great field goal range, it hurts. It’s difficult. We’ll look at them. I don’t think I do. I saw the plays. It was clear as day. We all saw them. We’ll turn them in and go about the normal protocol without me getting myself fined or saying anything publicly about it.

Q: Why did you take out Mario Williams and Jerry Hughes on the drive where they were pinned inside the 10-yard line?
A: It was rotation and run game, thinking that they’re going to try to run the ball and run some time off. We put them in knowing that, when third downs and things like that come up, we can get them in. That was the thought process going on, even though I wasn’t directly involved at that time with the personnel issue. It was a rotation going in. We were thinking that they were going to run it and I’m sure that’s what went into the decision of them trying to run it out.

Q: Do you agree with that?
A: Absolutely. I back my coaches 110 percent. I really do.

Q: Hasn’t Mario been great against the run this year?
A: Yeah, he’s done a good job. I didn’t say he wasn’t. I didn’t say either wasn’t. Jerry Hughes has been great against the run all year, but when the rotation comes up, those two guys are up and they go play. When the third downs and the critical downs come up, yeah, we want those guys on the field. There’s no doubt about that.

BUFFALO BILLS RUNNING BACK FRED JACKSON

Q: Fred, let’s start with the offense. Is there anything you can point to in order to try to get things rolling earlier in the game maybe?
A: Turnovers and penalties. When you kill yourselves on drives like that it’s going to be hard to get anything going. That was our M.O. today. Once we got out of our own way and stopped turning the ball over and converting some first downs and things like that we were able to move the ball so we got to go make, look at film, make corrections as an offensive unit and get better in all those areas.

Q: Does it get tiresome facing this Patriots team and having the script kind of go the same way where you’re make mistakes and they’re not?
A: It’s tiresome just losing a game to anybody. They’re a good team. They made plays and created turnovers. You got to give them credit but if you do that against any team it’s going to be hard to win so we got to get that out of our system and play better.

Q: But this team in particular, when you consider the dominance that they’ve had over this team, how do you process losing to them again?
A: I mean, like I said, turnovers and penalties. If you turn the ball over three times and have over one-hundred yards in penalties it’s going to be hard to beat anybody, especially a good team. They took advantage of it and scored points off our turnovers and anytime you give a team points like that it’s going to be hard to come back to beat anybody.

Q: Did you feel sort of a sense of missed opportunity? They’re 3-2, you’re 3-2, it’s at your place, the crowd, the whole ownership thing? Do you feel something is lost there?
A: I mean it was an opportunity to move into sole possession of the AFC East so yeah there was definitely a missed opportunity there. That’s something got to be able to take advantage of. We didn’t get the job done today and now we got to continue to battle. It’s one game, we still got a long season to go, but yeah the opportunity was there for us to take sole possession and we didn’t get the job done.

Q: You know how much the Bills mean to this community, arguably more than anyone else in this locker room. An extra sense of disappointment not getting it done in front of new ownership today?
A: It’s just disappointing to lose a game, that’s what we’re just focused on more than anything. We wanted to win this game and we didn’t get the job done.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK

Opening Statement:
I think it was a good win by our team today. I thought the players did a good job. Buffalo was competing hard. They had a lot of energy and there was a lot of excitement inside the stadium. Our guys did a good job on those two drives at the end of the game offensively. They had some good plays on defense with turnovers. It was a good team win and a lot contributed. Obviously it was a little bittersweet with Jerod (Mayo) going down in the first half so I hope he’s okay. But it’s always tough up here. They’re a good football team. I thought our guys played them hard and competed well. Ultimately we were able to make enough plays. We had some big plays down the field in passing game, which obviously helped us and it was good to see that.

Q: With Bryan Stork already out and then Dan Connolly leaving at half time, how big of a contribution was it with the guys who came in and helped give protection in the second half?
A: Huge. It was huge. We had a lot of guys step up. We had some people go down. Backs when Stevan (Ridley) went down and linebackers when Jerod went down. Those guys did a good job.

Q: Can you tell us your thoughts on how Jamie Collins played when Jerod went down?
A: Jamie has been in that position before in practice and so forth but he stepped up here handling the second calls and calling the checks and so forth. Jamie did a good job.

Q: How difficult does the preparation for the next game become when you’ve lost some key players?
A: We’re going to have to turn around quick. Today is Wednesday. Tonight is Wednesday night. That’s where we are in terms of a Sunday game. We obviously have a lot of catching up to do between now and Thursday night. It’s always hard to play the Jets. They’re a game planning team, they always have a lot of tough packages and a lot of good players. But we’ll just have to turn it around quickly and get back to Foxborough and start grinding it out.

Q: Talk about that last drive for Josh (McDaniels).
A: We were able to make some plays. We had a couple long yard conversions today: A third and long, a second and forever. We ended up scoring on the under route. We were in some long yard situations and fortunate to get out of them. It’s not where you want to be. It’s not statistically a situation that is good. But, fortunately, we had good execution by our offensive team, especially in the passing game. So it’s good to go out there and score 37 points. A lot of people contributed in the receiver position. Obviously Rob (Gronkowksi) and Tim (Wright). They all did a good job and hung in there and fought hard. It’s not easy against that front. That’s a good defensive front. Those guys are good pass rushers, they’re physical, they’re quick, hard to block. They did a good job and it’s a good group.

Q: What is the impact on the loss of Jerod?
A: We’ll go forward this week and see what we think the best thing to do is.

Q: Any update on Stevan?
A: Nope.

Q: What are your thoughts on Rob? He seemed to open downfield and made some key conversions with Tom (Brady).
A: Yeah, sure did. He’s a tough guy to cover. He made a lot of big plays for us. We had a lot of big plays from a lot of receivers. We had a lot of guys step up and he was one of them.

Q: And your thoughts on Tim’s catch? That was a terrific, athletic catch.
A: Yeah, Tom put it out there and Tim went and got it. So, nice job by Tom creating the coverage. Low safety there, put it up there and give Tim the chance for the ball and he made the play. I’ve seen him do that several times this year during the preseason. It was good to see it today.

Q: Did Brian (Tyms) and Tom have a lot of time to practice together after the suspension?
A: They worked together all training camp. They couldn’t work together the month he was out for the first four games. He wasn’t active last week but he practiced with us and he was active this week. So, they’ve had quite a bit of time together minus the month that they weren’t together.

Q: What has your team showed you in these last two weeks since the Kansas City game?
A: I thought last week we played very competitively on a short week against a good football team. Today, we came on the road and played 60 minutes here. We have to give the Bills a lot of credit. They won on the road against Detroit and they won on the road against the Bears in overtime. This is a tough football team to play 60 minutes that comes at you. We knew that’s the way it was going to be and that’s the way it was. Our guys stepped up and competed well today. So, I give the players credit. They worked hard and they played hard. It’s a tough football team here in a place that had a lot of energy.

Q: Two years ago it was almost the same situation with Tom catching fire in the third quarter. How do you account for the fact that he can be almost perfect in the second half in Buffalo?
A: I think you have to give credit to the whole offense. I thought we did a decent job of blocking the front and giving him time. The receivers made some good plays, Tom made some good reads and made some good throws, but it took everybody out there working together out there today. It’s not a one-man band. It took a lot of work from a lot of guys. Offensively, we put ourselves in some long yard and bad situations. We were able to overcome some of those, most of them as a matter of fact, but that’s not the way you want to do it. We got away with it today, but that’s going to catch up with us. We can’t keep doing that.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK TOM BRADY

Q: Josh (McDaniels) having confidence to put it in your hands and go empty, come off firm, when most teams run the ball and kick it away in that situation…
A: Yeah, we were aggressive I think all today, so it was awesome. It was fun to be out there, great team win. Lot of our guys can make a lot of big plays, and that’s what we are going to need to move forward. It’s still early in the year, but it’s a tough road win. We knew it would be 60 minutes and the guys played their butts off.

Q: How impressive was your offensive line?
A: They did a great job. Those guys, I say all the time, lots of confidence and they pay with a lot of heart. I think the key was really getting ahead and trying to stay ahead. So, when you can get ahead and then you can run it, play action, throw it quick, hold on to it, and I think that’s the way we play pro football. Coach and I talked about one time we scored first 23 straight games or something like that. So, we got to get ahead and we have to stay ahead and like I said a lot of guys made a lot of big plays.

Q: When you see a player like Jerod (Mayo) injured, how would you proceed without a little bit of fatalistic criticism?
A: Well I think you have to rely on other guys that you have in the locker room that you have confidence in. You build your trust in each other by going out there in practice and you lose someone, like you said, every team losing certain players every year, it’s hard to do, guys have to rally around the guy who steps in there and tries to do a great job. You know, it’s unfortunate.

Q: He makes an impact on the team not just defensively but all the way through…
A: Absolutely, I mean guys like that Jerod (Mayo), we lost Vince (Wilfork) last year and you know we lost a lot of really key important players. We’ve just got to keep fighting on and there is a lot of football to play and guys have played great football for us and they give everything they can to our team and it’s tough to lose them.

Q: When you lose guys like that, how do you make sure a temporary loss of energy doesn’t spiral out of control?
A: I just think when the games going, you have to think about your job and what you have to do. The defensive guys have to obviously adjust a lot more than offensive guys, but we still got to go out there and do our thing. I’ve got to throw it and read my keys and got to block and run and tackle and those guys on defense have to make the adjustments. Someone just has to step in and fill a hole.

Q: How much do you like that situation?
A: Yeah, it was a great opportunity. I think we talked about that at half time too. We said, ‘look this is what we asked for.’ We will see what we are made off, we go on the road, in the division, and games don’t get any bigger than that. We made a good play there before halftime; we stripped the ball. We made a good situational play getting a few extra yards before we kicked the field goal and great momentum going in at the half. So we had a six point lead and then capitalized with the drive to come out and play pretty well in the second half. It was a great complimentary win; it was great for all of us to put together a good half of football.

Q: That last drive they were right back in it…
A: Yeah, they made a great drive to get down there on the field, they hit the two point conversion to make it a one score game and then we had to answer.

Q: Was there any thought of let’s run it three times and see what happens?
A: I don’t know if in Josh’s (McDaniels) mind he was thinking about that. He was regressed with his touchdown. That’s what it’s got to be, whatever it takes. I think that’s what it comes down to, you’ve got to go with what you’re doing well, we’re moving the ball and throwing it pretty good.

Q: Do things seem back to pretty normal at this point?
A: I think that a lot of guys are making plays out there. Brandon (LaFell) made some big plays, Julian (Edelman) made some big plays, and Brian (Tyms) made some big plays, getting contributions in the running game, Shane (Vereen) making plays. Whoever’s numbers getting called, that’s what good offenses are. Whoever is out there has to produce and guys are playing big roles and we are trying to find things that work. We are six games in to the year, we are a long way from the team we are going to be here in a couple months, but it was good to come on the road and grind it out and get a tough win.

Q: Can you pinpoint why this team has had such lengthy success against the Bills?
A: I’m not sure, really, historically I think you just think about a day like this we had a great game and I think guys played really well. They have a lot of good players, and a lot of respect for this team. They play hard every time we play them and I think we just came out on the winning end. It’s good to be on the winning end.

Q: Maybe just coincidence, 23-2 for you, 25-7 for the team…
A: Like I said, I’ve got a lot of respect for them and they played their butts off. There have been a lot of times where they’ve had us down, almost out, and we found a way to win but today it was a close game and I think we made a lot of critical plays when we needed to. It feels good to win, feels good to go on the road and win and we haven’t done a lot of that lately.

Q: Do you like to play in this stadium?
A: It’s a great stadium. It’s an old stadium, in there it was pretty tight. It was probably half the size when I first started, but actually blew out a wall and made it a lot bigger. Yeah, it’s a great stadium, the fans are into it and they can get it going, but fortunately we made a lot of plays to kind of slow them down and made some big plays there at the end.

Q: Talk a bit about the throw you made to Brian (Tyms) early in third quarter and how much momentum that sparked the offense?
A: That was a good play. Brian found a way to kind of slither his way through there and get behind him, and I threw it up and gave him a chance to make the play, like he has continued to do, he goes up and makes them. That was a big play for our team. We’re going to need a lot of big plays here in the next couple months of football and whoever is out there has to be able to contribute.

Q: When you look at Rob (Gronkowski) the last two games, everything seem right with him and the two of you?
A: Oh yeah. He’s a great player. He’s playing great and that’s great for a quarterback. I got a lot of confidence in him and I love playing with that guy. It’s great to be out there with him.

Q: How much an impact does he have on you and everybody else on the field?
A: Well, he is a great option out there. So, if they don’t cover him he usually gets it and if they put extra guys on him then it frees everybody else up. He’s tough to stop, I mean you put a safety on him he has size, you put a line backer on him he’s got speed; he’s been that way since he’s been in the NFL. He has a lot of touchdowns and he’s playing with confidence. The kind of enthusiasm and energy he brings is awesome. It just adds to what Julian (Edelman) does, and Shane (Vereen) does, and Brandon (LaFell) does and Danny (Amendola) and the rest of the crew; gives everybody a lot of confidence.

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