After beating the Saints on Saturday, Patriots coach Bill Belichick took some time during his postgame press conference to highlight some of the team's better defensive plays. Defensive backs Davin McCourty and Bradley Fletcher were lauded for strong pass breakups in the end zone, and linebacker James Morris was credited for forcing a fumble on what would have otherwise been a long completion to receiver Josh Morgan.
During a conference call on Sunday morning, Belichick was asked about one of the down moments for the Patriots defense -- a 45-yard touchdown from Saints quarterback Drew Brees to receiver Brandin Cooks.
Belichick was first sure to give credit where credit was due.
"Great play by two great players: Brees and Cooks," Belichick said. "Obviously it could've been defended a little bit better. I wouldn't say that it was . . . I've seen a lot worse defense than on that play, but it wasn't good enough because Brees made a great throw, Cooks ran a great route, ran through the ball. It was a good play for us to learn from.
"Again, sometimes in practice you pull off those plays at the end to avoid the contact. Would you have it, wouldn't you have it? Would it have been complete, would it have been incomplete? But all that shows up in the game. We can definitely learn from that, just the whole situation. The play-action, the first and ten and the drop . . . which is is kind of an alert at that point anyway. Better pass-rush, a long extended play that we could've obviously defended better."
On that play in particular the Patriots secondary used a look with McCourty at cornerback -- something he's done now for the last week with mixed results -- and Duron Harmon at safety. McCourty appeared to take away the boundary to his right, funneling Cooks back toward Harmon in the middle of the field, but Cooks got behind everyone to open himself up for the score.
After discussing that play in particular, Belichick hit more generally on how the Patriots have used multiple players in multiple positions in the defensive backfield, and how that is forcing them to improve their communication on the back end of the defense.
New England Patriots
"Overall I think our secondary and our communication has been good," Belichick said. "We've played a lot of people in a lot of different combinations. That's sort of forced everybody to really work harder on the communication. It's not always the same two guys with their own way of communicating, whether it's a signal or kind of a nod -- however subtle it is. When you work with a lot of people you've gotta build that ability to communicate throughout the entire unit with whichever players you're paired up with.
"That's been good for all of us. And as we move forward we'll try to narrow that down, but at some point we may be using different people in different spots and we'll have to come back to the base we're trying to build now and the depth we're trying to build now with players playing multiple positions. [We're] trying to create depth for ourselves at all positions on the team, not just the secondary."
Here are a few quick notes from other portions of Belichick's conference call on Sunday.
* With about a minute left in the first half with the Patriots driving, a replay review was requested from the replay official above the field. There was some delay before the replay was announced and executed, with the Patriots actually running another play before they were given word that there would be a review.
Belichick had a lengthy discussion with the officiating crew, the contents of which he tried to explain.
"Boy . . . It was [confusing]," he said. "There was a replay from the booth and then there was timing issues of what was going to be on the clock versus what was actually up there. [And] the explanation from the referee on his announcement versus what was actually communicated to the bench, to the sidelines. I called a timeout on a play that there was a penalty on so was that a time out or was it not a time out? Did the penalty override it?
"There was several things that came up there. Again, it's preseason for all of us, we're kind of working our way through some of those situations . . . There were several things that came up right consecutively there. In a way they played off each other. The timing was certainly a part of it, how much time is left? Ultimately whether a timeout was or wasn't going to be charged. It was a short completion. There was a penalty on the play for a late hit, I think. Did the timeout count or not count? Were we gonna have time to call the guys over and take the timeout. Or [would the timeout] get wiped off and all that?
"There was definitely some . . . Just trying to clear up exactly what a situation is, and at the same time the officials are trying to keep the game going. They don't want to stop and have a conversation at the end of every play. There's a tempo and a pace of play issue, but there's also a communication issue in terms of knowing exactly what's happening. All those things. It was a unique situation the way it all kind of happened together, and I'm sure that there was confusion up there [in the pressbox] because there was some confusion on the field too."