Bill Belichick on His Defense Against the Eagles
After the game coach Bill Belichick was asked about that play:
"As a defensive coach, there are times where you just have to give credit to the offense. That was a great throw – perfectly thrown, a great route by DeSean and the ball was as on the money as it could possibly be," he explained. "Overall, our defense wasn't good enough any time you give up a play like that but it was an exceptional play that we were close on, but obviously not close enough."
"There are things we need to do better – coach better, play better – but that was an excellent, outstanding play. It probably would have been a big play on a lot of different players or calls or anything else. It was just very well executed."
He’s got one thing right and that’s the fact that the Patriots defense wasn’t good enough. On that play Talib got beat, but the part that stood out to me was Gregory letting the big play get behind him like all of last season. That play paired along with several other plays that exposed huge gaps in our secondary are a little bit of a red flag to me that this defense might still need some time.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you the first preseason game is a tell-all for defense or even tells anything at all, but when it comes to communication I would have hoped for a little better. I think most of that stuff will work itself out by the end of preseason and the fact that Devin McCourty wasn’t in there was definitely noticeable. I just hope Gregory doesn’t make the roster this season because he just doesn’t understand how to play safety.
All in all, the Patriots came out with a win against a team that couldn’t stop the run and the Patriots offense looked awesome. Belichick knows how to prepare guys and on Saturday when they returned to Foxboro the team sat down and reviewed game film. I’m sure that 47-yard touchdown pass was one of the plays talked about in that room.
Josh Brown
@TitleTownTalkSB
