New England Patriots

What the Patriots had to say after dominating their rematch with the Falcons

"I try not to be a one trick pony. I’m small but I’m not little."

Tom Brady and Matthew Slater celebrate after the Patriots' win over the Falcons.

By Hayden Bird

5 minutes to read

In a rematch of Super Bowl opponents, the Patriots comprehensively defeated the Falcons, 23-7. Jumping out to a 23-0 lead, New England picked up where they left off in Super Bowl LI. Reaching all the way back to the third quarter of the Super Bowl (when Bill Belichick’s team trailed 28-3), the Patriots scored 54 unanswered points right through the fourth quarter on Sunday night.

In response to arguably the team’s most impressive performance of the season, here’s what the Patriots had to say:

Bill Belichick

Can you talk about what you saw on the blocked field goal attempt by Cassius Marsh?

Belichick: Yeah, that’s another thing that we’ve worked really hard on is our field goal rush. Guys work hard on that every week. Cassius has gotten some opportunities in practice. It’s hard to block Steve [Gostkowski]. Steve gets good height on the ball, gets the ball off quickly. I think this one with not quite as much height maybe as Steve’s ball, or at least what Steve’s balls were in practice, Cassius got a hand on it.

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It was a big play for us because, again, we worked so hard on that and that’s everybody across the board. That’s all 11 guys, not just the guy that blocks it. The other guys have to do their job and if they block Cassius and take him away then that gives somebody else an opportunity so we never know how that’s going to go. We just want everybody to come hard and do their job right and wherever the opening is it is. That was a big play for us. Again, you can see the whole team – we were all excited; sideline, players, guys on the field. That was a big moment for us. Our special teams units work very hard. They take a lot of pride in their job; the return teams, the coverage teams, the field goal and the field goal block team. It’s good to see that hard work pay off in a big play like that.

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How much confidence does it build in the running game when you get the ball back with four minutes to play and are able to run the clock out?

 Belichick: Well, I think we have confidence. I don’t think confidence is a problem. I think it’s execution. We were able to do it tonight but we weren’t able to do it two weeks before that. We have another team this week – the Chargers – I don’t know how we’ll run the ball against them. We’ll have to go out there and do it again against another good defense, another good team. Whenever we get the opportunity to run it whether it’s the first quarter, fourth quarter, whatever it is, we’ve just got to [do it]. We’re getting good play from our backs and our line. We’ve just got to be a little more consistent. It’s good to get that explosive run in there. When you can get a 20-yard run or a 15-yard run that helps the running game a lot more than seven three-yarders when you can rip off a 20-yard run. It’s good to have a couple of those.

Tom Brady

On having his mom and dad at the game

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Your offense held the ball for 34 minutes, and 54 percent of those plays were rushing attempts. Can you talk about how those two figures add up to controlling the game?

Brady: Yeah, that was important. Last time we had played this team, it was a little different. But, you know, every game takes a little different turn and I thought we did a great job staying balanced tonight and we ran the ball really well, really efficiently. Guys ran hard and we really needed it. So, it was great to hand it off and see those guys rush the way they did, the way the lineman were blocking. It was a great way for our team to win.

On the fog:

Both you and Matt Ryan converted on third or fourth down scramble plays tonight. Who do you think wins in a footrace between the two of you?

Brady: I don’t know. He wasn’t that fast coming out, but I was a lot slower. Maybe we’ll try in the offseason. That would be fun.

On the defensive performance:

Rob Gronkowski

On blocking for Brandin Cooks’ touchdown

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Was it hard to see the ball in the fog?

Gronkowski: Yeah, that fog was pretty crazy. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like that or played in anything like that, but, I mean, a deep ball up in the air was definitely more difficult [to see than if there were no fog]. But, it didn’t change anything in the game.

Malcolm Butler

On the familiarity with the Falcons

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Butler: It’s good. You can pick up tendencies and you just know what’s going to happen.

On the emotions between the two teams:

Butler: There’s going to be some trash talking out there, but we just wanted to make sure we protected [the home field] in Foxborough and just get the win. Go out there and compete.

Duron Harmon

On the defensive performance

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Harmon: We’re excited because we finally see our hard work come into show. It’s not perfect; we still left some plays out there. We still did some things that we know we need to learn from. I just feel like the energy that we played with, the excitement, how fast and physical we played kind of covered up a lot of the mistakes that we made. We just got to build on that.

On the Falcons electing to go for it on fourth down twice:

Harmon: That just showed you how big they thought this game was, too. They wanted to win and keep their offense out there because they felt like the offense gave them a good chance to win. It’s a testament to what we did. Even when they got it on the first fourth down, we kept them out of the end zone. We played really good and didn’t give up any points. When they got in the red zone, we made it really hard for them to score. That’s what we need to continue to do and continue to build on this performance.

Dion Lewis

On closing out the game with a time-consuming drive

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Lewis: We were just being physical at the end. We talked about being physical in the running game and there’s no better way than being physical to close the game out in a four minute situation.

On his ability to run between the tackles:

Lewis: Whatever it takes to make plays. I try not to be a one trick pony. I’m small but I’m not little.