What Bill Belichick had to say about the Patriots’ performance Sunday
"Great players make great plays."
The Patriots played well in every facet of the game during their 38-7 drubbing of the Dolphins. So well, in fact, that Bill Belichick wasn’t interested in singling out individual players for praise.
New England’s head coach was asked about the performances by Josh Gordon (two receptions for 32 yards in his debut) and Sony Michel (25 carries for 112 yards in a breakthrough afternoon). Belichick kept the spotlight on the group as a whole.
“Each player, all of the other players with them, our overall operation functioned as a unit,” he said. “We just all performed at a higher level, which we needed to do.”
The Patriots looked like a different outfit than the one that fell meekly to the Jacksonville Jaguars and Detroit Lions. Belichick noted his team defended the Miami rushing attack “fairly well,” while running the ball with purpose on offense. It was the same on third down, where the Patriots were able to stifle Ryan Tannehill and company (3 for 11) while keeping the chains moving themselves (10 for 15).
A reporter wondered if Belichick had put any extra emphasis on those third down or red zone opportunities in practice this week. He offered up a response worthy of Ripley’s.
“It’s a big emphasis every week, but yeah, we did a good job on it this week,” Belichick said. “But yeah, I mean — believe it or not — we emphasize it every week. I know it didn’t look like it at times in the past.”
Although Belichick did not delve into specifics about Gordon or Michel, he did talk about the 55-yard touchdown Tom Brady threw to Cordarrelle Patterson in the second quarter. The head coach gave a nod to offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels for a “great call” that opened up space for the wide receiver against man-to-man coverage.
“Great players make great plays,” Belichick said. “Cordarrelle is a great player with the ball in his hands. Tom saw it and put it right on him. Tom made a great throw to James White for the touchdown. I mean, great players make great plays so we had a few of those today.”
Looking ahead to a short week of preparation before facing the Indianapolis Colts, Belichick noted the Patriots will have to make their game-to-game adjustments even quicker than usual.
“It’s hard to be preparing for the Colts because we don’t have much time and they’re a good team and we don’t know them very well,” he said. “That’ll be a big challenge for all of us.”
