Bill Belichick doesn’t offer much to the media when his team wins football games. When he loses, there’s no tougher nut to crack in sports.
The New England Patriots head coach gave another one of his notoriously terse press conferences after his team’s unsightly 26-10 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday night.
After leaving a young fan hanging before the game, Belichick took a similar tactic with the press conference. Try as they might, reporters couldn’t get much of anything out of Belichick, with the head coach stonewalling questions about everything from the team’s recent slow starts to Josh Gordon and everything in between. The only thing Belichick couldn’t shut down Sunday night was the Lions’ offense.
The only silver lining for those members of the print media in attendance? There wasn’t much at all to transcribe. Not counting the opening statement, Belichick was asked 20 “questions” and needed just 230 words to “answer” them all.
Here’s the transcript of Belichick’s postgame in its entirety (via the Lions’ media relations department).
Opening Statement
“Alright, well obviously the Lions did everything a lot better than we did tonight, so give them credit. They played well, coached well. We just didn’t do anything well enough to give ourselves a chance to win. Similar situation last week — get behind early, play from behind. (We) just weren’t able to make it up. So, just going to have to work our way out of it, obviously we have a lot of work to do. So, there’s no shortcut, no easy way, just have to do a better job.”
On how the team can overcome slow starts: “We have to work at it, work harder.”
On how the slow start happened after preparing to avoid a slow start during the week: “We have to coach and play better.”
On what the team has to do to play better team defense: “Everything. We just have to do a better job.”
On what happened on the intentional grounding play: “We didn’t have a receiver in the area where we threw the ball.”
On how the intentional grounding play was supposed to be executed: “There was several things that went wrong on the play.”
On how much the team had to adjust the game plan this week for injuries: “I don’t know.”
On if injuries were a factor in the team’s performance: “I think they clearly outplayed us and outcoached us today.”
On if he prepared for WR Josh Gordon to be in the lineup: “We took things during the week as they came and did what we did today.”
On if WR Josh Gordon was inactive for an injury: “I don’t know. He wasn’t active today.”
On the message he gives to the team after the slow start to season: “No, we just all have to do a better job.”
On the decision to rotate in CB J.C. Jackson and CB Jason McCourty in the second quarter: “Played all of our players.”
On if rotating CB J.C. Jackson and CB Jason McCourty was based on effort and energy or execution in the second quarter: “We couldn’t execute anything. We didn’t execute anything very well.”
On his team being a bounce-back team: “Well, it’s never good when we lose.”
On the team’s second loss being a concern: “I just answered that.”
On the offense going fast late in the second quarter: “We thought we could gain an advantage, that’s the only reason we would ever go fast.”
On how he would describe his conversation with Lions head coach Matt Patricia: “No.”
On if he is happy that Lions head coach Matt Patricia got his first win: “Look, my job is my football team and that’s what I’m worried about. That’s what I’m concerned about, that’s what my job is.”
On the issues being personnel or execution based: “I’ll have to look at the film.”
On how to improve on third down: “I’ve said this multiple times, I’ll say it again, we need to do everything better. Play better, coach better, execute better, in all three phases of the game. Whatever answer you want to bring up, the answer is all the same. None of it has been good enough.”
On the current Patriots record: “I don’t think anyone can clinch a playoff spot today, I don’t think anyone is eliminated today.”
There you go.
