BILL BELICHICK, HEAD COACH

BB: Well, this is a really satisfying win. I thought that this whole week our coaching staff, let's start with them, did a tremendous job. Josh [McDaniels], Matt Patricia, Joe Judge - did a great job. Jerry Schuplinski with Jacoby [Brissett], just how hard they worked to prepare the team to get them ready, and then how committed the players were. We came in here Monday after the Miami game and just turned the page and got on to the Texans. We really asked a lot out of the team this week. They responded. They never batted an eye. We got great leadership from our captains; a lot of our veteran players. Everybody just got on bored and stepped up. So, just really proud of the way that these guys competed. I thought that we tried to do what we wanted to do for 60 minutes. Houston's a good football team. You know how much respect I have for Coach [Bill] O'Brien and their staff and their players. Just so proud of the way our guys competed and just tried to do everything that we asked them to do and they really worked hard at it. I'm just happy for the success that they had tonight. The coaching staff just did a tremendous job this week. Good to win and we'll be moving on pretty quickly from this one, but we'll be able to enjoy it here for a little while. It's a good win.

Q: Was the plan all along to use Rob Gronkowski mostly as a blocker from the tight end position due to the strength of Houston's defensive line?

BB: Yeah, we did quite a bit of that.

Q: How do you think Jacoby Brissett handled himself overall and what did it mean to you when he handed his first touchdown ball to you?

BB: I think he handled himself great last week, this week, all week, every day. He's done nothing but come in here and work as hard as he possibly can - when we had three quarterbacks - to take his opportunities and learn from the other two guys, when it was him and Jimmy [Garoppolo] and then this week it was pretty much all him. He's just a hard working kid that is really dedicated to doing what's right for the team and trying to improve on anything that you tell him. He just wants to do what the coach tells him to do. I'm glad we have him. Yeah, I was just holding the ball for him. That's his ball. That's his first touchdown ball, so that'll go up on his trophy [case].

Q: So you gave him the ball back?

BB: Yeah, of course; just like I did with Troy Brown and Asante Samuel and those other guys.

Q: This victory puts you into a fourth place tie on the all-time wins list with Curly Lambeau. What does that accomplishment mean to you?

BB: Well, I mean, you know how much respect I have for Curly Lambeau and what he accomplished in his great career, but really today's not about me. This is about our team. It's about our players, it's about our assistant coaches and about the job that they did. I wouldn't really want anything to deflect the credit that they deserve for what they accomplished tonight.

Q: What did you think of the role your special teams played tonight?

BB: Tremendous, tremendous. Field position was phenomenal. It seemed like they had to go 90 yards every time they had the ball. Our kickoff team, once again, came up big with field positon; two turnovers. That's a very aggressive unit. I think Joe [Judge] and Bubba [Ray Ventrone] have done a great job. They have a lot of leadership on that unit, a lot of pride. We punted well, we covered well, we covered our kicks well, we had a couple of chances in the return game, we converted our scoring opportunities. The entire special teams unit, the coaching staff, they did a tremendous job tonight. We obviously needed that tonight and they really delivered it.

Q: What did you think of the full 60 minute effort your team gave tonight in comparison to their effort last Sunday versus Miami?

BB: Well, it really wasn't stressed during the week, it was stressed at the end of the week. We spent the three days - Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - really trying to talk about what we needed to do, how to execute it and so forth and how we needed to play against the Texans. And then really from this morning, a little bit last night, but really this morning just about how disciplined we needed to be to continue to play that way against the Texans for 60 minutes. We talked about it in the locker room before the game. We talked about it at halftime and these guys did it. They never lost focus. They played the game exactly the way we asked them to play it. I mean it wasn't perfect, I'm not saying that. They tried to do what we wanted them to do, and as a coach you just can't ask for any more than that so they did a great job of it.

Q: What are the keys, both for the players and the coaching staff, to hit on to make sure each week that the team is able to go out and do what you've asked of them?

BB: You know really it's all about the players. It's all about the players. We gave them a lot of new things. We ran some plays that we haven't run all year. We put them in and walked through them. We never got a chance to really run them, and a couple of those hit big. Defensively we tried to do some things that we just didn't even practice them. All we could do was walk through them. It's just not the same as repping them, but they understood. Again, they're a smart group. They're an astute group. They understood how it needed to try and fit against the Texans and then we got out there on the field and they executed it very well tonight. Just a tremendous credit to those guys - the players on the scout team, our defensive and offensive scout teams, to try and replicate the Texans' plays so we could at least walk through them. Again, we didn't really run them at any tempo but at least we walked through and they give us a great look, and some of the communication that we needed to be able to execute those plays was really as a result of the scout team giving us the opportunity to practice it, and if we made a mistake correct it in practice and get it right tonight. So, it was really a great, great team effort over the last four days. The guys that played, a lot of guys that didn't play, like I said, the coaching staff, not just the coordinators, the assistant coaches. We had a lot of guys really work hard this week. It's gratifying to see those kinds of results. Not that we don't work hard every week but this is a tough week.

Q: How difficult is it preparing for this game on short rest coming off of a physical game last Sunday versus Miami?

BB: Yeah, well again, I think you give the credit to the players. It wasn't just the X's and O's. It was getting the treatment, the rest, all of the recovery and things that we do to help our performance. Again, they really did a lot of extra things on that; a lot of the extra tools that we have around here to help them with that. These guys were in early. They stayed late. They did extra things to try to get back out there. We had a lot of guys tonight play that were banged up from Sunday but you know they fought through it, and they work really hard to recover and come back and play on this quick turnaround. Again, it's just a ton of credit to those guys. Not just the mental game plan preparation but the physical preparation. They all wanted to be out there. They all tried. Everybody didn't play. We had to make some guys inactive but you know everybody really worked hard to get back out there. Some of them made it and some of them didn't but they worked as hard as they could to be out there for us. You can't ask any more than that.

Q: How can you find Jacoby's strengths each week and what he can do in the offense that is different than what the other quarterbacks can do?

BB: Yeah, well every player has different strengths than another player. That's just I think part of coaching. Try to put players into positon where they can do things that they do well, and the things that players don't do well then they worked on to improve. Sometimes those become good enough to do. Sometimes you stay away from them and do something else. I think Jacoby and Jimmy this year have both shown that they can do a lot of things well. There are certainly a lot of things they can improve on, but you know, they've had plenty of opportunities in a lot of different situations. They've made a lot of good plays; not perfect. And again, there are a lot of things that they can still work on and get better and they will because those guys work hard. Jacoby worked so hard to improve on some of the things from the Miami game, so I give them a lot of credit for that.

Q: Can you ever recall entering a game with one quarterback in all of your years coaching?

BB: Not right off the top of my head.

Q: Did anything stand out to you about the energy in the stadium and the enthusiasm of the fans?

BB: Yeah, it was good.

Q: How did only having one quarterback affect the play calling? Did it place an emphasis on having Jacoby slide or run out of bounds when necessary?

BB: Like on the touchdown run?

Q: Can you talk a bit about the performance of the special teams unit and in particular Brandon Bolden's role in causing some turnovers in that phase of the game?

BB: Yeah, you can go right down the line - [Nate] Ebner, Bolden, Jonathan Jones, [Jonathan] Freeny, [Matthew] Slater, Brandon King, [Duron] Harmon, Justin Coleman. You can just keep rattling them off; Clay Harbor. We had a lot of guys play good; a lot of guys play good in that phase of the game. And that's what it takes. One guy can't cover kicks, one guy can't protect for the punter. You've got to have an entire team to do that. It's got to be coordinated. Everybody has to play off of each other and work with their lanes and leverage and we've got to block all of the guys that rush the punt, not just one guy, so you've got to give credit to the entire unit. Again, great leadership from Matt, Nate, Brandon Bolden, certainly Joe and Bubba as the coaches. It was a tremendous performance by the kicking game - on the kicking game.

Q: Was it stressed tonight for Jacoby to play smart seeing as you didn't have another quarterback on the roster?

BB: Look, we coach the way that we coach. We have coaching points on everything and players usually try to follow the instruction that we give them. These guys are really good at that. They have the parameters. They know what they've been instructed to do and in the end they do what's best for the team. They have to make those decisions; when to throw it, when to run it, when to go out of bounds, when to stay inbounds, when to cut block, when to stay up. They have parameters, they have guidelines, and then they have to make decisions to help the team win and that's what we count on them to do. That's why we win, because players make good decisions, players play well.

Q: What does it say about how good your team is when you're able to win with your third-string quarterback?