TAMPA – Buccaneers defensive tackle Gerald McCoy had a classic post-game press conference where he tried to illustrate why Tampa had so much trouble with the Patriots’ offense.

Basically, the Patriots’ tempo was so good, the Bucs couldn’t get lined up.

Listen to the audio. Some of his quotes are posted below:

They did not treat this like a preseason game. That’s why they are who they are. And then you come out, (Tom) Brady played until halftime? Yeah. When they came out in two minute I said, ‘Hey! 12 is still out there.’ They came out and they were like, ‘This is not a preseason game for us,’ at least not in the first half.

But we’re going to use that as a learning tool. We’re going to get back to the drawing board. This is not a setback. This is not discouraging. This is actually positive. We needed this. Last week’s game was a false sense of security. ‘We’re good. We beat Kansas City. We shut them out.’ No we’re not. We had a seasoned team who has won Super Bowls with this quarterback, three of them. Super Bowl-caliber team, year in and year out. They had the ranked, by us (players), the No. 1 player in the league at the most important position. We needed that. Because have another guy up in Indianapolis that’s going to come here on a Monday. We’re going to need that. So we needed that pace, that tempo. Going to learn from it. All the things we did, truthfully speaking, can be fixed at practice.

A lot of times we’d get the call but we couldn’t get lined up. They were moving the ball so fast. Now we have to learn to recognize formations to attack quicker. Tempo. That’s why I love our head coach so much. He made things more difficult for us tonight on purpose. He did. That’s how you learn.

(Linebacker) Mason Foster? He needed to see Tom Brady. He didn’t see to see Calabaloo from last week, whatever the dude’s name was. I’m sorry if you can hear this. I don’t know who you were, I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal. (Tyler Palko?) Falko, yeah, the replacement. He needed Tom Brady. That’s what he needed. Now he knows that the preseason is a glorified scrimmage. Now he knows when those live bullets start flying when Detroit comes here, now he knows what to expect. And I’m glad he got to experience that. (DE Adrian) Clayborn came to me and was like, ‘Oh my god, it was so fast!’ I said, ‘I know! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!’ It was a reality check, we needed that.

Man, I’m telling you man, they came out, they’d turn around huddle, snap, oh, ‘There’s the Mike, Go!’ I was like, ‘Dang! Um, Mr. Brady, can we line up?’ He didn’t care. He was like, ‘You’re not going to line up.’ When we turned around one time I checked back around and my hand was going to the grass and they were like, ‘Hut!’ And I said, ‘Noooooooooooo!’