Super Bowl XLVI – Tuesday, January 31, 2012(on preparing for the Giants defense this week) “The first thing it takes is smart players, instinctive players. But we’re a game plan offensive, so we put in a new game plan each week based on what we’re seeing. These guys have not only bought into their individual roles, but are instinctive and smart enough to change it up every week, change their position. ‘I’m an ‘F’ one week, I’m an ‘X’ the next week, things like that. That’s really been the key, it’s really been about the players.”
(on finding ways to keep the players fresh mentally through the year) “We’re going into our 112th practice tomorrow, so you’ve got to try to relieve the monotony at some time. We try to do it every week. Those guys are coming in and studying their game plan every week and we try to keep it fresh for them.”
(on making in-game adjustments) “(Head Coach) Bill (Belichick) does a great job of teaching the coaches and the players how important in-game adjustments are. I believe we’ve done a pretty good job of that as a staff this year. We’ve got a really strong offensive staff with (Offensive Line Coach) Dante (Scarnecchia) and (Running Backs Coach) Ivan (Fears), and (Tight Ends coach) Brian Ferentz (Wide Receivers Coach) Chad O’Shea. We come together between series and make sure that what our game plan is, is it staying the same way or do we have to adjust to what they’re doing? So it takes a lot of smart coaches, but more importantly, the players have to be able to adjust, and like I said before, a lot of smart and instinctive players.”
(on not being able to wait until halftime to make a change) “You can’t wait until halftime. You have to be able to decipher what they’re doing after the second or third series and then disseminate that information to the players and understand how you want them to play the game, so that’s true. Halftime is short, so you have to do it before halftime.”
(on the first thing that comes to mind about Tom Brady) “Great teammate. Very, very smart. He has a great memory. Obviously, he’s one of the best mechanical quarterbacks that has ever played the game. Very prepared every week. You have to prepare for him 10 times as a coach just to keep up with him. He’s had an exceptional year and an exceptional career.”
(on the details Brady remembers) “I tell a great story. Last year, when we were getting ready to play Buffalo, he had remembered a play he ran against Buffalo in 2002. It was a double move by a receiver that they hit and he felt like that was a similar play that we could use in that game. Sure enough, right hash, home game, going toward the lighthouse. Look it up, 2002, and there was the play. He has a great memory and he’s a very prepared guy and a great teammate.”
(on his first dead period in recruiting at Penn State) “Dead period, yeah. Don’t quote me on the rules, but I know it’s 48 hours. But again, this is about the Patriots this week. I’m thrilled to be the head coach at Penn State, but I’m really focused on the Patriots and trying to do the best we can to put together a great game plan on Sunday.”
(on how difficult it is to execute both jobs at the same time) “I’ve been asked that question a million times, and it’s really about the people at both ends. Bill (Belichick) has really helped here as far as the offensive staff and some administrative people that have helped me in New England when I haven’t been here, and then I think I’ve put together one of the best staffs in the country at Penn State, and they’ve hit the ground running up there.”
(on how he was able to put together his Penn State staff while working at New England) “That wasn’t really difficult. I worked with a lot of those guys. I was fortunate enough to keep a couple of the guys that were already on the staff there. Other than that, everybody at Penn State that is on my staff, other than John Butler, who I knew personally, I had worked with. So I had those guys in mind whenever something like that would come up.”
(on if he needs to put together two practice plans depending on tight end Rob Gronkowski’s availability) “We’ve gone through the practice week this week, and we’re a game plan offense, so we’re putting together a very strong game plan and we feel good about it to this point. We’ve got a few more days to go on it, so we’ll be ready to go on Sunday.”
(on how he will hear about the new signings at Penn State) “Tomorrow night, I’ll get a fax of our signees. I already have a pretty good idea of who they’re going to be. Again, it’s really more about the Patriots and making sure we’re ready for today’s practice, tomorrow’s meetings and Sunday’s game. So it’s day-to-day.”
(on working with Josh McDaniels) “Josh McDaniels, not only is he a great coach, but he’s a great friend. We have a very, very good working relationship. We’re lucky, Bill’s lucky, the Patriots are lucky to have him back and I’m lucky to have him for these last three weeks. He’s done a great job of just giving us some thoughts on what he sees, especially defensively, but also with our own team.”
(on why he went back to the college game) “In coaching, when opportunities arise, you never really know when that’s going to happen. So when the Penn State job was offered to me, or we first started talking about the job, I just realized right away what a special place that was. I felt like I could go in there and have an effect with our staff there and have an effect on some 17-year-old guys and watch them grow into 22-year-old men and graduate with a great degree. So at the end of the day, my wife and I and our family, we decided it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.”
(on if he envisioned himself as an offensive coordinator in the Super Bowl when he took a job with New England) “One of the things I wanted to do in ’07 was, if I wanted to be the coach I wanted to be, I had to work for the best. Obviously, the best is Bill as far as what he does and how he prepares a team, how he puts a team together. I didn’t feel like it was a step back. I felt like it was something where I could go in there and learn and become as good of a coach as I could possibly be. I felt great about it, so that’s why my wife and I decided to do it.
(on what it was like to be at Penn State last week) “Last week was about Coach (Joe) Paterno. It was about his memory and what he meant to Penn State and to college football. So it was an emotional time for me, being in the coaching profession. There’s a guy that has been the head football coach there for 46 years. It was a very emotional time for that team because he recruited those guys and he was their head coach. Again, I was only up there for a couple days, but you could see what a special man he was and what he meant to Penn State.”
(on what he has learned from Bill Belichick as a head coach) “Oh, I don’t have all day. I think the one thing that he does here is he shows you the parameters for what he wants. ‘This is how I want the football team to look. This is the theme or the themes of this football team.’ Then he lets you go coach. He lets you be creative, whether you’re a position coach, a quality control guy or a coordinator. He’s a very, very bright guy who has pushed me and demanded a lot of me, and I really thank him for that, because whether it’s Xs and Os or how to put together a team or how to prepare a team or how to deal with a player, I can’t count all the ways I’ve learned from him, but there’s a few right there.”
(on if he will take any offensive systems from New England to Penn State) “Pro football is a lot different than college football, but there are things I won’t tell you here, but you’ll see that we’ll definitely take to Penn State and implement there. Then we’re going to try to put our own stamp on certain things there.
(on how important it is to protect the Giants’ defensive front four) “Obviously, they have a really good front four, but (Giants Defensive Coordinator) Perry Fewell has really done a good job of getting them to play good team defense. The front four, the linebackers and the secondary really work well together. A lot of those guys have played a lot of football together, so it’ll be our toughest game of the year against the best opponent we’ve played all year.
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