Super Bowl XLVI – Thursday, February 2, 2012(on the week of preparations and media obligations) “For me, it’s been a very fun week. After not having been here for four years, I’m really enjoying the experience, and some of the fun aspects of the week. It’s much more tolerable when you become a veteran player. I had a great time at media day, that was fun. Sunday night was cool when we got in, I got to see Rodney (Harrison) over the stadium. I’ve spent a lot of time together with my teammates. Unlike the other playoff games where you’re not really sure how it’s going to go the following week, now we know how it’s going to go. We’re not going to see each other after Monday. You just enjoy the experience with those guys, and hopefully we have a lot of reasons to celebrate on Sunday night.”
(on whether the Super Bowl loss to the Giants still eats at him) “Every loss hurts. When we lost to the Colts in the AFC Championship Game, that hurt pretty bad. Last year losing to the Jets, you see other teams advance and you’re staying at home, they all suck. You have to move on, and use those as opportunities to learn. I think this team has done that. We’re a very mentally tough team. That’s probably one of the strengths of this team.”
(on the qualities that make Bill Belichick such a successful head coach) “He’s extremely prepared. Nobody works harder than he does. I don’t think there’s ever been a time that I’ve shown up at the stadium and he’s not there. He sees everything. He evaluates everything. He watches every bit of film that he can get. Over the course of the season, our teams have always seemed to improve. I think that’s through our preparation. He prepares us day in and day out. Every day that we walk in he has a game plan for us. I think that he finds players who are able to tolerate that coaching. He always says that it’s not an easy program to play for and that’s the truth. If you do, you stay committed and you stay selfless and committed to the team and it pays off. I think all of these guys enjoy this experience a lot more than staying at home right now.”
(on whether he’s watched any tape from their Super Bowl loss against the Giants in preparation for this game) “Yeah, I’ve seen plenty of clips from the game. It’s a different scheme, it’s a different defense. Some of the players and the matchups are the same, but I can see those from when we played in Week Nine. There’s not a lot of things that you can take from that game in 2007.”
(on common denominators in previous Giants games and the high number of pressures and turnovers) “I was holding the ball too long. They have some blitz schemes that are challenging to handle. As a quarterback, you can’t sit back there and think that you’re going to have all day to throw the ball. You have to be able to find guys quickly and get the ball to them. You have to throw the ball with accuracy. You throw a quick pass and it’s half a foot behind the receiver, it slows him up and he’s tackled for a five-yard gain. Whereas if you throw it one foot in front of his numbers, he catches it and he gains 12. That’s how you need to play this game. The more accurately you can throw the ball on the shorter passes, you know you have to throw the ball quickly against these guys. You have to be able to throw the ball down the field and get it in the hands of Wes (Welker) and Deion (Branch) and Aaron (Hernandez) and Gronk (Rob Gronkowski), the running backs, we’ve been stressing that a lot the last couple of weeks.”
(on whether he’s surprised by the level of talk coming from some of the Giants players) “No, they’re a confident team. They’ve always been a confident team. They should be confident. They’re a damn good football team that has won some pretty tough games down the stretch. We’re pretty confident, too. I think that’s why we’re going to show up on Sunday night and give it our best.”
(on Giants QB Eli Manning) “He’s a great quarterback. He’s obviously a great leader. You hear the comments coming from their players, and obviously they respect him. He loves the game and he’s played it at a high level for a long time. He’s survived in that environment in New York, it’s a tough place to play. He answers the critics. He never makes excuses. He goes out there and he plays very well. He has his team back here for the second time in five years.”
(on his comfort level with the game plan having an extra week to prepare) “I always feel as the week goes, I feel more comfortable because I have a better understanding of our plan and what we’re trying to do when things are really settled – third-down, red area, two-minute, how we’re going to start the game – I feel like I can really just hone in on those plays. Earlier in the week it’s a little tougher, you’re thinking about the red area and third-down but you haven’t put those plays in, so you’re not quite sure what you’re going to do. I’ve been a pain in Billy’s (O’Brien’s) you-know-what trying to get all of the stuff in that we want to use. On a normal week, we wouldn’t have even put in third down, the red area, both of those are already installed. Everything has already pretty much been installed. We’re ahead of where we’d be on a normal week. We’ve had two weeks to prepare. You can always get more film work in. You can always get more understanding of what they’re doing.”
(on whether he’ll offer any special words of encouragement to his lesser-publicized teammates on Saturday night) “If you look at the history of this game, there are a lot of players who made plays who no one was really talking about. That’s how this game goes. You never know who is going to be the difference. It could be a kick returner, it could be a punt returner. It could be a receiver down the depth chart, it could be a running back down the depth chart who gets an opportunity and they have a career day. If you’re active for the game, you’re going to have an important role in the game and hopefully they can go out and have a career day. I have confidence in all of these guys. We all need to go out there and do our job.”
(on whether he has spent any additional time watching film with TE Rob Gronkowski given his limited practice availability) “Yeah, he’s really been keeping up mentally with what he needs to do. He’s been a part of every meeting and walk-through. He’s preparing himself as if he’s going to play even though he hasn’t been able to practice. We’ll see how it goes. No one can really predict the future. Hopefully he continues to feel better. We’re always communicating back and forth about his routes and the schemes that we have that are a little bit different for this game. He’s a fast learner. He’s played every game, he’s practiced every single day this year. He has a pretty good understanding of what we’re doing. It’s not like he has to figure out how to play football again. Probably the break is good for him in a sense that he hasn’t been beat all week in practice. Hopefully he can go out there and play.”
(on what ways WR Wes Welker makes him a better quarterback) “Wes Welker would make any quarterback better with his ability to get open and catch the ball. He’s a very smart player who has a great feel for the game, who has a great feel for how to get open in man-to-man (coverage), where to find the spots in zone, great body language. He’s a very decisive player. Route-running ability, when you watch him run routes, he makes very swift decisions. That gives me a lot of confidence. He knows what he sees and I can trust him to make the throw.”
(on the warm reception the Patriots have received from Colts fans in Indianapolis since the two teams aren’t playing) “It’s actually been a very fun week here. It’s a bit surreal to be playing in Indy’s home stadium and to be practicing at their facility. I think all of us have enjoyed the experience. It’s been a fun place to be this week. We’re certainly very appreciative of all the fans here. There have been a lot of Colts jerseys out there. We’ve had a great welcome here.”
(on his comments from Wednesday regarding hotel accommodations in Buffalo and the Patriots loss at Buffalo) “I apologize for saying that. Buffalo was tough on us this year in Buffalo. I should have picked a non-NFL city for that (comment). Any time you throw four picks, it’s going to be tough. I did that once before in a loss up there. Any time you throw four picks, you’re going to feel pretty miserable the next week. You’re never going to win a game if you throw four picks. They (Buffalo) had a great team and they got off to a great start this year. Coach Gailey has done a great job with that team getting those guys prepared. Even the game we won, we were down 21-0. They gave us everything we could handle both times we played them.”
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