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Bill Belichick: “I would like to think our team knows that my decisions are based on what I think is best for our football team to give us the best chance to win.”

During Sunday night’s improbable 35-34 victory by the Indianapolis Colts over the New England Patriots, future Hall of Fame coach Bill Belichick gambled in a way that we don’t often see in the uber-conservative National Football League. Facing a 4th and 3 from inside their own 30, Belichick opted not to punt the ball away and force Manning and the Colts offense to travel 70-80 yards for the game winning score. Instead, Belichick rolled the dice and kept his offense on the field, thinking his squad could pick up the first down and end the game right there. Risky? Absolutely. But considering how efficient Manning had been in the 2nd half while engineering drive after drive to get Indy back in the game, it’s not impossible to understand Belichick’s thought process.

Fans and the media will debate the decision for quite some time, but what’s done is done. At 6-3, the Patriots have time for nothing but preparing for Sunday’s game against the rival New York Jets. Belichick joined WEEI for his usual Monday afternoon show to talk about the decision to go for it rather than punt, why he thought it was the right decision, how he doesn’t think his defense will be mentally affected by not putting faith in them to close out the game, and how he and the team need to improvemoving forward so that they’re not even faced with a similarly difficult choice.

On the decision to go for it on 4th and 2:

“Basically it came down to if we had made that play we would have been able to run out all or most of the clock. We didn’t need very much, we felt good about the play. I’ve been on the other side of that one, that’s basically where we were in the AFC championship game. Done it both ways. We tried to win the game on that play, it didn’t work out.”

On whether or not having zero timeouts left factored in to his decision:

“It didn’t really have anything to do with it. At that point we were ahead in the game. We weren’t really thinking about saving our timeouts. We were trying to get a first down and basically run out the clock. We were a lot more concerned with our execution, and making sure that we had things as right as we could have them at that point in time. When you have a lead with two minutes to go, you’re not really thinking about, ‘Let’s keep all of our timeouts.’ That wasn’t a big priority.”

On if he considered letting them score after the failed 4th down conversion so that his offense would have one more opportunity:

“No, not really, I think you make them earn the winning touchdown. We were up there a few years ago and held them on the 1-yard line at the end of the game. So, no, I think you make them earn that.”

On if he punts in that situation against a team with a lesser quarterback than Peyton Manning:

“I don’t know, you get one chance on those in the game, and that was the game yesterday, and that’s what we did. If it was a different situation against a different team, a different score, I don’t know.”

On if the success his offense had enjoyed for much of the game (450+ yards) factored in to the decision:

“Well, I would say yeah. The general fact that overall we were having a good offensive day. Our execution was pretty good. We moved the ball pretty consistently against that defense. We picked up a lot of third downs. We’d thrown it well. We’d protected well. Sure, that entered into the confidence. The whole situation, fourth and 2 is a lot different than 4th and 7. We felt like we could complete a pass for two yards there and pretty much end the game.”

On what he thinks the difference was between the 1st half and the 2nd – when Manning and the Colts really got things going after looking out of sorts to start:

“I don’t think we changed a lot. We tried to mix things up on him so he couldn’t get into knowing exactly what we were going to do. For the most part, it comes down, like it usually does, to execution. Manning is a great quarterback. And Reggie Wayne is a tremendous receiver. Several of the plays he made last night were just exceptional. I don’t know how many other receivers in the league would have made those plays a) to get open, b) to make the catch, and c) for the ball to be thrown so accurately, with a perfect pass. I thought Jonathan Wilhite really did a great job on Reggie. A couple of those plays, it’s hard to say you should have done this differently. A couple throws, you’ve just got to say it’s a great throw,a great route and a great catch. Sometimes in the National Football League, you just have those plays. They’re hard to stop. I don’t think there’s too much you can say to the defenders on that. They play the leverage they should be playing. They havepretty good position on the receiver. The ball gets there in a five- or six-inch space that’s the only place it could be and that’s where it is – it’s tough. We had other plays and other opportunities that we could have coached or played better in. That would have definitely helped us in all three phases of the game.”

On if he thinks there’s any chance his defense will be mentally effected by the decision:

“I would like to think our team knows that my decisions are based on what I think is best for our football team to give us the best chance to win. That goes for everybody – offense, defense, special teams. We had the ball in the hands of our best player in Brady with good options on the field: Faulk, Welker, Moss. We went to one of them. I don’t feel bad about that. I just wish we would have been able to convert.”

And finally, on if he feels in retrospect that it was the right decision:

“Yeah, absolutely.”

Listen here to Belichick with the Big Show on WEEI in Boston

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