Projo Pats Blog

Patriots coach Bill Belichick just had a conference call with the media today.

Among the topics he talked about were getting ready for their next preseason game against Tampa Bay, the impressive performance of place-kicker Stephen Gostkowski, the NFL new coin toss rule, the Brett Farve trade, and the hard running of newly acquired running back Lamont Jordan.

Here are a few highlights.

Talking about Gostkowski, who was 3-for-3 on field goals (39, 44, and 40), Belichick said: "I thought he kicked well. There wasn't much more that he could do really. He made the field goals, he had two touchbacks. He did a pretty good job. There were a couple of little things that he could have done a little bit better but I thought he did a real nice job."

Talking about winning the coin toss and deferring to the second half, Belichick said that the Patriots will do that every time they win the toss.

"I think it will be a regular occurrence and it will probably be what most teams [do]," Belichick said. "The college coaches that I've talked to have pretty much all told me that everybody always defers when they win the toss in college, 100 percent of the time. My guess would be that it will approach that in the NFL as well, in time. Whether it does right off the bat, or not, I don't know. It would take some type of extreme conditions or an unusual experience to not do that if you win the toss. That's our approach going into it. We'll defer every time."

Speaking about the Farve trade, Belichick said: "He's a great player, one of the best players in the last couple of decades. He's got just about every record you could have at the position he plays. His play just speaks for itself. It's always a big challenge playing the Jets, even more so now. They have a lot of talent and I'm sure we'll have our hands full every time we face them. But right now, that's not at the forefront of our concerns. We have a lot of other things before we would come to that and that's what we'll focus on. But he's a great player. There is no question about that."

Speaking about Jordan, who rushed a game-high 19 times for a game-high 76 yards and a touchdown, Belichick said: "Lamont did some really good things,,,He shed some tackles, made some yards on the ground and made a few plays. It was good to see him out there running the ball and he'll certainly get some more opportunities."

 Tags  Bill Belichick Lamont Jordan New England Patriots Stephen Gostkowski

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