History? What history?
“Right now, we don’t really think too much about the record, we just think about this week,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said yesterday. “We just want to go 1-0 this week, that is all.”
Playoffs? Playoffs?
“We can talk about the playoffs when we get to the playoffs,” Belichick said. “Right now, we are playing the Giants. I am sure that Tom [Coughlin] will have his team ready to play and I am going to try to have mine ready to go.”
Belichick and his 15-0 Patriots prefer to view Saturday night’s game at Giants Stadium as their 16th one-game season. He was asked if he has told his players to ignore 16-0.
“I have just talked about the Giants,” Belichick said.
Will he rest banged-up players?
“It is the same as every week, players [who] aren’t cleared to play by the medical staff aren’t going to play. That is the way it always is,” Belichick said.
After 12 years with the Giants, Belichick will always hold fond memories of Giants Stadium – except for Spygate on Opening Day against the Jets, of course.
“Always walking into that stadium, I kind of feel [like] turning right [toward the Giants locker room] instead of left at that tunnel. I mean, I have gotten used to it over the years, but that locker room over there on the Giants’ side is one that I spent a lot of time in and coached a lot of games with that team,” Belichick said. “It is definitely appealing there, but at the same time everybody has moved on, I have a job to do, so does everybody else, and when it comes game time, you have to concentrate on doing your job and getting it done. That is what we get paid for, but yeah, it is a lot different walking into Giants Stadium than it is pretty much any other stadium in the league for me.”
Linebacker Tedy Bruschi says Belichick has coached this team harder than any other.
“It is probably the best year that I have seen coach Belichick have as a coach . . . because of all of the distractions that he has had,” Bruschi said. “And with every distraction that he has had, he has come through it stronger. He has coached us harder, and I think that is him saying, ‘I can only worry about one thing, and that is how I prepare this team.’ He is not worrying about outside factors, and he has done a great job of that this year, and he has continued to take that maybe as motivation to just continue to be the best coach that he possibly can be.”