Press Conference:
Brady, Belichick step up to the rostrum
interviewed by Michael E Lawrence
24/10/2009
 
One of the main events of this afternoon’s media jolly was, of course, hearing Tom Brady and Bill Belichick speak about playing in London and the Patriots’ as a whole.
 
Brady – the handsome lug – was relaxed and cheerful, shooting winning smiles as he discussed not just Sunday’s game but sightseeing (the Patriots head of security is British born and gave the players a guided tour on the bus as they drove in from Heathrow) and cricket (Tom knew he was onto a winner when he name-checked the England cricket team and it’s summer Ashes triumph).
 
A few tidbits from Brady’s conference for you:
 

 
On Wembley: “It’s a cool stadium, very historic.”
 
On his injury: “It’s been over a year now and I’ve been fortunate, there’s been no setbacks. My knee feels great.”
 
On whether last week’s 59-0 blowout of Tennessee makes a difference this week: “Every week is different and whatever we’ve done the week before we try and learn from and use it to make ourselves better. This will be a different gameplan, a different opponent and a different venue. Hopefully we go out and play really well.”
 
On what drives him: “I don’t have enough time in this press conference to cover all that! I grew up watching football and those great 49ers teams of the 80s and all I can say is that all this time later I ended up playing for what I consider to be the best organisation in the NFL. I always operate with the same competitiveness and the same leadership.”
 
On the Diner’s question as to whether he felt a kinship with now-departed quarterback Matt Cassel: “Absolutely, Matt and I are like brothers and I follow his progress all the time.”
 
Meanwhile, coach Bill Belichick was more at ease than we could have expected. He opened up by stating that “this is quite an experience for us. I’ve been in the NFL 35 years and it’s the first time we’ve ever been in a facility (the Oval) like this. It’d be nice if we could hang around longer – London is a great city and it’s great that it’s getting live football.”
 

 
The Diner quoted LB Junior Seau (who we’d just been talking with) to him, and asked him what it was that made him, as Seau put it, so ‘consistent’ as a decision maker and a coach. Belichick told us:
 
“I really just concentrate on making decisions for this football team and that means excluding personal decisions. It’s about doing the best thing for the team, and performance has to be measured week to week, year to year. It’s not always easy to make certain choices, not always popular, but it’s what we do to try and stay competitive.”
 
Like Brady, Belicichick didn’t think last week’s 59-0 victory meant much moving forward:
 
“Last week everything went well, but I’d be very lucky to see another game like that again at any point in my career.”
 
But it was when Belichick was told that the Patriots were one of – if not the – most popular teams in the league that a real smile broke out (and with it clicked a dozen camera shutters):
 
“You know I didn’t know that – but I’m very happy to hear it!”