Five quotes from Patriots players and coaches that stood out in post-game reaction following the team’s 30-27 win over the New Orleans Saints:
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick on the win:
Sorry if you had to rewrite some of those stories there at the end. What a football game. I feel like that took about five years off my life. [I'm] really proud of our team. Obviously that's a good football team, number one. The Saints are a real good football team. It was a great 60-minute battle. They made a lot of plays, we made some plays and in the end, we made a big one, similar to the one they made to put them ahead. You know, I just felt like our team really battled, we played situational football there at the end: holding them to a field goal, getting the ball back, getting down there at the end, being able to get the ball down the field and having a couple chances there at the end to throw one in the end zone. We only needed one but we probably had time for two plays on that. Once again, it's all about the players; they stepped up and made the plays – [Tom] Brady, [Julian] Edelman, KT [Kenbrell Thompkins ], obviously, Austin Collie stepped in there with a big catch, Hooman [Michael Hoomanawanui ] and those guys all – there are so many guys that made big plays for us today, you just can't rattle them all off. It was a good team win. I thought we really prepared hard for this game. Obviously after we didn't have a good outing last week in Cincinnati, I thought the players prepared hard, they practiced hard and it's satisfying to go out there and beat a good team like New Orleans today. You'll be hearing from them plenty; they're pretty good.
Defensive back Devin McCourty on containing Saints tight end Jimmy Graham, who was held without a catch:
We just went out there and played. All week, we knew. All we kept hearing was, ‘Jimmy Graham’, and we knew we’d just have to come in and play. We’d have to play him tough, and you don’t come in and say, We just want to try to contain him.’ We can’t know the game plan, we’ve got to try to shut him down. That’s the only way we’ll have a chance to win this game, because if he has the types of games he’s been having, we’ll have no shot. It was a total team effort; Aqib [Talib] did a great job early, we had a bunch of different guys – Kyle [Arrington] had a big interception and a big play on the goal line against him, so guys stepped up and played tonight.
Tom Brady on the game winning touchdown to Kenbrell Thompkins:
Yeah, well, we had everybody going to the end zone and he kind of snuck into the corner and I put it up there for him and he came down and made a great catch. There were a lot of great catches there at the ends. Julian [Edelman] with the seam ball to start the drive and then Austin [Collie] had a fourth-down catch. AD [Aaron Dobson ] came back and caught an in-cut that was a big play. So that was great situational football and great win against a really good team. We’re 5-1 and we’re just grinding. Hopefully we can use this as a little bit of momentum going into next week.
Stevan Ridley on getting back into the endzone:
It’s been a long time since I had been in the (end) zone, so I was just happy to be there. I really was. To come out here and find the endzone not once but twice, I’m blessed and thankful and I don’t take it for granted. It’s another day being out here on a Sunday getting to do what I love and it’s special. This team, the offensive line, the young receivers, (Tom) Brady, we played an exceptional game today.
Julian Edelman on what was the key to the game winning drive:
Just getting it started, you know. We started it off, played with urgency – give the ball to the referee so we don’t kill out the time, just play out the situation, so we were able to do that. We put ourselves in the hole, but we were able to dig ourselves out against a good team.