Saints Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams press conference

“He’s a very talented quarterback. I’ve admired him for a long time. I took some criticism several years ago when someone asked me if I had one person I could choose to start a team with of anyone in the league and I chose Tom Brady. I chose him over Peyton Manning and people gave me a lot of static, but it would be a pretty good deal for those guys to be on your team. I think he’s going to go down as one of the best that has ever played the position. When you go against him, you have to be ready for extremely accurate throws. He’ll put the ball in windows where you have very good, sound coverage and he still makes and earned throw. Fortunately for us, we’re here on defense with two quarterbacks – Mark Brunell is extremely accurate and Drew Brees is one of the most accurate guys in the league – so our competition periods in practice have helped us through those accuracy points. That does help us a lot and I know that Drew and Mark have talked about some of the most challenging coverages they’ve seen throughout this season have come against us in practice. It has helped us both out. But Tom is a very accurate quarterback. He’s a very cerebral quarterback. He understands what he’s going to do before the snap. We’re going to have to play that chess game with him as much as we can and play all out. It’s going to be a fun game.”

 

“It’s fantastic. That’s why we coach the game. Some of my most fun games are that way. And here, it’s every day in practice. Every day in practice is that way with Drew Brees and Mark Brunell. Our guys are accustomed to that. It won’t be foreign for them because of that. And Jonathan Vilma and Darren Sharper are very good about that stuff to. In a short amount of time, I was able to get them both hooked up and ready to go to help play that chess game. They’ll do a lot of things over the course of a game that coaches don’t have control of either, that we’ve taught them how to manage some of the decisions that they’re going to make, how to manage some of the looks that they’re going to give, and we’ve had a really good week in that respect.”

 

“It’s a team game and it is what it is. You’ll never hear me talk about guys who aren’t playing or guys who are playing. That is who we’re playing with. We have to coach with them. We have to play with them. I like our guys. We have a good mix of guys around here with a lot of varying skill levels, and that’s challenging for me and challenging for our staff to try to help get them in the right positions. Again, here’s another compliment to this organization that I’m young to, with Ryan Pace getting another guy in here with Mike McKenzie. I’ve always liked Mike McKenzie; I’m so happy he’s healthy and ready to go. I was disappointed I didn’t get a chance to coach him early on because he wasn’t able to pass a physical earlier this year. We have a good mix of guys; they all fit into the room; there’s a good culture and it’s challenging for us as a staff to make sure that we’re doing the right things with whomever plays.”

 

“No. We’re going to play against Brady a certain way and we’re going to do all the things that we normally do against him. We have to try to help the people that are in there and put them the right position. But it won’t change at all.”

 

“It’s good. He was pretty close last week. He’s a young player that has a really unique skill set. He can rush the passer as a tackle and some of the tackles struggle doing that. We have a good, athletic group of young tackles around here. Right now, as I watch him practice, he’s fresh. He has his legs back underneath him and he has to go the soreness of getting back into the flow of practice and playing at game speed, but it will be fun to see him get out there. If he progresses on – and I can’t predict where any of those guys are right now until we get through the whole practice week – but he’s putting together practices without really any setbacks so far.”

 

“Some. We do have a conversation going on about some of the tells and the looks. Because we do so many things, it has helped our offense because our offense is used to seeing us play 3-4, us playing 4-3, us playing all those multiple packages. It’s not a sudden shock to our guys to see all that movement because they’re seeing it in practice too. That’s not to say that it’s easy; when you’re playing against any of those kinds of teams, it does pose a problem for the quarterback and for the protection unit, but because we already do it, I think it helps us a little bit in practice.”

 

“Physically, they’re both improving. They just needed to get in and learn the language. Football is football, whether it’s Pop Warner, high school, whatever it is – but we have to speak the same language. We have to talk the same talk as far as how we handle our call structures and where all the help is and when they’re by themselves. We’ve gone through that. There have been a lot of extra early in the morning meetings and late at night meetings with those guys, but they’re real pros. I like coaching those kind of guys because they have 10, 12 or however many years of experience piled up. They don’t ask the stupid, rookie questions and I like that part of it. I might be a little more stressed right now if we had to go in there with rookies in those spots, but we’re going in with guys that have skins on the wall, that have credibility in the league and we just have to go out and play.”

 

“I’ve known Bill (Belichick) for so long – even when he was at Cleveland in the old AFC Central. We’ve had some just straight up, face-to-face battles. When his personnel wasn’t real good back then, he coached the most out of those guys that he could. I would say this – it has nothing to do with Patriots, it has more to do with Bill because Bill is going to have them prepared. A lot of what we try to do here is to take the skill set and put those guys in the best positions; don’t try to ram a system down their throat, and that’s what Bill has always been able to do. He’s been able to take a certain set of defensive guys and fit it to their skill level and do that with offensive guys and fit it to their skill level. He’s been doing it long enough and he’s seen so many players come and go, so many fads come and go in the league that he’s well-versed in all of them. You have to be very well-prepared because he’s going to know your weaknesses inside and out and it just comes down to, ‘Are guys good enough?’ It’s going to be a fun game in that respect. There are three or four players on that team that I’ve coached before so I know them inside and out and we’ve had feedback back and forth throughout the season – it’s funny how we haven’t talked this week; none of those guys want to talk to me and I don’t want to talk to them right now. I thought he had a great acquisition when he hired Floyd Reese. Floyd and I go way back and now he’s in their front office. There’s another person right there where I shake my head and say, ‘Bill gets another advantage. He gets another strong personnel guy to help him find the players that he’s using.’”

 

“Not only in a game like this, but overall you have to have a guy who as a coach you can turn the defense over to. We have several guys like that – don’t discount Fujita; don’t discount Shanle, Sharper or any of those guys. He probably has the most visibility put on him as the middle linebacker in what we do. London Fletcher is one of the best ones I’ve ever had at being able to take control of the situation and Jonathan in a very quick time has done that here. But in leadership as a whole, we have a real smart group of guys that really allow me as a coach to do a lot more because they are smart. I’d have to tone it down if they weren’t able to handle as much as we do, but they’ve just said, ‘Coach, give me more,’ and they’ve been able to handle it.”