–Patriots head coach Bill Belichick on facing Aaron Rodgers (the two played golf together at Pebble Beach): “Well, he killed us the last time we played him. I mean, he’s a great player. He does everything well. He reads coverages well, very accurate throwing the ball. He’s got a great touch down the field, short, intermediate. They get a lot of catch-and-run plays. A lot of that is because of his great accuracy. He puts the ball right on the receiver and doesn’t have to break stride and can just keep running with it. Very mobile in the pocket, extends plays, really good vision down the field, uses the cadence well, is a good situational player. I mean, he’s one of the great quarterbacks in the National Football League; no question about it. He does everything good. He can even play golf. He’s a good golfer, too.”
–Belichick on Clay Matthews: “Clay’s been one of their impact players defensively for quite a while. They put him in different spots, especially on their third-down packages. He’s usually on the line of scrimmage. He’s played off the ball before but he doesn’t play off the ball a lot. They put him inside. Sometimes he’s in coverage. Sometimes he rushes, but he’s got good quickness. He’s got very good speed and a high motor. He comes hard every time. He’s good on games. He’s got very good instincts. He’s a hard guy to fool with screens and misdirection plays, things like that. He reads those well. He’s a good tackler. He’s long. He’s got good playing strength. Yeah, he does a lot of things well. They have a very good and disruptive front and he’s one of the key guys to it. But they have good depth at the end position and their inside guys – (Mike) Daniels, (Kenny) Clark – those guys are really good football players and they have a lot of disruptive plays, too. It’s a good group and they’re well-coached and they do a lot of different things.”
BY THE NUMBERS: 2 – The number of sacks by Adrian Clayborn the last two weeks.
