Bill Belichick is pissed, staunchly defends playing Gronkowski

Bill Belichick is pissed off at the ridiculous notion that he shouldn't have played Rob Gronkowski on the extra point attempt.

At first I was mad at him for doing that, until I realized that he had actually benched Rob Gronkowski for the actual series leading up to that. With Hernandez out, and Daniel Fells inactive, the Patriots did not have a whole lot of tight ends to fill in on that special teams unit. Besides, how many injuries have you heard of on an extra point play?

Belichick was obviously asked about this when he had his weekly appearance on WEEI. Here's the transcript, courtesy ESPNBoston:

As for the wing position on the field-goal protection unit, Belichick previously mentioned that it's an important job.

"I could just hear it now, if someone else is in at wing that wasn't used to playing there on the field-goal team, and a guy came around the edge and dove in there and the holder or kicker got torn up -- 'Why was he in there? Why wouldn't you go with the same guy that's been doing it all game?' We can play that game all game. As long as you know what the results are, you always have the right argument. Players are prepared to play 60 minutes. The game is 60 minutes long. If you can take a guy out, or you want to take a guy out, you can do that. But a guy's got to play."

I have a feeling that's the reason Belichick hates the media. They always come at him questioning his moves with the benefit of hindsight. It's kind of an unfair position to be in.

This is the reason I've never gotten behind the "Bash Josh McDaniels" train. I never like criticizing play calling, because it's easy to criticize a decision when you already know the outcome.

Belichick has also always been accused of leaving his players in too long. Most opposing fans call it "classless", we heard it just about every week during Belichick's "Fuck the NFL" stampede in 2007.

Belichick defends his stance on that too. As always, bringing up some pretty good points.

"We've seen those games in the NFL every year, teams that have a lead -- you can go back to the Indianapolis-Tampa game when they scored like 24 points in four minutes, the Buffalo-Houston playoff game where it's 35-0 at halftime and you lose 38-35, whatever it was. It doesn't take much in this league. Teams can score quickly. Turnovers.

"I think you just keep playing. At some point, there is a point [but] then you only have so many players, so somebody has to play. I think you have to be careful when you are trying to run a team to go up to one guy and say, 'Michael, we're going to leave you in the game because we don't really care about you, but Glenn, we're going to take you out because you're really important.' I don't think that's really a good way to approach a team. I've never done that. I don't think that would be a very successful approach to it."

Listen to the full interview here