Patriots coach Bill Belichick knew this moment would come. He knew he would win a fourth Lombardi Trophy, his fourth in his 15 seasons with New England.
“Sure did, with these guys,” he said during the postgame ceremony. “We got a great team. We got a lot of great players. They played well again tonight.
“I thought I would [win another Super Bowl].”
Belichick tied records for most appearances in the Super Bowl by a coach with six, and most wins with four.
“We got a good football team and these guys fight for 60 minutes,” he said. “I’m so proud of all these players. I love these guys.”
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Patriots owner Robert Kraft said his team’s victory in this year’s Super Bowl is as “special” as the franchise’s first, which came about four months after 9/11.
“The first one we won I thought was pretty special because it happened at a unique time in our country when it meant a lot,” he said. “I never thought another trophy could feel so special, but this one absolutely does.”
Belichick walked into his postgame news conference with the Lombardi Tropy, trying to balance it on the podium with him before realizing it wasn’t steady.
“I hope this thing doesn’t fall. Whoa, I don’t know,” he said as he set it on a table next to him.
Belichick went on to name his three coordinators — Matt Patricia (defense), Josh McDaniels (offense), and Scott O’Brien (special teams) — indivdually, crediting them for their roles in the team’s preparation.
“Couldn’t have done it without those guys,” he said. “Can’t say enough about the job our coaching staff did.”
Other notes from Belichick’s news conference
■ He said his defense was in man coverage using all cornerbacks on the Seahawks’ final offensive play from the 1-yard line when Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson.
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“We put in our goal line defense with just corners, so it wasn’t a true goal line because in fact they had three receivers in the game, so we were in our goal line with all eight guys stacked on the line of scrimmage,” he said. “We were man-to-man on the three receivers. We prepared for that situation. It’s part of our goal line package. It could be three corners, two corners, one corners, no corners if they have all tight ends and offensive linemen in there. That’s what they were in and that’s what we played.”
■ He said he was more concerned when the Patriots were down by 14 points against Baltimore than when they were down 10 points to start the fourth quarter against Seattle.
■ He talked about the Patriots going up-tempo on their go-ahead touchdown drive, on which Tom Brady completed all nine of his pass attempts before finding Julian Edelman for the 3-yard score.
”I’ve been in a few of these games, and we’ve been on the other side of it. Just hard to rush the passer for four quarters like this. You just expense so much energy. Our offensive line did a great job, but I think as the game wore on that probably helped neutralize the pass rush a little bit and again I’ve been on both sides of this one, so I know what that’s like. But again, we felt like in the fourth quarter if we pressed it and stayed with the passing game, we kind of got away from a little bit of balance there … we just pretty much put our 2-minute [drill] personnel out there with Shane [Vereen] and three receivers and Rob [Gronkowski]. We felt like that was our best opportunity there from about the 10-minute mark or so on.”
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■ He ended the opening remarks of his news conference by talking about his parents, Steve and Jeannette.
“Guess the last thing I’ll say before I open it up is, the last time we won I got Gateraded, my dad was here, so certainly thinking about him tonight and I’m sure he was watching and I hope my mom’s watching, so hi mom.”