Belichick seeing improvements after second preseason game

The night after his Patriots came back from down 21 points to beat the New Orleans Saints, 26-24, Bill Belichick noted on his conference call with the media on Sunday he is seeing improvements on the offensive side of the ball. He also discussed Cameron Fleming, the secondary, and how many of the younger players stepped up.
When asked about Jimmy Garoppolo and his presence in the pocket, Belichick deflected to praise the entire offense.
?I think we made some improvement from last week offensively, period,” he said. “That’s in every area, so that was good. We had a good week of practice against the Saints. That was positive as well ? just the entire week, not just the game last night. Everybody’s getting a little better, just playing at a little bit higher level, as we should with more practice and more reps, and working together a little bit better.”
Belichick was asked about Fleming and the adjustments he needs to make. Fleming, an offensive guard, was flagged twice against the Saints for illegal formation.
?From an assignment and a technique standpoint, he’s playing one slot wider than he normally plays at tackle, so there’s some adjustment there, Belichick said. “Obviously, it’s different, but it’s not really that major of a difference. He’s handled that well. Going in and out of the game on those situations, that’s just part of what we do with our personnel groups, with our receivers, our backs. He gets involved with that as a lineman when we go to that unit.”
Belichick was then asked about his impressions of the younger players on the team and whether they competed well or not throughout the game.
?Yeah, absolutely. We know we weren’t playing for the AFC championship, but it’s competition,” he said. “It’s going out there and trying to do well and then play situation football according to whatever it is. Whatever it is, those are all situations that we’ve practiced and worked on.
?You can’t control those. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the game. You’re ready for, hopefully, whichever ones come up. Some of it was what we wanted to do. Some of it we need to go back and talk about and correct both on the coaching end and on the playing end, so there were a lot of good learning experiences there for all of us.”
When asked about Garoppolo?s touchdown pass at the end of the second half, where he scrambled to get free from a sack and hit Chris Harper in the endzone, Belichick said he?s glad that situation came up.
?Those are the type of plays that offensively and defensively we work on in practice, but those scrambles in practice are never quite the same as in the game because you’re not hitting the quarterback and you’re not really trying to get him down,” he said. “It was good to actually have those come up where the quarterback does truly have to scramble and avoid pressure and make a decision, get his head up, and get the ball down the field. We need to practice those, so it was good that they came up. We certainly teach off those.”
Belichick was also asked about the play of running back Dion Lewis, who scored on an 11-yard touchdown run Saturday night.
?It was a good opportunity to see all of our skill players, and we saw several of them, I thought, run well with the ball in their hands,” he said. “Chris [Harper] did a good job of that on some returns and catching the ball. Jonathan [Krause] did that. Dion, James White, had several plays like that, a screen pass or even on the goal line where he made a cut there to kind of jump outside and get into the hole.
?That was a good opportunity for all those guys, and I thought Dion did a good job with his opportunities. He’s had a solid spring and camp for us. He missed a few days there, but I thought he ran well last night.”Mike Alongi can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @m_alongi.