Bill's take

FOXBOROUGH -- Patriots coach Bill Belichick held his Wednesday press conference (10:50 a.m.) and opened with the following:

"First of all, I'd like to, on behalf of our team, extend our condolences and thoughts and prayers to Sean Taylor's family, extended family, the Redskins and the University of Miami. We have a number of players from Miami on our team and there is a connection there. It's a terrible tragedy. There is no way to really explain it. Our sympathies go out to them.

"On our end of it, unfortunately we had to put Rosie on injured reserve yesterday. He's worked awfully hard this year, as he always does. I feel badly for him, as I do for the other players on IR -- Sammy [Morris] and Chad Scott and Dave Thomas, and all those guys. It's unfortunate.

"We signed Chad Brown, who has been with us, and gives us depth and experience at the position, as well as activated Troy from the PUP roster. As usual, we'll go into the game with the players we feel like -- from the 53-man roster -- that gives us the best chance to compete against the Ravens. We'll make that decision at the end of the week. I don't want to lead anyone in any direction but that one. So that's where we're at as far as the Ravens go.

"You know, this is in a lot of ways similar to the Eagles that we talked about last week. A veteran team. Veteran coaches. A team that has won, that has played very well at home, that has played in a lot of big games and won them, especially at this time of year. Very good defensively. Outstanding return game. Good kicker. Big playmakers on offense, especially at the skill positions. Lot of outstanding players. Lot of outstanding talent. A team that we have a lot of respect for. I know going down there and playing Monday night is going to be a very energetic and hostile environment for us to go into. We'll have to really be sharp on everything we do, especially as it relates to snap counts and communication and things like that. We have a lot in front of us, a team we haven't played in a while. Lot of good players we have to get ready for. A lot of difficult schemes they run. It's probably good we have the extra day, I'm sure we'll be able to use it."