Pats chatter

FOXBOROUGH -- A few comments from the Patriots' locker room after the game:

WR Donte' Stallworth
(on his 53-yard fourth-quarter reception and getting tackled from behind.)
"I just know I stuck one hand out there and I tried to tip it to myself and I was just thinking, ‘Run Forrest. Run.’ But obviously I wish I was Forrest because Forrest never got caught. ... I’ve already got like 15 texts from guys back home and guys in the locker room have been killing me. It hurts, but we got the win and that’s good."

RB Laurence Maroney
(on the running game)
"Like I said, sooner than later the running game had to kick in and when we did turn to it I knew we had to be prepared. We have been here and worked hard and knew we would finally get a chance to show the world that we do have some type of running game."

LB Tedy Bruschi
(on the play of Tom Brady)
"It was awesome. I mean that’s an unbelievable statistic. 26 of 28. Tom plays his best against teams in the biggest games and it’s fun to watch for us. We don’t get to see every play, but when you hear a stat like that you know that your quarterback was on his game and that makes you want to be on your game even more."

LB Junior Seau
(on the AFC Championship game)
"It hasn’t sunk in yet. It really hasn’t. Being part of this journey is definitely something special, but we’ll go back to work and keep plugging away. Hopefully at the end of the rainbow we can look at something that we’re proud of. You never can dream this. This is beyond all that. There’s a lot of hard work, a lot of perseverance and a lot of prayers that come into play."

CB Ellis Hobbs
(on the pass defense)
"All of our individual players, hands down everybody, we just didn’t execute the game plan well enough. Sometimes it wasn’t even that much of a game plan, it was more of a thing where we weren’t sticking on to the receivers long enough. [David Garrard] knows how to make plays back there and improvise. He waits, breaks out of the pocket a little bit and throws to the open receiver ... It’s something that’s correctable. We’re out there, just kind of slapping it around and not doing our jobs for the most part, but it’s something that’s very correctable, getting back on the practice field – getting guys healthy first off– then getting on the practice field and executing."