ESPN NFL

Posted by ESPN.com's Bill Williamson

Courtesy of the New England PR department, here is a sampling from coach Bill Belichick's press briefing today as the Patriots prepare to play at San Diego on Sunday night.

The Chargers are certainly a familiar opponent.

Bill Belichick: Yeah. It almost seems like a division game. It does. [It's like] we end up playing them twice a year. It's a little bit like the Colts. It feels like we've seen a lot of them, even though they're not in our division.

Have you seen the same LaDainian Tomlinson on film that you've always seen?

BB: Oh yeah. He looks good. Very patient. He has good quickness, speed, [and] breaks tackles. [Darren] Sproles has been a good change of pace for them. So, yeah, [Tomlinson's] good.

How has Philip Rivers' development been? Have you seen him grow?

BB: Good. I had a lot of respect for Rivers anyway and then last year in our game in January I thought that he really stepped up and played very courageously after the injury and threw the ball well on not a great day to throw it. He played with a lot of toughness and courage and certainly gave us all we [could handle] in that game. So I have a lot of respect for Rivers. He's certainly chucking it down the field this year. I think they're second in the league in big plays in the passing game. [Chris] Chambers and [Vincent] Jackson and [Antonio] Gates and [Darren] Sproles and [LaDainian] Tomlinson, there are a lot of guys to defend there.

You talked about [Quentin] Jammer and [Antonio] Cromartie being big play guys. Was there a difference between the way they played you in the playoff game as opposed to earlier in the season from a style perspective?

BB: No. I wouldn't say so. I'd say coach [Ted] Cottrell has been around for quite a while. [He's a] very experienced coordinator. They have their way of playing. They like to pressure you. They like to bring those outside linebackers. They play a decent amount of man coverage and mix their zones in there and they did that in both games last year.