At the start of the season, the New England Patriots were under pressure. The Patriots did not have a go to receiver because of key injuries to TE Rob Gronkowski and WR Danny Amendola and the players they did have didn’t really have much experience, but over the weeks the team itself has evolved into a key threat to other opponents.
At first you could see that New England’s QB Tom Brady was struggling to find the connection between QB and receiver, even though his teammates had a lot of errors with handling the ball, catching the ball, and staying in tune with their routes. Brady still kept them in situations were they could scrap out a victory. As the season progressed, so did the Patriots.
Many different players on both sides of the ball stepped up to the plate when they were challenged.
This week’s opponent will be the (4-8) Cleveland Browns, who are looking to play spoiler. If the Patriots can win this game they will have earned themselves a playoff spot and maybe a division title but first they have to clean out some grey areas in the offense.
“I know, We’ve started slow too many times this year, and it’s hard to keep playing from behind,” Brady said. “I think we talk about it; we’re trying to get better at it. There’s no magic formula, just like there’s really no magic formula to what we’re doing in the second half. It’s just really the execution needs to be a lot better at the start of the game, and really we’ve got to have great execution for the entire game.
“That’s the most important thing. We’ve played some really good teams, really good defenses that have put a lot of pressure on us, so it’s hard sometimes to play 60 good minutes of football, but we’ve got to start doing that at some point. We’ve had some ups and downs, but we’ve got to put together a good game Brady said.”
” I mean, I think this week is about Cleveland and trying to beat those guys. So, most importantly it is about making improvements and trying to figure out some of the things we haven’t been doing right so we can do them better for 60 minutes. This team is going to be big challenge for us. They’ve got some really good skill guys on offense. They’ve got a really good defense, one of the top ranked defenses in the league. So, I think all that stuff will ultimately take care of itself. There’s nothing we can do about January this week. We’ve got to try and put ourselves in a great position by going to win says Brady.”
Brady and his team leads the NFL with 35.75 points and 473.25 yards per game over the past five weeks, but it doesn’t matter to Brady. In his mind with any game the Patriots need to come out and dominate both sides of the ball, control the tempo, and eliminate mistakes.“That’s the most important thing. We’ve played some really good teams, really good defenses that have put a lot of pressure on us, so it’s hard sometimes to play 60 good minutes of football, but we’ve got to start doing that at some point. We’ve had some ups and downs, but we’ve got to put together a good game says Brady.”
