In the end, getting the No. 2 seed may be a blessing for the Patriots as they avoid playing a potentially risky team in the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Divisional round. Safeties Devin McCourty (99%) and Patrick Chung (95%) wouldn’t have played the whole game if the Patriots weren’t trying to win. The defense was without Chandler Jones (toe/abdomen) and Dont’a Hightower (knee), while Devin McCourty (ankle), Patrick Chung (foot/hip) and Rob Ninkovich (shin) fought the not-so-good fight in the loss.
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“Nothing over the last six weeks is going to matter”, Brady said. Despite losing, the Patriots will still get a bye for the first round of the playoffs as the number-two seed.
“I’m glad we have a week off. That helps”, Brady said during an interview on WEEI’s “Dennis and Callahan Show”.
“Suh’s a big guy”. Well, this season undoubtedly just proved the doubters wrong.
– I liked the hard running of Steven Jackson and though his stats (14 carries, 35 yards, touchdown) don’t jump out, he fills a huge hole as the hammer. I’ve always dealt with injuries. Brady was just 4-of-5 for 20 yards as the Patriots relied on the run early inthe game. “I’ve had plenty of worse injuries than this one”. Believe me, I’ll be doing everything I can to be out there. Once again we get to see a few masters of the game go back to work. The team didn’t pick up their second rushing first down until the field goal drive to open up the second quarter and the Patriots called 17 rushing plays against just 3 passing plays through the field goal.
“We’ll find out where we are in a couple weeks”.
“That’s something we’ll be talking about over the next day or so”, Belichick said in his Monday morning conference call with the local media. Team president Mike Tannenbaum heads the coaching search…. Both players were significant contributors to the Super Bowl winning time of a year prior.
Don’t let this loss fool you, this was a game that the Patriots needed to win.
Do you have to hit the reset button heading into the playoffs, is that the message you gave the team? The bearded defensive boss is in his fourth season running Belichick’s defense and 12th as an National Football League assistant, all in New England.
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Brady has also flashed his mobility at times this season, breaking the pocket to extend plays or pick up yards. He threw only five passes in the first half, the lowest halftime total in any game he has started, according to STATS. Brady was sacked twice during the game and at one point he even threw as many as four incompletions in a row. But over the course of a 20-10 defeat, it was never clear that the Patriots went to Miami with that a legitimate objective.
