Following the 16-10 win over the Bills on Sunday, the Patriots are 4-0 on the season, but Tom Brady certainly isn't sounding like it.
Appearing on Westwood One Radio Monday night, Brady was asked about the offense having to replace players like Trent Brown and Rob Gronkowski, and within his answer he seemed to be looking for more from some of the veteran players on the Patriots offense.
“The reality of the NFL is other people have to step in and fill the void when you lose great players," he said. "The burden is always going to fall on somebody in football, somebody always has the tough job. When you are a younger player you shouldn’t be the one everyone is counting on. The veteran players need to do that. Our veteran players need to do a great job, especially the ones on offense who have been around. I think that is what, from my standpoint, as an offense we’ve got to be able to do. Our veteran leaders on offense have to share more of the burden and then you let some of the younger guys continue to build and grow in their confidence so that you can somehow work the ball down the field and score some points.”
Against the Bills Sunday, the offense finished with just 224 net yards and punted nine times in 12 possessions.
“Listen, the flight home yesterday sucked," Brady said. "The night of sleep sucked. And you watch the film and that sucks. Then you lick your wounds and get up and try and do better the next week. We have lost a lot of games playing poorly and sometimes when you don’t play well on offense and you play well defensively you win. We are not just going to give that game away and say it should have been a loss. Look, our defense has been playing great. Our offense has played pretty well over the course of the season, we just didn’t play well yesterday on the road in Buffalo, which a lot of teams have struggled there over the years.”
Brady said earlier in the day on The Greg Hill Show that the offense needs to figure out what it does well, and then with Jim Gray acknowledged the defense is a huge strength and the offense need to understand that.
“I do think you have to understand what the strengths of your team are," he said. "Certainly our defense is playing great football. They are not giving up many points. They are doing a great job in the red area, they are turning the ball over a lot. We definitely have to understand I think from our standpoint turnovers are always an important part of our game on offense. Yesterday, we had one in the red zone, which if I threw it away it would have been three points. If we would have scored it would have been seven points. I think from my standpoint it is about not giving them opportunities to take points away from us, and also knowing that our defense isn’t going to give up many.
"Part of it is you have to understand what your team is, how you’re winning games, how you’re losing games. I am very happy we are 4-0. There’s definitely things we can improve on, that we are going to need to improve on. The way to do that is to go out and practice every week and try to evaluate the things you haven’t done a good job at, see if you can correct them, and if you can’t correct them, then you throw them out. You don’t try them again. That is how it goes as the season goes along.”
The Patriots will take on the 0-4 Redskins next Sunday on the road.
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