While the Patriots fell to the Dolphins 33-24 Sunday in Miami, it doesn't really matter now as they are on to the postseason.
At 10-7 on the season, the Patriots are the No. 6 seed in the AFC and will travel to Buffalo Saturday night on Wild Card Weekend.
Bill Belichick joined The Greg Hill Show Monday morning and looked ahead to the game.
“I think for our team, we just have to look at it the same way we looked at the other games against Buffalo. It’s a big game and we played 17 games this year, plus three preseason games, so it’s really just playing a good football game," he said. "Whatever the Wild Card and seedings are and all that, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the outcome of the game. The game will be determined by how well we prepare, play in those 60 minutes. That’s really our challenge. I don’t think we need to do a lot of looking back, we need to look ahead and as I said, put our best football out there Saturday night.”
(Click below to listen to the full interview.)
It will be a short week for the Patriots with the Saturday night, but there's plenty of familiarity between the teams as their two meetings have come in the past month. The teams split the regular-season series.
“It’s the same for both teams. I don’t think there’s any big advantage," Belichick said, "It is what it is. That’s the schedule and we’ll deal with it.”
As for the Patriots overall, Belichick pointed to the team not being able to consistently play for 60 minutes, which has held it back in various games this season, including Sunday in Miami.
“I think at various points we’ve done everything well," he said. "Like we talked about earlier, we’re not consistent in doing it. We’ve got to find a way to put our best football on the field in all three phases of the game for 60 minutes. We just haven’t been able to do that for 60 minutes here recently. Over the last month, it’s just been too inconsistent.”
Buffalo won the AFC East on Sunday thanks to its 27-10 win over the Jets.