The Patriots got back on the winning track with their 30-27 win over the winless Jets on Monday Night Football.
With the win, the Patriots are 3-5. This has them currently tied for 10th in the AFC and sitting with the No. 13 overall draft pick if the season were to end today.
Some have wanted the Patriots to "tank" the rest of the season to get a better draft pick, but when asked about it on The Greg Hill Show Tuesday, Cam Newton had a different outlook.
“Hell no. What are we doing? It’s a slogan and it’s an iconic quote that says, ‘You play to win the game.’ It’s simple," he said. "Listen, we’re halfway through a season where everything that we want is in front of us. Come on now. For us, and I can’t speak for nobody else and I will not speak for nobody else, I can only speak for myself and I just know that when I said we’re close, we’re extremely close.
"We have to keep putting great practices [together] that is going to lead to in-game reality so we can be able to be comfortable after games knowing that we had a great week and we put everything together and it wasn’t perfect. We understand last night wasn’t perfect, but we had the opportunities and we made the most of them.”
While the Patriots did beat the Jets, some will ask why did it take a last-second field goal to get it done?
“Tough crowd," Newton said when asked to respond to those people. "But for real, listen man, say what you want, this is the NFL. It’s not just a movie title, it is literally Any Given Sunday and you have to bring your lunch pail each and every day and execute [like] we did. Now, did we keep the game relatively close in our opinion more than we wanted to? Absolutely. But games we’ve been in this year as a team, if you can manage those games to win and find ways to win it builds character and it builds team chemistry and it builds team confidence.
"… People can say whatever they want to say about our opponent that we’re playing, but this is going to come up again in a got-to-have-it situation and situational football where instead of guys being more tense in close games, we are able to still stay relaxed and be able to find ways to win because we have been in these situations so many times this year."
Newton stressed how it doesn't matter how it gets done, all that matters at the end of the day is winning.
“The most important statistic in all of sports — it’s not how many home runs you’ve hit, it’s not how many three-pointers you’ve made, it’s not how many touchdowns you’ve thrown or ran, or how many interceptions you’ve got — the most important statistic in all of sports is wins and losses," he said. "I don’t care how you get it and people don’t care how you muffled it away. If we can get that week in and week out, I will take that important statistic over anything else.”
The Patriots will host Baltimore next Sunday night.
