While the Patriots have lost four straight games and are 3-5 on the year, like he was Monday with The Greg Hill Show, Patriots quarterback Cam Newton stressed Friday how close he believes the Patriots are.
"I felt like, for me personally, one play can make you feel like the man or make you feel as low (as) the lowest man," he said. "You know what I'm saying? And for me, going back and looking at the film, it was a great week of preparation, I admit that, and then it just came down to just ball security. But all in all, as an offense, I think we're extremely close. If we just keep stacking bricks on top of bricks on top of bricks, then hopefully we can put a full 60 minutes together this weekend."
Newton believes one of the biggest issues in the loss to the Bills was being in long yardage situations, as he said the offense thrives in short-yardage.
"It was never a discomfort in play-calling. Let me be very clear with that. It more or less was being in more manageable situations, especially in the second half," he said. "We're an offense that thrives in short-yardage situations, and us being in long-yardage situations for a gotta-have-it situation like a third down or in the red zone, that's just not a successful rate for us -- or anybody in this league, for that matter. So we've just got to do a better job of being more efficient on earlier downs and knowing what we have to do as an offense to play complementary football with the defensive, the special teams and things like that. All these keys have not changed since Week 1. We've just got to do a better job with honing in and doing what's expected of us."
The Patriots will take on the Jets Monday night and when asked about playing on Monday night, Newton didn't even answer the question and just discussed how the team has to win the game.
“Listen, I just want to win," he said. "That’s it. Nothing else matters. October wasn’t good to me and we have to make sure November doesn’t feel like October. Monday night is good, but we have to win. I’ll put it like this: I don’t want to lose the focus of what’s the reality, but we just have to make the proper adjustments day-by-day that is going to put us in the best situation to win come Monday.”
