Patriots veteran special teams captain Matthew Slater asks his teammates in the postgame locker room after every New England win how they feel about the latest victory.
Each Monday, Slater joins the Mut at Night show on WEEI fresh off both victories and defeats.
This week, the Pro Bowler admitted that Sunday’s 25-22 win over the Texans in Houston probably was indeed a “must-win” situation, even in just the fifth game of the year.
“Yeah, certainly,” Slater said. “I mean you don’t want to put yourself in a 1-4 hole, especially with the aspirations that we have for the season. So we really felt like we needed to come out and do whatever we could to win the football game, whatever it took. We knew it would take 60 minutes.”
New England escaped Houston with its second win of the year thanks to a Mac Jones-led second half comeback capped by Nick Folk’s game-winning field goal with 15 seconds to play. The Patriots trailed by as much as 22-9 in the third quarter, but got the job done in the end.
“That was a good win for us,” Slater said. “It wasn’t the pretties win. But in the National Football League it’s all about having one more point than the other guys. I thought the guys showed a great deal of resolve [on Sunday]. A lot of guys stepped up when we needed it. And it feels good to get back in the win column.”
Whether there was a letdown after the prior week’s big game in Foxborough against Tom Brady’s defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers or New England simply came out a bit flat in Houston, as some players suggested, to secure the win the visitors had to overcome a less than desirable start.
“I don’t think that we started the game fast,” Slater said. “Certainly that’s something that we talk about every week is coming out and starting the football game fast. We didn’t start fast, but I think what we did do was get ourselves composed and find a way to execute when we needed to.
That was the most important thing.”
