In Week 3, the Patriots lost in embarrassing fashion on Thursday Night Football to the Jets 24-3.
The offense managed an astonishingly low 139 yards of total offense, while the defense allowed 400 yards to a Jets offense that saw Aaron Rodgers have his best game in two years.
With the game being on a Thursday night, this meant the Patriots had a “mini-bye” over the next few days, as the team received the weekend off before getting back to the facility for Week 4 preparations on Monday.
With the extra time off between games, there’s ample opportunity for extra time to stew in defeat.
On Friday’s edition of The Greg Hill Show, WEEI’s Courtney Cox asked Patriots linebacker Jahlani Tavai how his team has handled the extra time off in the confidence department.
Cox asked, “Having this week be an extra long week for you guys coming off a loss like you did, does that take a blow to your confidence? Like, in the locker room right now, all we’ve heard about going into this -”
“Not at all,” Tavai said cutting off Cox. “No, not at all. Not at all. To be honest, a lot of us, especially on the defensive side, we were texting each other and calling each other because we were just - I think it was Friday, Saturday - we were just anxious and amped up to already practice. Even though we were banged up.
“I think it just motivated us even more to, you know, prove to people that we are still the Patriots, and we’re gonna do our best to prove that come Sunday.”
So if you were worried that the 1-2 Patriots were lacking in confidence after their worst performance of the season, you can rest easy.
Will confidence lead to performance akin to the Patriots of old against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday?
…it can’t hurt!
Both BetMGM and FanDuel have New England listed as 10.5-point underdogs, the largest spread on the Week 4 slate. On the moneyline, BetMGM has the Patriots listed at +425, while FanDuel gives them longer odds at +440.
The 49ers have the second-best odds to win Super Bowl LIX at both BetMGM (+700) and FanDuel (+750, tied with Buffalo).