On Monday, a day after a little-known rule helped propel the Jets to an overtime win over the Patriots, New England coach Bill Belichick conceded that he had wrongly interpreted the rule that saw rookie defensive lineman Chris Jones flagged for pushing a teammate into the line on a Jets field goal attempt.
"The field goal play at the end, I think Chris [Jones] is obviously trying to do the right thing by stepping up and taking responsibility but that’s not his responsibility, it’s ours," Belichick told reporters. "We just have to do a better job of coaching that. It’s not his fault, that’s one me [and] the coaching staff, we just have to do a better job there," Belichick said.
When asked about his original confusion about the rules, Belichick said, "… [O]bviously we are wrong. What else is there to say? We're wrong."
Meanwhile, quarterback Tom Brady said one play in overtime shouldn't have determined the outcome.
“I did know the rule; I didn't see the play, I still really haven’t seen the replay,” Brady said during his weekly appearance on WEEI. “[But] it really shouldn't have come down to that: we had plenty of other opportunities in the game to score points and really widen the gap that we had on them at halftime. [We] fought back in the fourth quarter and had some chances at the end [and] got the ball to start overtime, so there’s nobody to blame but ourselves.”
For the third time this season, Brady completed fewer than half his passes, and he threw his first pick-six since Sept. 2011.
“The rest of the offense, those guys played hard and the line blocked hard, we were efficient in the running game for the most part,” he said. “We just didn't really do enough in the pass game to make enough plays where we could score points and it’s all about scoring points; there’s a lot of ways to get it done, there’s a lot of ways to score points, but we’re not overcoming the negative plays that we’re making.”
Even with the return of tight end Rob Gronkowski -- who had 8 catches for 114 yards -- the offense sputtered, particularly on third down.
“[We’re] putting ourselves in too many third and longs, and obviously not doing anything on third down is forcing us to be off the field and not able to establish a balance in the run game and the pass game.” Brady said. “We [have] got to be better on third down, we [have] got to be able to complete passes on third down… that’s the name of the game: it's time of possession. The time of possession was out of control yesterday, I mean [we had just] 23 minutes [compared] to [the Jets’] 46 minutes; you know you’re going to have a hard time winning.”
New England hosts Miami this Sunday.
