The Patriots had four possessions in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 25-20 loss to the Eagles and three of them ended with failed fourth down conversions, so it’s no surprise that their head coach was asked whether he had any regrets about his decisions on those plays.
On Sunday night, Bill Belichick said he didn’t second-guess the first of those calls. The Patriots were down eight points when they went for it on fourth-and-three from the Eagles’ 17-yard-line with 9:32 left to play and Mac Jones threw an incompletion, but the Patriots were able to slice the deficit to five points before the next fourth down call. That one saw the Patriots facing a fourth-and-17 from the Eagles’ 48-yard-line after a delay of game penalty with 2:24 left to play
New England still had all three timeouts in their pocket and Belichick said at his Monday press conference that a punt probably would have been the best of the imperfect choices in front of him.
“Yeah, well, I mean look, there wasn’t a lot of field position to be gained,” Belichick said. “We could have punted it – probably should have punted on fourth-and-17, but we’re on their side of the 50. It’s too long for a field goal. Fourth-and-17 is a lot tougher than fourth-and-12.”
The Patriots wound up getting the ball back with the score unchanged after the Eagles failed to convert a fourth down of their own, but their bid to pull off a comeback win ended with rookie Kayshon Boutte failing to get both feet down on the final fourth down try of the fourth quarter.
