The Patriots lost to the Jaguars 31-20 in Jacksonville on Sunday and issues in all phases of the game were brought up to head coach Bill Belichick during his Monday press conference.
Belichick was asked about the job the Jaguars did against tight end Rob Gronkowski, coaching decisions, third-down defense and the lack of a reaction from the punt team when the Jaguars appeared to jump offside in the fourth quarter. Belichick’s answers were that the Patriots need to improve across the board in order to avoid similar outcomes in the future.
“Yeah, again, it’s a little bit of everything,” Belichick said. “That’s kind of the way it was the whole day. It wasn’t any one position, one guy, one thing. It was kind of one thing on this play, one thing on that play, but in the end, we just didn’t have enough productive plays in any phase of the game. We just have to do a better job. I wouldn’t say we were way off in a lot of areas, but you didn’t have to be. It just took one thing and they were able to take advantage of that like a good team does. We’ve just got to do a better job.”
There have been several early season losses for the Patriots over the years, including the 2017 opener, that have led to questions about whether the team had slipped from previous highs. The answer to that has always been no and the Patriots will begin providing this year’s answer on Sunday night in Detroit.