Patriots Agenda: Rest, Fix Slow Starts And Watch Football
BOSTON (CBS) – There are a few items on the agenda for the New England Patriots as they await their playoff opponent during their bye week.
"Rest. My biggest thing is rest," nose tackle Vince Wilfork said on Wednesday. "It's such a long season and these guys in here need rest, need rest. Health is everything right now. The more you can take care of yourself [and] get the proper rest and when you have a chance to get it, it's big."
Next is forgetting about whatever they did in the regular season. The 13-3 record, the personal records, and all those yards given up on defense, are getting tossed out the window now that the second season is set to begin.
Read: Levan Reid's Patriots Blog
"I don't even care about that anymore," said tight end Rob Gronkowski, who set a pair of records of his own during the regular season. "It's a one-game season now. All that kind of stuff, whatever we did, our records, our win-loss column, that doesn't matter anymore. That's all in the past. It's a one-game season now and that's all we're worried about."
Slater, Gronkowski on Bye Week
"What you've done so far doesn't mean anything," added Wilfork. "The most important thing for us is to win. That's the most important thing. We can't look at stats, we can't look at film and [be like] we didn't do this or we didn't do that. We can't look at no [previous] playoff games that we've played in. we can't look at none of those things. The most important thing for us now is to get better and win. If we get better, we can win ballgames, but if we stay the same we'll have problems. That's one of our biggest goals, so each week we want to do that [win]. You know, right now, you lose you go home and everybody has to understand that and I think everybody does understand that. We have to continue to win and continue to move on and be a successful football team."
Read: Brady Named AFC Offensive Player of the Month
In order to be successful, the Patriots will have to get off to better starts. That will be on top of the "Focus On" list this week. In each of their final two regular season games, they spotted the opposition multiple-score leads and have had to dig themselves out. They came back from a 21-0 first quarter deficit against Buffalo, and a 17-0 halftime hole against Miami, but know it will be a lot harder to do that against whoever they face in the playoffs.
"That's what we're trying to do," Gronkowski said of trying to shake the early game woes. "We need to get off to a good start during the game and play all four quarters and go out to practice and at the beginning practice make sure we're on top of it, just like it's a start of a game."
"It's been stressed all year," linebacker Jerod Mayo said of the slow starts. "We haven't put together 60 minutes yet. I think we'll be a good team if we could ever put together four quarters of football. We practice it every day; we just have to get it done on the field."
Read: Turnovers Name of the Game For Pats
"Each week we know we get off to a slow start, but eventually it can catch up with you also and we understand that," said Wilfork. "But at the same time being down 14 and 17 and 21 points and to pull games out shows you a lot about this team. I don't think there's anyone in this locker room saying, 'We're going to get away with a 24 point deficit or a 28 point deficit now.' I think it's more about, 'Let us being on the other end. Let us be up 14 or 17 points and see where the game takes us. With this team I love the odds. I love them."
And finally, in addition to watching hours of game film, the team can actually relax and watch their potential opponents this weekend. If the Bengals beat the Texans Saturday night, they'll be heading to Foxboro for the Divisional round matchup next weekend. If not, the winner of Sunday's Pittsburgh-Denver game will get to come to Gillette.
With the weekend off, the Patriots can sit back and become fans for a day or two, doing a little scouting along the way.
"I'm a football fan, so I'm definitely watching football as fan," said Gronkowski. "At the same time, you're watching it, watching your opponents, watching the game to see who you're going to be playing and see if you can pick up anything while watching the game."
Read: Potential Playoff Opponents
"There aren't too many times that you get a chance to relax and actually watch football games on Sundays, other than your bye week during the season, so I'm looking forward to that myself,' said receiver Tiquan Underwood. "I'm going to look at it as 'This could be our opponent.' Take a good look at both teams in both games and defensive personnel and schemes, but just paying attention mostly to the defensive side of the ball."
The Patriots have a first-round bye, but be sure to tune in to a special playoff edition of Patriots GameDay Sunday January 8 at 11:30am on WBZ-TV. Then on Saturday, January 14, tune in to the Pats Playoff matchup on WBZ-TV and 98.5 The Sports Hub at 8pm. Pregame coverage begins with 98.5′s Patriots Preview at 5pm.
