We’re only two weeks into the season, but the football world already is thinking history for the 2019 New England Patriots.
The Patriots, quite frankly, have looked unstoppable thus far. They followed up a full-fledged beatdown of the Pittsburgh Steelers with a blowout of even greater magnitude against the Miami Dolphins. Tom Brady might have the best collection of weapons he’s ever had, and New England’s defense is shaping up to be one of the league’s best. Couple all that with the Patriots’ relatively light schedule and an undefeated season seems like a real possibility.
The thought of a perfect campaign, however, has not and will not cross Brady’s mind. For the future Hall of Famer, it’s all about maintaining an unwavering focus on the challenge at hand.
“To think about something that’s gonna happen two weeks from now or three weeks from now or five weeks from now is irrelevant,” Brady said Monday on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.” “You’ll have plenty of time to think about those when that’s a real reality. I mean, that’s so far from what a reality is. You’re not going to live your life going through hypothetical situations and I think what you try to do is think about the process and the results are what they are. I think through many years of practice and preparation, our program is centered around winning culture, winning environment and we’re trying to do the best we can do to make that process efficient which helps us prepare, gives us good competitive stamina. It’s all about teamwork, and then we go out there and we play.
“If we win, we win. Great, we’re gonna get back to it. If we lose, we evaluate what we need to do better and we get back to our process. So I’m not thinking about anything more than 3-0 because that’s the only thing that matters. That’s what we got this week. Today, wake up and I’m thinking about the Jets and how they’re gonna attack us and how we need to attack them. It’s going to ebb and flow over the course of the whole season. There’s big challenges ahead and to take your eye of what’s really important is a disservice to the team and we’re not doing that.”
Although it comes off as the cliche company line, Brady is right when he says the Patriots still have a lot of work to do. Chemistry still needs to be built between Brady and the new faces within New England’s offense, and the team’s O-line continues to rack up injuries. The case can be made the reigning champs also have yet to be truly battle-tested, as the Dolphins are on pace for a historically bad season, while the Steelers just might be not that good.
So let’s table the perfect season talk for now. The Patriots are on to the Jets, and as Brady notes, that’s all that matters.
