Losing in the fashion the New England Patriots did Monday would be tough on any team. It’s especially challenging for one in the Patriots position, however.
Monday’s 41-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs kicked off a stretch of four games in 18 days for the Patriots, who are 2-2 with a Sunday night game against the Cincinnati Bengals looming. As if they didn’t have enough problems, they now need to fix their issues on a condensed timetable.
“There’s no doubt this will be a challenging period of time for our team in terms of our mental toughness and resiliency, and being able to handle a lot in somewhat of a compressed period,” Belichick said Tuesday in a conference call. “But that’s what it is and we’ll try to do the best we can in terms of utilizing our time as productively as we can.
“As I said before, it’s a balance of all those things. It’s a balance of correcting things. It’s certainly a lot of preparation and moving forward with the next opponent, in this case, a very good one in Cincinnati. Yeah, we’ll have to put those things together and find a way to get as much done as we can with the opportunity and the time we have allotted.”
New England gets some reinforcements this week, with cornerback Brandon Browner and wide receiver Brian Tyms eligible to return to practice after suspensions. Neither player was allowed to participate in practice during the suspensions, but Belichick did say one has been around for team meetings. He would not say which.
“Those two players have missed four weeks, four games, but all the practice time as well,” Belichick said. “We’ll have to see where they are relative to the other players. I think both those guys had good preseasons and they both had very positive impacts in the opportunities they had in preseason. But in the time that’s passed, we’ll see how far behind or where they are relative to their teammates that have been practicing and working over that timeframe.”
Photo via Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports Images
