The New England Patriots picked up their first win of the season Sunday in Minnesota, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
Despite the seemingly lopsided 30-7 win over the Vikings, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady believes his team can do better. He admitted as much after the game and reiterated that Monday morning on WEEI’s “Dennis and Callahan Morning Show.”
“I wasn’t unhappy. I was very happy we won,” Brady said. “I thought the defense played awesome. Special teams made some huge plays for us. Offensively, I thought in the first half we did some real good, positive things. I just wish our execution overall would be a little bit better. That’s what we’ll work on this week, and we’ll try to make some improvements where we can, then hopefully we just continue to get better as we go.”
The Patriots scored just two offensive touchdowns and were held to two field goals in the second half. The offense was held to fewer than 300 yards of total offense and just 16 first downs.
A big reason the New England offense was slowed had to do with discipline. The Patriots committed 15 penalties, and that’s something Brady believes they have to clean up soon.
“The penalties, they just kill drives. We don’t want to be one of the most-penalized teams in the league,” Brady said. “I think that’s a great recipe for how to lose games — turnovers, penalties, missed opportunities. We’ve got to do a better job with the penalties. I thought obviously not turning the ball over on the road was good, and the defense made all those big plays, which allowed us a lot of short fields and more opportunity really than we took advantage of.”
Brady and the Patriots should have a chance to work out some kinks when they host the Oakland Raiders this Sunday at Gillette Stadium. The Raiders’ defense is ranked 24th in the NFL after allowing 364.5 yards per game through two weeks.
