Division titles aren’t exactly new for the New England Patriots, and Bill Belichick never has been one to pontificate about the future.
So how much time will the Patriots head coach devote to telling his team that a win over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday would clinch their sixth straight AFC East title? Roughly the same amount of time it took you to read this paragraph.
“We wouldn’t waste a lot of time on that,” Belichick said during a conference call Tuesday. “It is what it is. It’s what the standings are. Might cover that in about 15 seconds and move on to Miami.”
Sounds about right.
A Patriots win in Sunday’s game at Gillette Stadium indeed would result in hats and T-shirts for New England and all but knock Miami out of the playoff hunt. But Belichick knows that won’t be an easy task against a team that handed the Patriots a 33-20 loss in Week 1.
“We need to talk about how to play offense, defense and special teams against the Dolphins a lot better than we did the last time we played them, which wouldn’t take much,” Belichick said. “But we need to do a lot better job. We need to coach better, we need to play better in every phase of the game.
“We didn’t do anything down there well enough to deserve to win. Those are the results. If we don’t do a better job than we did the last time, then I’m sure we’ll have the same results, maybe worse. We’re going to have to do things a lot better than we did in the opener. That’s what we’ll be talking about this week.”
Point taken, Bill.
Thumbnail photo via Jake Roth/USA TODAY Sports Images
