Tom Brady spent the New England Patriots’ bye week just sitting around and doing nothing.
Just kidding.
Unsurprisingly, Brady kept working this past weekend despite the Patriots not being in action. New England entered its Week 11 bye with a solid 7-3 record, but as the quarterback acknowledged Monday on WEEI’s “Mut & Callahan,” there’s still plenty of room for improvement, especially with the Patriots coming off a 34-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans in Week 10.
“We’re working through certain things,” Brady said, as transcribed by WEEI.com. “We are 7-3. We have our biggest games ahead of us. I don’t think we’ve played our best football. This is the time of year where we have a great opportunity ahead of us. I took a lot of time this weekend to watch the entire season a couple of times. We just had a lot of communication with our coaches and I think a lot of guys took the weekend to let their minds really be free of football for a few days.
“I am excited to start this week. We are in (Monday) and we basically work all week and then we head to New York. This time of year football season really flies by because you have the holidays and a lot of things going on, but we’ve put ourselves in a decent position.”
The Patriots, who won six straight before their blowout loss to the Titans, will face the New York Jets on the road in Week 12. They’ll then return home for a matchup with the Minnesota Vikings before finishing up with games against the Miami Dolphins, Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Jets.
“It isn’t perfect by any means,” Brady said of the Patriots’ performance to date. “I don’t think we have played perfectly, but I think we’ve built to this point where we are in a position to start playing our best. It’s really up to us. There’s no way to talk your way into it. You have to do it. I think we all have to make the commitment to doing it and being our best every day and bringing our competitive stamina to practice, to the meetings and ultimately the one day of the week where it counts in the record books, which is on Sunday.”
Working during the bye week is business as usual for Brady, a five-time Super Bowl champion in the midst of his 18th NFL season. We’ll see if the extra homework pays dividends this time around.
The Patriots currently own the No. 3 seed in the AFC, trailing the Kansas City Chiefs (9-1) and Pittsburgh Steelers (7-2-1). The Houston Texans and Los Angeles Chargers also sit at 7-3 after Week 11.
