Bill Belichick isn’t about to sit around and cry over what happened at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday.
The New England Patriots appeared to have win No. 10 all but wrapped up, leading the Miami Dolphins 33-28 with seven seconds to go. But, as you know, the Dolphins stunned the Pats by scoring on a 69-yard, multi-lateral play that saw Kenyan Drake sprint past Rob Gronkowski and into the end zone to send South Beach into a frenzy.
New England was back at work Monday preparing for its Week 15 showdown with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Belichick was asked on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria” what his message was to get the team to regroup.
His answer was quintessential Belichick.
“Look, it’s the National Football League. Nobody died,” Belichick said, via WEEI. “Got a big game this week against Pittsburgh. We have a two-game lead in the division. There’s a lot of football left in the season. We’ll see how it goes.”
Belichick had to answer a number of questions about his strategy on the final play, but he admitted the Patriots, who committed a number of mental mistakes Sunday, had more to worry about than a fluke trick play.
“We can go through it all you want, but I would say that is the least of our problems in this game, so we have a lot of other things we need to do better,” Belichick said, via WEEI. “Certainly that was a big issue, but there’s a lot of other things in this game that weren’t good enough either.”
The Patriots now have little to no shot of catching the Kansas City Chiefs for the top seed in the AFC, and find themselves in a battle with the Houston Texans for a first-round bye. New England must find a way to play better on the road or it won’t matter what seed it gets in the playoffs.
