FOXBORO, Mass. -- What you saw Sunday was an improved New England Patriots team.
That's according to head coach Bill Belichick, who apparently was feeling very optimistic following New England's 33-6 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
"We got better last week," Belichick said Sunday. "We needed to get back on the practice field. We definitely got better. We improved in some areas. It didn't show up on the score. We still have a lot of work to do, but some of the things that we worked on were better. But we're still a long way from where we need to be. That's obvious."
It didn't show up on the surface either. The Patriots completed just 15-of-25 passes for 162 yards with no touchdowns and four interceptions. The 49ers gained 467 yards and 7.4 yards per play against the Patriots' defense, which was gashed for 197 yards and four touchdowns on the ground.
The Patriots did intercept 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo twice, and they averaged 4.3 yards per carry.
But they certainly didn't look any better than the team that lost 18-12 to the Denver Broncos in Week 6.
It wasn't all positivity from Belichick after the Week 7 loss, though.
"We were clearly out-coached, outplayed, just out-everything," Belichick said. "So we need to just keep working here and find a way to just do everything better. We're just not performing at a good level right now in any area. So that's across the board.
"We just got to get back to work and keep working and find a way to play better than we played tonight and coach better than we coached tonight. So really there's not much else to say about it. The 49ers are a good team. (49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan) did a good job like he always does. And but we just, we just didn't do enough and look at what the results were."
That's more like Belichick.
