Matthew Judon Sent This Message To Patriots After Week 1 Loss

There were plenty of positives to take away from the Patriots' narrow Week 1 loss to the defending NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles.

But you'd better not call it a moral victory.

That was the message Matthew Judon sent to his New England teammates after last Sunday's season-opening 25-20 defeat at Gillette Stadium.

"Coming off the field, I told the team, 'We don't care about no moral victories,'" Judon said in a sitdown with former Patriots safety and current NBC analyst Devin McCourty. "Everybody (outside of the team) was like, 'Oh, well, (the Patriots) looked like the better team.' The better team won. The better team found a way to win. And that's how it is every week."

The Patriots did outplay the favored Eagles in many facets, but they could not overcome a few costly early miscues that saddled them with a 16-0 first-quarter deficit.

New England also squandered multiple chances to win the game late, failing to score on its final two drives despite starting one at the Philadelphia 41-yard line and the other on its own 44.

It was the latest in a long line of close-but-not-close-enough contests for the Patriots, who have struggled to win tight games against playoff-caliber opponents in the post-Tom Brady era.

They'll have another chance to do so this week when they host a talented Miami Dolphins squad on "Sunday Night Football."

"When we came off the field, like, all right, don't hang your head, but it wasn't good enough," Judon told McCourty. "It wasn't good enough to get the win. So whatever we've got to do better next week in our preparation to get the win, to beat Miami, to go 1-0 that week, that's what we've got to do. So that's what we're doing.

"That's what we're building over here, and at the end of the year, the chips are going to fall where they may."