PHOTO: Kirby Lee-USA Today
The Patriots didn’t just beat the Chargers 27-24 on Sunday, it was a much needed reminder that Bill Belichick is still pretty good at what he does.
Sure, New England may have given up 369 yards of total offense to Justin Herbert and Los Angeles, but when it mattered most, it was Adrian Phillips – a free agent Bill brought in from that same Chargers team – coming up with the biggest play of the game. It was another free agent, Matthew Judon, being an absolute menace all day, seemingly in Herbert’s general vicinity every time he dropped back to pass. It was forcing five punts and two turnovers while sacking Herbert three times and holding him to just 18 completions on 35 attempts.
Most of all, it was a bit of reassurance for those starting to doubt whether Belichick had the ear of his team anymore. Just a few weeks ago after getting gashed by Dallas, the prospect of this team being a four or five-win team all year was somewhat plausible given how they had looked. Sunday’s victory was confirmation that when Belichick gets guys to buy into whatever he’s telling them, that message still resonates and is probably going to put you in a position to win games more often than not.
“We did some good things. We gave up some big plays. We need to coach better and play better more consistently,” Belichick said in typical fashion. “We did enough things to win, so that’s good. On offense, we ran the ball, we moved the ball, we got enough points to win. There’s certainly a lot of room for improvement and we will work on that this week.”
Phillips’ interception return for a touchdown with 10 minutes to go – his second pick of the day against his former team – putting the Pats ahead 24-17 was further proof of just how valuable of a signing he was a year ago. Philips had been a consummate professional and a very valuable veteran presence in the secondary.
“Everybody always wants to kind of stick it to their former team,” Phillips said with a big smile postgame. “This is a great organization that we played against today and to be able to go out there and play against them and end up having the game that I had it was sweet, I loved it.”
“He does a good job of seeing the routes, seeing the quarterback, having vision on the ball. Just good awareness,” Belichick said of Phillips. “He’s a good football player. He did that when we opened last year against Miami, the first game in the 2020 season where he made the play on the slant route. He makes those plays in practice, too. He knows football and has good hands.”
Judon continues to show he was well worth the money spent on him in free agency. He’s now a main locker room guy and a friend of the media. He’s also the team’s MVP so far this season and has been unblockable at times, including Sunday with 1.5 sacks and two quarterback hits. Numbers aside, it felt like Judon was at least making Herbert move out of the pocket every single time the Chargers tried to throw the ball downfield. The juice he brings on and off the field is infectious and if it continues to wear off on this defense the path to the postseason may not be so bleak after all.
“It just puts us at .500, everything is out there in front of us, we’ve just got to execute,” Judon said when asked what this win does for them. “I keep telling y’all, we know what type of team we have, we’ve just got to go out there and prove it.”
There were 19 players on the defensive side of the ball that made at least one tackle on Sunday with Kyle Dugger (6), Judon (5), JC Jackson (5), Christian Barmore (4) and Ja’Whuan Bentley (4) leading the way. Each of those guys with the exception of Judon were draft picks that were highly questioned (maybe aside from Barmore) or have been questioned recently (Jackson) that were a big reason why Herbert only threw for 223 yards. Many people still aren’t fans of Belichick the GM over the last decade or so, but it’s hard to ignore seeing these players improving to the point where they made a quarterback as talented as Herbert look mediocre.
The AFC is absolutely wide open right now and suddenly the Patriots are just two games behind the Titans atop the conference. This team is far from perfect but have very winnable games against Carolina, Cleveland and Atlanta coming up. If Belichick can continue to get this interesting mix of young and old guys on defense to take his coaching and his message, 7-4 heading into a matchup with Tennessee on November 28th at Gillette – with 9 days to prepare following the Thursday night Falcons game – makes things awfully interesting again around here.
“Really just try to focus on each play. One play at a time and each day, one day at a time, and make the most you can out of that opportunity,” Belichick added Monday morning on Zoom. “If you get too caught up in what happened in the past, you’ll miss an opportunity in the future. Think too much about what’s too far ahead, you miss the opportunity that’s in front of you.
“That’s what I’ve always tried to emphasize. Certainly, there’s a positivity to winning, and it gives you a good motivation to come in and do the things that you did that helped you to win, to do more of them and improve. That’s a good thing, too, but we’ve all got to learn from our mistakes. We’ve had games go the other way that we’ve had to learn from those, too. That’s the NFL season. It’s a rollercoaster. Every team goes through challenges, ups and downs, and deals with different things. That’s just part of it.”