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The Pats are off to Germany officially, flying out Thursday night. Before that though, Bill Belichick and Mac Jones both talked on Wednesday.
At 2-7 and with the offense still sputtering aside from the Buffalo game – and even that wasn’t all too flashy – can the Pats flip the switch and get in the end zone more consistently against Indy? Can the defense get back to the way it looked against the Bills? Heck, even special teams may need to play bigger role this weekend, especially with all the brutal penalties that unit committed at horrendous times last week.
As he usually doesn’t, Belichick had high praise for the opponent, even if they’re a middling team too right now and luckily for the Pats, there’s some familiarity with this version of the Colts, unlike there was against Washington last weekend.
“Alright, so the Colts. This is a team we’ve played the last couple of years, so there’s definitely a familiarity with them,” he said. “New head coach, new offensive system, but special teams and defense, there’s a lot of carryover from the last couple years. Obviously, there’s a lot of carryover with the players. They have some very talented guys – [Matt] Gay, [Jonathan] Taylor, guys on the offensive line. A couple of good receivers, obviously the big three on defense. Good group of guys, done a good job, won some close games. Good field goal kicker, big win against Baltimore. Kenny [Moore II] had a good game last week against Carolina, obviously.
“We’ll have to do a good job taking care of the ball, do a good job in the running game, play good situational football.”
Mac Jones continues to answer the same kind of questions each week when it comes to his growth and ability to lead a team. Once again on Wednesday, he talked about his process and how he believes there’s improvement on his end, even if the wins aren’t following.
To his credit, he remains the same guy day in and day out.
” I think that’s a great way to look at it. I mean, everyone wants to look at it negatively, but when maybe you’re not playing as well as you can but honestly, I am going to look at it as a positive and what can I get better at?” Jones said. “What are my weaknesses? Where do I need to improve? It’s not going to happen overnight. I’ve said that before up here, I’ve got a lot of stuff to work on and every week I’m going to work on something and just try to close the gap on that and get rid of some bad habits that maybe I formed or things like that. It’s sports, that happens, right? You might form a bad habit, but it might take a couple weeks, months, years to fix and the really good ones can fix it quickly and stay on top of it.”
Jones also touched on the fact that he’s played the Colts in each season he’s been in the NFL and what he expects to see from them.
“They’ve got good players. I’ve obviously played against them. This will be my third time in a row. We played them decently well last year, and I feel like they’ve got good players at each level, right?” Jones added. “Coach [Gus] Bradley does a good job. They are very sound fundamentally, and they’ve been bringing some more pressures and things like that. It looks like a good defense on film, and they’re very sound. We have to bring our A game and really just focus on what we can control.
“A good amount (of man coverage), but it’s kind of like a variable thing. I won’t get into details, but that system of coverages and coaches, they have things that they do. Each game plan could be different, right? A lot of times those defenses have evolved and things like that. Each coordinator has their own flavor to it.”
Whatever Jones and Belichick see in Germany this weekend, they’ll have to find a way to get guys in the right position to make plays more consistently, or we’ll be looking at a 2-8 franchise continuing to find new rock bottoms as New England heads into the bye week.