Poor week of practices led to poor performances according to New England Patriots players
In the wake of their 34-14 loss to the Cleveland Browns, some of the New England Patriots players are admitting that a week's worth of poor practices is what led to a poor performance on Sunday, 7 November, as the Patriots saw their NFL best record slip
away.
"Whatever you do in practice will show up in the game," Patriots wide receiver Deion Branch told reporters after Monday's team meeting. "You can always stay positive, but you've got to also know at the same time that if we come out and play bad in the game,
we already know the reasons."
The Patriots players sat and watched the game film while coach Bill Belichick made criticisms, and all left the meeting with an angry look after having to relive their worst performance of the year.
"Everybody looked at each other in the room before we walked out," Branch said. "You could see it in the guys' eyes. Nobody said anything. Everybody was real ticked off at their play."
The Patriots found themselves down early in their game against the Browns and they never seemed to recover their focus as they continued to make miscues over the course of the entire 60 minutes.
"The bottom line comes to what we do on Sundays," tight end
Alge Crumpler commented after the meeting. "You can talk about a week of practice. I've had awesome weeks of practice and lost a ballgame. I've had bad weeks and won a ballgame. You could chalk it up any way you want to, but the bottom line is we've
got to go out there for those 60 minutes and make it happen."
Belichick has earned himself the reputation of being a bit of perfectionist, but he will never describe the play of his team as such, no matter what the outcome of any game. "They're never perfect," coach Bill Belichick said after the meeting. "They can
always be better."
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