New England Patriots Links 10/31/11 - All Tricks, No Treats in Pittsburgh

Vince Wilfork assesses the defensive performance Sunday.

We just didn't play well. We had them in long down situations, but we just couldn't overcome. Playing against a team like that, if you can't get off the field on third down, it's going to be a long day as you saw. You have to give them a lot of credit. They came up with a good game plan. They attacked us and they executed their game plan. We obviously didn't. We have to get back to the drawing board. There's a lot of football left to play. We have to take this one in stride and take it like a man. We win as a team, we lose as a team. We'll get moving tomorrow, and it's on to New York.

We just didn't come to play today. I'm not going to say it was the bye week, or whatever it was. We just didn't come to play today and it showed. How frustrating was it to not get off the field on so many 3rd downs? 
Very frustrating. We talk about getting them in 2nd and long, 3rd and long and taking advantage of those situations. We had them in those situations but we didn't take advantage of it. It was a team effort. You can't say it was the defensive backs, you can't say it was us. I think collectively we didn't do a good job defensively, when it comes down to it. Like I said, you win as a team, you lose as a team. Take it like a man. Take it as a team and move forward. We have to be able to fix it and move on.

Deion Branch said the Steelers didn't do anything surprising yesterday.

They came in and played. They did what they had to do. They did their style, and we didn't do what we're supposed to do. If you look at it, we had a lot of penalties and a lot of three-and-outs. We didn't score from the red zone every time. We know there are things that we're good at that we didn't do. They took advantage of it, but I would say that most of that stuff is self-inflicted. We just have to work on our stuff and get better at what we're doing. Especially those three-and-outs, that's bad football.

When we get on the football field, we have to take advantage of opportunities. We didn't do it. The defense did a great job, even though they drove the ball down the field, they didn't get in the end zone. Our job was to go out and do the same thing, but we didn't. We didn't convert on third down, we didn't convert from the red zone. We had too many flags flying. That's the game of football. You minimize all the mistakes, flags, three-and-outs, and score in the red area, and we didn't do any of them.

We felt like we had a good week of preparation, and we didn't show up. That's the part that's frustrating. Coach Belichick did a great job of working us and installing everything that we needed to win this game. We had a great two weeks of practice, and we just didn't go out and show what we did in practice. We just didn't do it.

TEAM TALK

• Post Game Notes: Patriots vs. Steelers. Team and player milestones reached, records set and trends continued.
• Erik Scalavino concludes the Patriots were done in by third downs, long drives, and their own listlessness.
• Post Game Pressers: Bill Belichick (5.15 min. video plus Transcript) and Tom Brady (3.58 min. video plus Transcript)
• Patriots Post Game Quotes.
• Patriots Today - Brian Lowe and Scott Zolak break down the loss. (3.12 min. video)
• Locker Room Uncut - Post game reaction. (2.27 min. video)
• Patriots Postgame Show - Adam Jones wraps up the 25-17 loss. (2 hour program)

LOCAL LINKS

• Shalise Manza Young reasons as poorly as the Patriots had played, there was still a chance to win at the end... until there wasn't.
• Ian Rapoport watched a game that showed the Patriots offense completely off their rhythm and over-matched physically.
• Mark Farinella says it took 8 games before the Patriots' weakness on pass defense was finally exposed, and then exploited, by the Steelers.
• Tom E. Curran gives credit to the Steelers for taking advantage of a major mismatch between its wide receivers and the Patriots secondary.
• Mark Farinella reports it was the third downs that doomed the Patriots. Steelers were six-for-six.
• Karen Guregian reports the Steelers were not intimidated by the Patriots offense and were sure they could win a shootout with Tom Brady.
• Chris Forsberg says Kevin Faulk played with less rust than some of his teammates in his first game back after 13 months.
• Mike Reiss gives us his initial reaction following the game, and analyzes what it means.
• Greg A. Bedard sees Belichick the general manager has let down Belichick the coach.
• Ron Borges puts the 'D' in the Twilight Zone. Defense was never 'getting better', opposing quarterbacks were getting worse.
• Chris Forsberg reports Rob Gronkowski believed he had a touchdown that wasn't called by the refs.
• Mike Reiss tallies the snaps taken by offensive skill-position players and notes Kevin Faulk's playing time stood out (39 of 58 snaps).
• Mike Reiss looks at the positional groupings used yesterday, the predominate being multiple tight end sets.
• Mike Reiss tells us which players were on multiple special teams units.
• Mike Rodak notes Jerod Mayo had a limited role in his first game back after suffering a knee injury in Oakland.
• Boston Globe Patriots Notebook: Kevin Faulk started his first game in 13 months; Jerod Mayo returned for the first time since injuring his knee in Oakland; Rob Gronkowski understood his TD wasn't challenged because the team couldn't risk losing a timeout; The Krafts saw "zero malice" in the Gronk pictures; Steelers were determined to play physical against the NE offense; Brandon Spikes was the defensive signal caller yesterday; Steelers knew they would have more success passing against the Pats' soft secondary than running against the big linemen; Cunningham & Edelman were healthy scratches.
• Mark Farinella lists his Hots and Nots from Sunday, and yes, there were a couple of bright spots.
• Ron Borges offers his Best and Worst of yesterdays game.
• Mike Reiss gives us his three up and three down for the Patriots.

NATIONAL NEWS

• NFL Game Center: New England Patriots at Pittsburgh Steelers. Recap, stats, analysis and highlight clips.
• ESPN Stats & Information (ESPN) Next-level statistical analysis of Pats' loss.
• Alok Pattani (ESPN Stats & Info) Numbers say Pats made right call on kickoff.
• Alex Marvez (Fox Sports) Defensive woes could cripple New England's title hopes.
• Matt Bowen (Nat'l Football Post) Week 8 Sunday rewind. Nice picture of Troy Polamalu unscrewing Wes Welker's head.
• Don Banks (SI) With statement win, Steelers show critics they still haven't lost a step.
• Peter King (SI) MMQB: Truths starting to emerge as season approaches midway point.
• Don Banks (SI) Week 8 Snap judgments.
• Mike Pereira (Fox Sports) Analyzing Week 8's most controversial calls.