Chris Forsberg reports James Ihedigbo made it clear that the only thing that matters to this defense is the bottom line.
"I’ve never been around a group that wants to win more than the guys in this locker room," said Ihedigbo. "And winning is everything. We work too hard during the week and we watch too much tape, we study too much as a group to come up on the short end during a week that we put so much effort and preparation into. We’re definitely going to have chip on shoulder this week. I know our defense, we’re fired up. We're ready to go."
"You watch that tape and it’s nothing we want to represent us as a defense," he said. "As a team, we watched that, and everyone had that look on their face, like, 'That isn’t us.' What we put on tape isn’t us. We’ll correct that, and come out next week ready to show how the New England Patriots play defense."
Shallise Manza Young notes Patrick Chung was a bit encouraged that the Patriots still found a way to stay in the game after watching the film from Sunday.
Chung said the Patriots gave up "just a couple of big plays. I mean, we played good, we executed at times - most times. All it takes is a couple of big plays.’
"Man, that’s any team, any defense [can give up big plays]. If you’re playing a great game and give up a couple of big plays, that could be the difference in the game. So we need to get better at that.’’
"[I'm] definitely encouraged," Chung said. "We played a good game. [The Steelers] just played a better one. They had more big plays than we did. We played a good game, they played a better game, and they got the best of us."
TEAM TALK
- Erik Scalavino looks for positives (something, anything) in loss.
- Press Conference: Bill Belichick (7.38 min. video plus Transcript)
- Locker Room Uncut - Thoughts from the safeties. (2.39 min. video)
- Patriots Today - Faulk back in action. (1.51 min. video)
- Patriots Today - Brady, Pats come home empty. (3.37 min. video)
- Totally Patriots - Week 8 edition. (23 min. video)
- WEEI Patriots Monday: Tom Brady (21.48 min.), Deion Branch (11.42 min.), Andre Carter (8.20 min.), Vince Wilfork (16.37 min.) and Bill Belichick (22.33 min.)
- Player interviews: James Ihedigbo (4.46 min.) and Patrick Chung (3.40 min.)
LOCAL LINKS
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Marie Szaniszlo reports Julian Edelman is in court this morning, charged with groping a woman at a Halloween party last night (more details). Maybe he shouldn't have gone as a creep.
- Ian Rapoport focuses on how the Patriots' receivers suffered their worst performance this season by far.
- Ian Rapoport charts how the Patriots receivers have fared, game-by-game and notes they'll have to find a way to consistently get open in the future.
- Shalise Manza Young puts the spotlight on the performance of the Patriots offense, that has been off track for the last two weeks.
- Mike Petraglia points out the Patriots receivers have to know how to get open in man-to-man coverage.
- Chris Forsberg says that despite an often-ugly loss at Pittsburgh, the Patriots found some silver linings.
- Tedy Bruschi believes that mixing and matching in the secondary isn't working for the Patriots.
- Tom E. Curran wonders what the problem is with underachieving second-year LB Jermaine Cunningham.
- Christopher Price gives us ten things we learned Sunday: the Patriots secondary is now a primary concern.
- Chris Gasper is concerned that the Steelers beat the Patriots at their own game.
- Tom E. Curran gets Pittsburgh's view of what their plan was and how they will no longer give the Patriots more respect than they deserve.
- Ian Rapoport explains why Bill Belichick didn't challenge Rob Gronkowski's touchdown. It was all up to some guy in a truck who opted not to show the replay on TV until later.
- Chris Forsberg gives us a game-by-game breakdown of the O-line's protection problems, giving up 11 sacks in the last three games.
- Mike Reiss takes a look at snaps played by Patriots defenders and analyzes what it might mean.
- Christopher Price breaks down the Patriots' penalties through seven games.
- Mike Reiss catches us up with how some former Patriots are doing around the league.
- Ian Rapoport mentions a whole bunch of Patriots players returned home to find they have no power or heat because of the storm.
- WEEI Patriots Monday highlights: Tom Brady and Andre Carter.
- WEEI highlights Boomer Esiason's guest appearance Monday. Esiason thinks the Pats are in trouble if they have to play on the road in the playoffs.
- Shalise Manza Young Patriots Notebook: Patrick Chung and James Ihedigbo had different assessments of New England's defensive performance; Troy Polamalu's play was illegal, but not reviewable either; A correct ruling would have penalized the Steelers 10 yards and the Patriots would have kept the ball; Kevin Faulk was a bit sore after returning to game action; Leigh Bodden cleared waivers and is now a free agent.
- ESPNBoston issues it's Week 8 Report card and it's not pretty.
- Ron Borges takes out the red pen for his Week 8 Report Card. 'D' for defense.
- Jeff Howe gives out his Week 8 Grades and calls it gut-check time for the Patriots.
NATIONAL NEWS
- Gregg Rosenthal (ProFootballTalk) Belichick's personnel moves come under scrutiny.
- AP Report (ESPN) Troy Polamalu's slap against the rules.
- Jason Cole (Yahoo! Sports) Steelers beat Patriots' Brady at his own game.
- Clark Judge (CBS sports) Patriots won't go very far with highly susceptible defense.
- Andy Benoit (NY Times) Week 8 quick hits: Patriots missing a pass rush again.
- George Bretherton (NY Times) Should the NFL 'flex' the Jets out of a Sunday night game?
- Brian Costello (NY Post) Jets back after bye with shot at AFC East lead.
- Clark Judge (CBS Sports) Week 8 Judgements: Now We'll see how good Eli really is.
VIEW FROM NEW YORK
- Gary Myers (NY Daily News) NY Giants barely beat Miami Dolphins, must play better against New England Patriots.
- Bart Hubbuch (NY Post) Giants get clues from Patriots loss to Steelers.
- Paul Schwartz (NY Post) Giants don't see Sunday as rematch with Patriots.
- Ebenezer Samuel (NY Daily News) NY Giants QB Eli Manning says it's time to look beyond Super Bowl XLII.
- Steve Serby (NY Post) Giants respect Brady, but simply revere Eli.
- Gary Myers (NY Daily News) Eli Manning proves he is on the same level as Patriots' Tom Brady.
- Mike Garafolo (NJ Star-Ledger) Victor Cruz among receivers who say Eli Manning is an elite quarterback.
- Ebenezer Samuel (NY Daily News) NY Giants receive good news on Hakeem Nicks' hamstring injury.