The New England Patriots lost 27-20 to the Miami Dolphins and the general feeling from the players and coaches after the game was frustration. Head coach Bill Belichick wanted nothing to do with the media and quarterback Tom Brady didn’t have any answers for the team’s struggles.
Head coach Bill Belichick
#Patriots head coach Bill Belichick live postgame press conference: https://t.co/K08yY3a84K
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) December 12, 2017
Q: In the first half there were 12 targets to running backs and tight ends and just three I think to receivers. Was there anything that they were doing that you saw that led to the ball maybe going to the backs other than maybe the receivers that led to that disparity?
"I don't know how many times we've been through this. We call the play, we run the route, based on the coverage they're in, the decision the quarterback makes, throw the ball to the open guy. We don't go back and throw it to one guy like we're going to throw 10 passes to a receiver, or we're going to throw 10 passes to the tight end. It's based on that route, it's based on the coverage, it's based on the quarterback, the decision the quarterback makes on that play. So, we could look at each play, go through each read, talk to the quarterback and try to answer your question that way, but I just can't do that right now. But, no, we weren't trying to throw every pass to one guy, we never do that."
Quarterback Tom Brady
#Patriots QB Tom Brady live postgame press conference: https://t.co/pXcBv6MKfW
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) December 12, 2017
Q: In the first half a lot of targets to the running backs, I think there were like 11 targets or 12 to the running backs and only a few to the receivers. What were you seeing out there that maybe led the ball to go to them more to them? What were they doing maybe that led to that?
"I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I think there were less screen passes in there and stuff like that. We just have to take a look. Ideally you'd like to spread it around to everybody. We just got behind and not really the way we wanted to play the game. It was just a bad loss."
Other quotes:
Duron Harmon: We knew how big of a game it was for them and how big of a game it was for us. It just seemed like they wanted it more than we did.
— Mark Daniels (@MarkDanielsPJ) December 12, 2017
McCourty: “We weren’t on it...They just made more plays than us today.” pic.twitter.com/GBgZYp7mSS
— Phil Perry (@PhilAPerry) December 12, 2017