New England Patriots Proving They Can Win Even When Playing Their Worst

You can't always count on New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to give an in-depth, elaborate answer to a question at a press conference. But after Sunday's 30-23 win over the New York Jets, Belichick didn't waste a second cutting to the core of his team's victory.

"It definitely wasn't our best performance," he said, "a lot of things that we left out on the field, just didn't do well enough, but in the end we were able to make the plays we needed to make when we needed to make them. That was critical in all three phases of the game."

To a man, this statement is true. The Patriots did not play well enough in any area for the first three-plus quarters of the game, which resulted in a four-point deficit in the fourth quarter. Two touchdown drives later, the Patriots had taken a 10-point lead, but the Jets weren't done. A field goal brought the score to within seven points, and the Jets recovered an onside kick, but a last-second penalty and 10-second run-off killed any hope of a Jets win.

Of course, the main focus coming out of the game will be the drops—11 of them, to be exact, out of 20 incomplete passes by Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. The main focus of that focus will be wide receiver Brandon LaFell, who turned in two catches and six drops in his first game back from the physically unable to perform list. Though LaFell was not pleased with his performance, he was optimistic about turning things around; he also thanked teammate Danny Amendola, according to MassLive's Kevin Duffy:

"If I had to give myself a grade, it would be an 'F,'" LaFell said. "I let the ball get out of my hands too many times. Tom threw some good balls, I should have caught them. But overall we got the win. I just have to get back to it. We have a short week. Dust the cobwebs off and come back out here and play."

Of course, LaFell was far from the only player on the roster who might like to have a few plays back after playing less than his best game. Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler was flagged three times (two of which were part of an offsetting penalty) and was unable to keep up with Jets wide receiver Eric Decker at times early in the game. 

"Most definitely it wasn't our best [game], but that's a great team," Butler said. "That's a good team out there. Got to go back to the drawing board and get better. That's it." Butler went on to state that the team's confidence was not shaken, per the Boston Herald's Jeff Howe:

But what does it say about the Patriots that they can leave so many opportunities on the field, fail to execute at some critical junctures in the game and still come away with a seven-point win against a good team?

The answer: It says quite a bit, most of it positive. 

The negatives, of course, are that the Patriots left those opportunities on the field and failed to execute. Those are things that will have to be cleaned up. The positives, on the other hand, are that the Patriots looked invincible in the first four games of the season, and even as the team has faced its first bouts of adversity, the Patriots have not failed to rise to the challenge.

"We just stuck together," tight end Rob Gronkowski said of the team's fourth-quarter rally. "I mean obviously throughout the game, the offense wasn't clicking the whole time, which we need to be. We can't be having so many three-and-outs, but in the fourth quarter we just dig down, dig deep. Players were stepping up, making plays. Tom was on point. The line was doing a great job, and we just executed as an offense, as a unit, in those final drives, which we should be doing all game."

In the first half, the Patriots offense converted just three of its nine third-down opportunities, scored a season-low 13 first-half points and picked up a season-low 120 yards of offense. 

With five conversions on seven third downs, 17 points and 233 yards of offense in the second half, it's safe to say the Patriots made the necessary adjustments and found their rhythm to close out the game successfully and come away with the victory. The NFL highlighted the scoring ability of the Brady/Gronkowski combo:

But not before giving themselves a substantial amount of adversity. 

"You can't worry," Gronkowski said. "You've just got to stick to the script, stay level-headed, and when our turn is up on offense, we've got to go out there and execute. They have a good team. We had to keep fighting. We had to play 60 minutes."

One more positive to take from this game: The Patriots have only put together a full 60-minute performance once this season. That was against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 3, a 51-17 win at home.

They let up points in bunches in the final minutes against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buffalo Bills, but had built a big-enough lead in those games to atone for their late mistakes. They came out slow and sluggish against the Dallas Cowboys and the Indianapolis Colts, but finished strong in those games. 

This week, it took a lot longer for the Patriots to put it together than it did previously, but their ability to turn it around says a lot about the guys in that locker room. 

"We're a very mentally tough team," defensive end Rob Ninkovich said, "and I think that the work we put in during the week, again, we go into these games and we understand that you've got to play four quarters and you've got to stick to the plan. I think just believing in ourselves and knowing that [if] we continue to fight, continue to play hard, we're going to, at the end of the game, come out victorious." 

The Patriots can't afford to play that poorly for that stretch of time every week, but it has to give the players some measure of comfort to know that even if they do, they are still capable of pulling out a victory.

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained first-hand.