While Tom Brady is getting ready to play in his 10th Super Bowl, his old team is already a month off-season.
The New England Patriots finished 7-9 in their first season without the superstar defender, posting their worst record since 2000 and missing out on the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
Speaking Wednesday on SiriusXM NFL Radio, Patriots defensive tackle and co-captain Lawrence Guy paraphrased coach Bill Belichick’s message to the team after his strangely disappointing campaign.
“The coach will do what he has to do,” said Guy when asked about the Patriots’ plan for the future. “When we left our exit meeting, it was one of those things like, ‘Hey, what’s going to happen next?’ And (Belichick) said, ‘You have to understand. This was a season that we did not anticipate. We were successful at COVID. We had many situations that occurred in our team. There were many new people. We don’t win (the number of) games we want to win. But that doesn’t mean that we just put the tail under the bottom and go. This means that you strive to be better the following year. ‘
“I have never been with the organization (in a moment) where, with victory or defeat, we (don’t) appear the following year as, ‘OK, we need to be better.’ ‘Did we win a Super Bowl? We watched the Super Bowl fixes. We won, but look at all those bad plays, we have to improve so we don’t have to do it again the following year. ‘And this is the type of person the Coach (Belichick) is. We will improve regardless of the situation. It may not be the result that some people may not want, wins or losses, but it will get better every week. “
As Guy noted, the pandemic had a definite effect on the Patriots’ season.
First, they lost eight players with the best NFL title – including titleholders Dont’a Hightower, Patrick Chung and Marcus Cannon – by withdrawing from preseason. Then quarterback Cam Newton tested positive for COVID-19 in early October, triggering an outbreak that resulted in two game deferrals and nearly two full weeks of canceled training.
The Patriots suffered a streak of four consecutive defeats after Newton’s diagnosis and never rose above 0.500.
Guy downplayed the impact of New England opt-outs.
“There were some players who chose to leave and some players who went forward where you could see their potential and see them commit (towards) who they were going to be and who they are becoming,” he said on SiriusXM. “But at the end of the day, the players who gave up were not on that field playing, so they didn’t win or lose a game for us.
“The players who were on the field are the people who won or lost the game. The games we lost, we lost as a team. The games we won, we won as a team. It was not a unit or a piece. … This year, we had a challenge to face, and some of those challenges were nail biting. The last move came, the last quarter, the last series, and we couldn’t finish. That’s how I see things. “
The Patriots lost four games from a scoreboard, but lost another five by double digits, including defeats to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 7, Los Angeles Rams in Week 14 and Buffalo Bills in Week 16.
It is unclear whether Guy, who has been with the Patriots since 2017, will be back next season. He is set to become a free agent in March, but expressed a desire to re-sign.
Miniature photo via Kirby Lee / USA TODAY Sports Images