FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — For many New England Patriots, making the playoffs is nothing new.
Rob Ninkovich, the Patriots’ stellar edge defender, joined the team in 2009 and has never missed the playoffs. And Tom Brady has played 31 career playoff games – or one shy of the equivalent of two regular seasons.
UP NEXT
WHO: Lowest remaining AFC seed at Patriots
WHEN: 8:15 p.m., Jan. 14
TELEVISION: CBS
But there are those on the Patriots who are new to this whole playoff thing. Defensive end Chris Long (ninth NFL season), wide receiver Chris Hogan (fourth season), and linebackers Shea McClellin (fifth) and Kyle Van Noy (third) are among the veterans who have never experienced a playoff game.
And then there’s Martellus Bennett, the loquacious tight end who came to the Patriots in an offseason trade from Chicago. While he has playoff experience – two games with the Cowboys in 2009 when he caught three passes for 27 yards – he’d rather not reflect on that. Dallas was routed in the divisional round by the Vikings, 34-3.
“This is a lot more fun than catching 90 balls and losing 10 games,” Bennett said, perhaps alluding to 2014 when he caught 90 passes for Chicago, which won only five games that season.
But it’s not all fun for the Patriots on this bye week. While the players are off until Monday, when they have to return to Gillette Stadium to begin preparing for Houston, Oakland or Miami, they might want to take a cue from the Big Guys, otherwise known as Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. This may be a bye weekend but they won’t be resting.
“We’re in the home stretch right here,” Belichick said Thursday. “I don’t think this is the time for the coaches to back off, or anybody for that matter. This is what it’s all about. This is the highest level of competition that you can have. It’s the best teams. We’re going to have to play and coach our best, and we don’t know who it is so there are right now three teams that we could potentially play that we have to be ready for.”
So this weekend, Belichick and his staff will break down film and gather as much information as they can. That group will include offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, top candidates for head coaching vacancies who will also squeeze in interviews with coach-seeking franchises this weekend.
When the players return Monday, the staff needs to be able “to give them the best information and the best scouting report and the best game plan we can to give them the best chance to win,” said Belichick. “That job isn’t done yet. We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
Brady, who has the most playoff wins (22) of any quarterback in NFL history, knows this. A three-time Super Bowl MVP, Brady is not taking the weekend off to spend time with wife Gisele and the little ones.
“I think it’s a lot of preparation,” he said. “I think you’re trying to get a jump on who it may be, because we play now on a short week, basically. It’s going to take until Sunday to figure out who we play. I’m going to try to watch a lot of football.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do over the next three or four days physically and mentally so that when we do figure out who we’re playing, we’re ready to go, as ready as we can be, on Monday.”
No matter how well the team played – and a 14-2 record for a season that began with Brady serving a four-game suspension is remarkable – it all comes down to being ready for whoever the Patriots will face on Jan. 14.
“Honestly, I don’t really care where anything was during the regular season,” said Belichick when asked about defensive communication. “It doesn’t matter how good it was or it wasn’t. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is where it is next Saturday night. That’s what we have to work toward, making each one of us, every player, every coach be able to give our absolute best performance next Saturday night. That’s all we care about.”
Brady certainly understands the excitement felt by Bennett and others, calling this “a great time of the year.”
But he knows the Pats can’t take anything for granted. New England was the top seed in 2010 but lost to the Jets 28-21 in the divisional round.
“You have no entitlement to move on,” said Brady. “I said last week, you’ve got 70 plays on offense left in your season and you’ve got to earn the right for another 70.”
Not having playoff experience, neither Long nor Hogan knows exactly what to expect. But being around Brady and Belichick, they know what it will take to keep moving on.
“It’s one and done,” said Hogan, tied for the NFL lead this season by averaging 17.9 yards per catch. “You’re playing for just the next game so everyone is kind of playing that much harder. I’m excited to go play in this game, and start preparing this week and next week.”
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