FOXBORO, MA -- A still frustrated Bill Belichick
stood at the podium on Monday and was obviously still upset over the 217-yards
rushing his team allowed to San Diego Chargers runningback LaDanian Tomlinson
on Sunday.
New England is still recovering from their 21-14 loss to the Chargers,
with their poor defensive performance still fresh in their minds as they
sat through meetings on Monday after returning to work at Gillette Stadium.
New England allowed 6-runs of 12-yards or more to Tomlinson, including
three rushes of 37 or more, with two of those resulting in touchdowns.
It was bad enough that Tomlinson broke through a defensive line that
will now be without Anthony Pleasant who according to one source suffered
a separated shoulder in the loss, but for Tomlinson to be able to break
through a Patriots secondary who is supposed to have three heavy hitting
safeties, Belichick said that was simply unacceptable.
And on Monday he called them out.
"Any time you give up long runs in the running game, a significant part
of that problem goes to the secondary," Belichick told the media on Monday.
"Because it doesn't matter really if [the other team runs] in there and
they block everybody flat on their back, you still have a second line of
defense and those plays shouldn't go for more than seven, eight, ten yards
maybe if they come through there clean."
"If [the runningback] gets through the line of scrimmage than it's the
secondary's job to keep it to a reasonable gain."
That was something they certainly weren't able to do, allowing Tomlinson
to average 8-yards per game in the contest. Defensive backs Lawyer
Milloy (1 tackle), Tebucky Jones (3-tackles), and Otis Smith (2 tackles
and allowed a 52-yard touchdown reception) were all just one of many reasons
why New England's 12-game winning streak came to an end after all three
had sub-par performances as they watched Tomlinson spend a lot of the afternoon
blowing first by the guys up front, and then past them right afterwards.
The other reason was New England's offense which twice had the ball
in San Diego territory when quarterback Tom Brady was victimized on two
straight possessions, throwing interceptions that were picked off at the
12 and 7-yard line for the Chargers, taking away two scoring opportunities.
For an offense that had been averaging 38-points per game coming into
last Sunday, it's hard to believe that they had 440-yards in total offense
and just 14-points.
Belichick obviously couldn't believe it either.
"Offensively we basically had five opportunities down there, either
in the red area or down in the scoring zone across the 50 and then came
out with nothing on five shots, said Belichick. "We moved the ball
but for all the yardage we had we didn't have enough points to show for
it. So that was disappointing."
If anyone thought for a moment that Belichick wouldn't call his team
out when the going got tough, Monday was a good example of the fact nobody
is immune to criticism. Not the defense, not the offense, not anyone.
Needless to say there will be a lot to work on when the team returns
to work on Wednesday to get ready for Miami.
"[This has happened] two weeks in a row," said Belichick. "It's
not I think a characteristic of the way we play run defense around here,
and certainly not what we're looking for."
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