Patriots fans may be used to seeing their team win an AFC East division title, but after Sunday's win over the Broncos it's pretty clear that Belichick and his players aren't downplaying what has been a remarkable season so far.
 Brady and the Patriots earned another 'Hat and T-Shirt' on Sunday. (FILE:Icon/SMI) |
Despite their defensive struggles and all the questions they've faced this season, the team finds themselves sitting at 11-3 with two games to go. Once again, they earned another AFC East Division title, and appear to be gaining confidence with each week.
"That's one of our goals at the start of the season is to meet the challenge of our division, and our players have done that," said Belichick when asked about the accomplishment after the game. "You know, [we're] 6-2 on the road, so they've done a good job. They've met a lot of challenges, and this was a big one, but those guys did a great job today. You know, we got contributions from everybody, so really, you give the whole team credit."
Despite an early deficit, the Patriots never wavered. They answered Denver's early onslaught and then went on to run off 27 unanswered points, including 20 second quarter points, which completely changed the complexion of the game. It forced Tim Tebow and the Broncos to have to play from behind, and the Patriots were able to keep Denver from putting together another improbable comeback at their expense.
They've found themselves in tough spots all season, and Brady pointed out that it's been Belichick that has been a big part of the reason why they've been mentally tough this season.
"We take our cue from our head coach," said Brady when asked about where they get their mental toughness from. "I mean I think he puts it on us every day in practice, in the meetings, in walkthroughs, and he has very high expectations for us. Sometimes when things don't go right, you've got to persevere.
"You've got to keep fighting, just keeping fighting, and our team has really shown we can do that over the course of the season. We've been down early in games. We were down in Philly, we were down here, we were down on the Raiders, we were down against Miami and we found a way to really fight back."
Fortunately all of that fighting was enough to earn them another hat and t-shirt. Hopefully they'll be adding to that wardrobe in the coming weeks.
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