Patriots Were Beaten by Fake Punt in Practice

Robert Alvarez

8 years ago at 4:00 pm ET

David Butler II - USA TODAY Sports

When speaking to the media in his postgame press conference Sunday afternoon, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick noted that when the Jaguars unsuccessfully attempted a fake punt that the Patriots recovered during the third quarter, the team actually failed to do so in practice earlier in the week.

According to Belichick, the Patriots ran a nearly identical play and the special teams unit failed to stop it.

“It was actually a play that we ran in practice and James White got us on it, and we made some corrections on that in practice and then were able to carry those over into the game,” Belichick said. “Slate got a good read on it, and he’s a hard guy to outrun. It’s hard to outrun Matt to get to the outside. He did a good job of tracking it down and making the tackle. It was a heads-up play by our special teams, punt return unit. We’ve always got to be alert for those kinds of things, whether it’s a fake punt or an onside kick or fake field goal – whatever it happens to be. That’s part of their job, but I thought the whole unit reacted well to it because we had to obviously stop it on both sides.”

The play provided another in depth example to the extensive preparation and “situational football” Belichick preaches to his players day in and day out and has been documented recently in such programs as “A Football Life” and “Do Your Job”.

On fake punt that Patriots stopped in 2nd half, Bill Belichick notes that team was beaten in practice by James White on something similar.

— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) September 27, 2015