Column: New players need to realize they have to prove they're Patriots

NEW ORLEANS — Ok new guys, your probation is over. It’s time to play for your paycheck, starting here at 1 p.m. today.

And I don’t mean just go out and play. I mean play like a Patriot.

It may say Patriot on your sternum, and you may have the Flying Elvis on your sleeves and helmets, but you aren’t Patriots yet. In case nobody has told you yet, you earn that around here with how you perform.

That looked to be part of the problem in last week’s pathetic 42-27 loss at home and in front of a nationally televised audience. Too many new players took the field with all the fireworks and five Super Bowl championship banners hanging in their new fortress of solitude and thought they had already accomplished something.

Oh, by the end of the night, they had. They were part of the team that gave up the most points and yards in Bill Belichick’s distinguished coaching career in New England. That’s not just on the defense either. The Patriots were also outscored 21-0 and outgained 231-31 in the fourth quarter.

In the words of Dennis Eckersley, “Yuck.”

Hopefully someone, at some point, told the new players this week that they haven't earned their stripes yet. That's, basically, what Tom Brady was trying to say at varying points after the Chiefs game and this week.

"We just have to be a lot better in a lot of areas, starting with our attitude and our competitiveness," Brady lamented after the loss. "I just think we need to have more urgency and go out there and perform a lot better. That is a winning attitude and a championship attitude that you need to bring every day. We had it handed to us on our own field. … We’ve got to dig a lot deeper than we did tonight because we didn’t dig very deep tonight.

Brady doubled down this week in the run-up to the Saints game.

"We’ve got to have the same type of urgency that we had for the first three quarters of that game and play a lot better and go out and just get our job done, be the kind of players that our teammates can depend on and try to go get a win at a very tough place to play," Brady said.

Be the kind of players that our teammates can depend on.

Wow. That’s pretty damning from Brady. But I don’t think those comments were aimed at any teammates in particular.

I think it’s a case that Brady looks around the locker room and he sees a lot of players, more than usual, who are new to the Patriots’ environment. There are 11 who could be playing significant roles in today’s game: Brandin Cooks, Phillip Dorsett, Mike Gillislee, Rex Burkhead, Dwayne Allen, Lawrence Guy, Deatrich Wise. Adam Butler, Cassius Marsh, David Harris and Stephon Gilmore.

Contrast that to last season’s list: Chris Hogan, Malcolm Mitchell, Martellus Bennett, Chris Long, Joe Thuney, Shea McClellin and Eric Rowe.

That’s a lot of change, a lot of guys who are playing for a Super Bowl favorite and have no earthly idea what that means, or what it requires. That’s not even accounting for a player like Kyle Van Noy, who came in midway through last season and fit into an established team structure. This season, he’s being counted on to lead and be the communication hub for the defense. That’s another huge and important change.

We all glossed over this, and we saw the result. Now, we get to see where they go from here.

How is it going to go?

Well, I do not worry about Cooks, Burkhead, Guy and Harris among the veterans. I talked to Cooks about the concept of earning your keep around Fort Foxborough and he got it, which is why you hear Brady talk about Cooks in glowing terms. It’s probably as a result of being a 5-foot-10 football player: he’s always had to prove himself.

“No matter where I am, no matter where I go, I just feel like I have to earn my stripes, always have that underdog mentality just because that’s what I had to face all my life growing up,” Cooks said. “I have tried hard not to change that.”

Allen, provided he is picking up the offense (that’s always iffy), should also be fine. He’s a hard worker and completely unselfish. Just watch his blocking. Marsh is similar in that there’s going to be an adjustment period in the scheme, but his teammates loved him in Seattle. That’s a tough crew to please, and you have to earn everything you get from likes of Richard Sherman and Michael Bennett.

I also don’t worry about the rookies, Wise and Butler. Yeah, they still wear a “just happy to be here” look on their faces from time to time, but those guys get after it on the field. It would be helpful, however, if a veteran takes charge of the group up front. For years it was Vince Wilfork, and then Rob Ninkovich. Chris Long helped last year as well, and Alan Branch has been a lead-from-example type in his time with the Patriots. He might need to bark more this season.

That leaves Dorsett, Gillislee, and Gilmore. Dorsett has been around very long, but he said all the right things this week. Of course, he has to learn the playbook and earn Brady’s trust, or he’ll never get the ball.

Gillislee seems to be with the gameplan, but he’s only played for two of The Others in the AFC East: Miami and Buffalo. Neither of those teams tasted success, so maybe he has some learning to do.

And then there’s Gilmore. Bills sources said he was a great teammate and very coachable, and he only cared about his family, church, and football, probably in that order. But coming from the wreckage that is the Bills’ organization, maybe he needs to be indoctrinated to how things are done in New England. His soft play on the edge of the run defense against the Chiefs wasn’t a great debut.

Gilmore had not heard Brady’s words before being told of them on Friday. Does Gilmore think he has to earn his place with the Patriots?

“Me? Ah, nah. I’m coming and trying to play my game and do whatever I can to help the team win. I’m just here to do my job,” he said.

“Play my game,” was not the optimal answer, but the rest of it was Patriots-like.

But this isn’t about one player. One guy is not going to spoil the prospects for this team, but if there is a group of them not pulling in the same direction, not playing with the same effort and desire as Brady and others who know what it takes to be champions, then that’s a big problem (see 2009 Patriots).

It was, judging from Brady’s words, against the Chiefs. The Patriots are in for the same fate today — and the ensuing sky-is-falling crisis — unless those 11 players collectively play like they have to prove something.

They do: they have to show they’re truly Patriots, not just the property of them.