3 takeaways from Monday morning conference calls with Patriots coaching staff

Bill Belichick, Matt Patricia and Josh McDaniels held their weekly conference calls with the media on Monday morning, and addressed a number of topics, including their preliminary thoughts on the Jags. Patricia was also asked about his future employment possibilities, while McDaniels also provided some insight into his relationships with Tom Brady and Danny Amendola.


1. Belichick said that the Patriots are “working (their) way through” the Jacksonville scouting report at this point.

“We're not where we're going to be on Wednesday — we have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We haven't seen them in quite a while, but obviously, they're well coached. They have a lot of good players. We saw that from training camp. They've been in two close games and they've made a lot of critical plays in critical situations. They've made the plays they've had to make, and that's what you have to do at this time of year."

While the joint practices from this summer between the two teams can serve some purpose, Belichick cautioned against reading too much into any sort of familiarity that might have developed between the two reams as a result, saying that was a long time ago and adding both teams have changed fairly dramatically since then.

“I’m not trying to be evasive about Jacksonville here, but we didn't know who we were playing until (Sunday) night and we're really starting to get to work on them now,” he said. “We haven't been working on anybody except for Tennessee, and I don't think it's really smart to base everything off of something that happened in August. A lot of water under the bridge since then. We'll spend a lot of time here in the next couple of days of finding out as much as we can about everything that will help us.”

2. Patricia was asked about reports that he appears ticketed for the head coaching job in Detroit.

“I’m really just in the same place as I was last week," he said. "I went through the process that the NFL allows us to go through and during the bye week I was able to have the opportunity to talk to a couple of teams, which I did, and quickly turned my focus to a very good Tennessee team and now I am onto a very dangerous Jacksonville team.

"There’s a process involved with that,” he added. “There’s things that the league sends out as guidelines and I followed those when I could and fortunately, the good part for me is those are set up so I can really focus on my job that I need to do and that is to get ready for Jacksonville.”

From a game-plan perspective for the AFC title contest, Patricia indicated that defending play action with Jacksonville’s Leonard Fournette would be "the most difficult part of what we have to try to do this weekend." (It’s worth noting that according to Pro Football Focus, Jacksonville quarter Blake Bortles has a 106.6 passer rating with play action and a 77.1 rating without play action.)

3. McDaniels said there’s “no question” Jacksonville will be the toughest defense the Patriots will face this season.

“They have really, really, really good players at all three levels of the defense,” McDaniels said of Jacksonville. “We had the opportunity to practice against them in August, and it was apparent then, and it’s apparent now.

“They get lined up and play fast and aggressive,” he added. “There is nothing they don’t do well. They’re very talented, their scheme is difficult, and they’re very well coached. This will be a big challenge for us.”

McDaniels also spoke at length about his relationship with Brady, saying the fact that Brady is going to his 12th AFC title game is a “remarkable” statistic. He also reflected about their time together.

"A lot of things have changed since 2004,” McDaniels said. “Now we have kids, (we’re) married and have other hats that we wear as husbands, fathers. But certainly, he's as good at those other things as he is as a football player, if not better. He's been a great friend."

McDaniels also talked about Amendola.

“He’s one of the great all-time teammates, no question about it,” McDaniels said. “However big or small you tell him his role is going to be on a week-to-week basis, he embraces that. He really prepares hard. He cares about doing it right. He’s always ready to go, however much you need him or are going to use him. And he’s as competitive as anybody else we have. He plays hard on every single snap, and will do anything for the team to help us with. I don't know that I could give a greater compliment to a player than that. And he always plays well in the big games. He's a guy that you trust, that you want in the game, that you can count on, and you know you're always going to get his best effort. Like a lot of our guys, he can take himself to another level and try to do a little bit more than maybe what he's done in the past, and he does a great job of preparing hard to be able to do that. It's a testament to him how much she cares about his teammates and our team in general. I love having the guy. It's a privilege to coach people like him.”