3 takeaways from Monday morning conference calls with Patriots coaching staff

FOXBOROUGH — Bill Belichick, Matt Patricia and Josh McDaniels held their weekly conference calls with the media on Monday morning, and the trio addressed a number of topics, including  early thoughts on the Eagles, Patricia's touch-football skills and McDaniels on the work of Danny Amendola.


1. Belichick said he and the coaches watched the TV coverage of the NFC title game, but he’s going to reserve judgment on some initial thoughts on the Eagles, at least for now.

“Yeah, I think I really need a little more time on that one,” he said.

One thing he had no problem discussing was the performance of the Patriots’ run defense in the fourth quarter against the Jaguars.

“I’d say we were just better at everything in the fourth quarter all the way across the board,” Belichick said. “We made plays in all three areas of the game. We just seemed to be at a higher level of execution in the fourth quarter. We were better offensively, we were better defensively, we made plays in the kicking game, kickoff coverage, punt return. Yeah, I think our guys are in good condition. They certainly seemed to have enough energy and stamina to go out and have our best and most productive plays in the fourth quarter when it mattered the most.”

2. Patricia hit on a number of topics, including the postgame scene on the field where the defensive coordinator appeared to take a few extra moments to enjoy the moment. Patricia, who is reportedly ticketed to Detroit to become the new head coach of the Lions, might have been coaching his last game at Gillette as a member of the Patriots.

“After the game was kind of over and everything kind of settled down, actually I had my son here at the game,” Patricia recalled. “He hasn't really been to a lot of games. He's been to two. So that was kind of his second game and he wanted to go play in the field. So we played a good game of touch football. He beat me 4-0, so he kind of out-ran me there a little bit and made some good plays on me. I couldn't catch him.

“Just fun to have him out there running around and just seeing the excitement that he had to be out on the field. That's always just kind of a special little moment for myself and him and my wife.”



Patricia wouldn’t say if there’s going to be a rematch at the Super Bowl.

“He's pretty good. He's pretty quick,” he laughed. “I might have to try to get in better shape before that happens. We'll see. We'll see. I might have to take the physical game to him.”

3. McDaniels has been effusive in his praise of Amendola, and on Monday, he was asked again on Monday about the work of Amendola, who had a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown catches in the win over the Jags.

“That’s a guy that’s dependable, that does whatever the team needs of him, whether it’s a punt return, a critical catch, blocking somebody down the field on a screen play,” McDaniels said of Amendola. “Danny does everything to the best of his ability and he wants to win and he competes hard and he’s a tremendous, tremendous teammate. So, we’re fortunate to have him on our team. I’ve said it before, it’s a privilege to coach him and many of the guys that are like him that we have playing here. We’re lucky.”

McDaniels was asked about Amendola’s work on the key third-and-18 conversion that jump-started the New England offense.

“When you need 18 yards, I don’t have many calls on the call sheet that are specifically designed to be perfect calls for that situation,” said McDaniels. “I mean, you have to have a couple maybe, but that’s not a very ideal position to put yourself in on offense with what you did in the first two plays,”

“Tom (Brady) moved a little bit in the pocket subtly to really try to buy himself an extra second or second-and-a-half, and then Danny found the space and Tommy found Danny. So, a lot of little things have to happen on plays like that in order to make them successful. Our guys really did a good job of executing in that situation under pressure and making the play that we needed to make – a huge play in the game.”