3 takeaways from the Tuesday conference calls: On run defense, end of game situations, and Rob Gronkowski's toughness

Here's what we learned from Tuesday's conference calls with Bill Belichick, Brian Flores and Josh McDaniels.

1. Belichick has faith the run defense can get turned around.


The Patriots have yielded 625 rushing yards in the last five games, and have allowed an average of 5.68 yards per carry in that span. That includes 189 on Sunday to the Dolphins and 35-year-old Frank Gore, who had 12 carries for 92 yards against New England. Some of the numbers have to be put in context — in four of the games, the Patriots held a fourth-quarter lead, so there were instances where they appeared content to trade rushing yards for clock. But the numbers still jump off the page, and represent a sizable uptick from the five-game stretch previous to that where New England allowed only one team to top 100 yards on the ground while giving up an average of 4.14 yards per carry.

One thing to look for? In the last two weeks, defensive tackle Danny Shelton has been a healthy scratch, and in that time,  New England has allowed a whopping 8.4 yards per carry. No one is saying Shelton is ticketed for the Pro Bowl — in many ways, he’s been a disappointment this year. But his presence could provide some depth at defensive tackle. It was clear Lawrence Guy and Malcom Brown wore down in the Miami heat on Sunday. That’s just one thing that could provide a turnaround for the New England run defense.

“Well, the run game is about team defense,” Belichick said. “It starts with coaching, so we’ve got to do a better job of coaching all aspects of it and executing it. It’s not one play. It’s a combination of our overall execution and consistency. It starts with the coaching.”

Asked if he feels like it’s fixable, Belichick didn’t hesitate.

“Well, of course we feel like we can fix it,” he replied. “Yeah.”

2. Flores said he and the rest of the coaching staff shoulder the blame when it came to the personnel decisions regarding the final play Sunday against Miami.

The defensive signal-caller was asked what went into the determination to have Rob Gronkowski at deep safety Sunday instead of Devin McCourty. He said the corrections have been made, and they’ll be “better” prepared to handle something like that if it comes up again.

“I understand why you’re asking that, but I would just say, that’s on us as a coaching staff,” he replied. “It happened. We wish it hadn’t, we’ve watched it, we’ve corrected it as a staff, we’ve corrected it with the team, and really honestly, we’ve got to move on to Pittsburgh. So, if that situation kind of shows up again, I think we’ll handle it better.

“Obviously, it was a big one because it was the situation at the end of the game,” he added. “But, again, I think Bill said this – there were a lot of things in that game that needed to be better. We try and correct everything, and that’s kind of where I’m at. For us and this team, the best thing for us is to move forward, which is Pittsburgh, and that’s kind of where our focus is. Again, we’ve corrected, we’ve gone through it and we’ll be better in that situation the next time it arises.”