Brady talks bounce-back after flat performance

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By Tom E. Curran
CSNNE.com Patriots InsiderFollow @tomecurranDETROIT - There was no great search for a silver lining in Motown Saturday night. An all-system failure in the Patriots 34-10 loss to the Lions left Bill Belichick in an "I hate everything" mood. But the bowel-shaking aftereffects outside observers suffer from after losses like this doesn't generally extend to the locker room. Disappointed? Embarrassed?Yup and yup.But, as Tom Brady articulatedduring a rather muted postgame, they're not wondering if they'll ever win again. "I don't necessarily think losing a game and playing poorly ever helps," Brady said after a night spent under siege by the Lions defense. "I think we have to understandwhen you play well, there's thingsyou need to do better; when you lose there's things you need to do better. You don't want to ride the wave of emotion, 'We're great' and 'We suck','We're great' and 'We suck'. "We're confident as a team," he added. "We just have togo play better and that's up to each of us individually. Coach asks us to do your job and he means it. I'm the starting quarterback and he says, 'Do your job' he wants me to do it very well."Even when provided with time to do it well - which wasn't often - Brady was uncharacteristically off. He had three outright misfires. The biggest was a short-hopped throw to a wide open Wes Welker in the seam in the second quarter. On the Patriots' next drive, they went back to a similar play and got a 44-yardtouchdown. But that was really the lone bright spot. Brady said the offensive line wasn't necessarily to blame. "We were trying to get the ball downfield a little bit so you're going to try and hold it," said Brady. "They have a good pass rush. We held up out there (on the offensive line) for a decentamount of time. I have to do a better job making quicker decisions and getting rid of the football and getting it to guys who can do something with it."During the week, Brady stressed that he wasn't quick enoughin Tampa. He wanted to be quickerSaturday night.He wasn't. "In practice it was better but when you get on the game field where it actually means something it didn't really show up tonight."Brady didn't make a single hookup with an outside receiver. Deion Branch didn't see a pass. Taylor Price was targeted once and didn't come up with a back-shoulder throw. Chad Ochocinco and Brady seemed to miscommunicate on a ball Brady threw for a pick (Welker injured his neck making the tackle). Ocho had a tough night. In addition to the interception play, he had two drops as well - one was egregious, the other glanced off his hands - and a holding penalty wiped out a 15-yard completion to Rob Gronkowski on the Patriots first drive. He politely declined to talk after the game. "We communicate quite a bit," Brady said when asked about his long sideline talks with Ochocinco during the second half. "That's what it takes. He hasn't had the luxury of an offseason program and we really have to cram a lot of stuff in but he's very receptive to it, hes very competitive. He wants to do the right thing as we all do."Riffing off that though, Brady added, "I wishI could say we could go out there and everything would be perfect every single game that we play and every snap. Every drive we score a touchdown. But look it's football. When you make a bad play you gotta overcome it. And there's resiliency that comes into this game and mental toughness. And those are all things were trying to build as a team, trying to figure out what kind of team you have. "Things don't start well, you have to figure a way to turn it around," he continued."If one bad drive leads to a bad quarter, which leads to a bad half which leads to a bad game, we'll never win any games because you always have adveristy in this game. We've always got to find ways individually, collective and as offensive and defensive units to try and perform at a high level. And if it doesn't go well, to try harder and turn it around."In an exceptionally curt postgame,Bill Belichick did allow one nugget of specificity to leak. He said the Patriots would probably change their approach to next week's preseason finale against the Giants. That would likely mean the starters get rolled out there for extra activity That would be fine with Brady. "I'd love for us to get out there and play a lot better than we played tonight," he said. "There's gonna be a lot of us who'll be itching to get back out there. After days like this you want to get back on the practice field so you can see the film, figure out the technique errors and decision making errors and make those a point of emphasis."Tom E. Curran can be reached at tcurran@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Tom on Twitter at http:twitter.comtomecurran

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