Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia is fully aware of what happened in the first possession of Sunday's game against the St. Louis Rams. And he realizes that his defense can't continue to allow drives that finish in 50-yard touchdown passes down the middle of the field.
But that's exactly how Sam Bradford concluded his first drive of the game in London, with a deep bomb to Chris Givens, who toasted the Patriots secondary and created enough separation for his quarterback to let one fly.
But that would be all the damage that St. Louis would do in New England's 45-7 win. And Patricia is pleased with the way his guys made the necessary adjustments to prevent another big play like that.
"I don't think you want to start any game or any drive, for that matter, throughout the game by giving up points," said Patricia in a conference call on Tuesday. "Thats' our goal, to not allow them to score. And unfortunately, we didn't do a very good job of that on the first series of the game.
"Our guys do a great job of understanding that they've got to improve on all those situations. But certainly, our guys battled back, and really tried to get things corrected like we do every week. But, we do that also within the game. So I think that's something we've got to try to build on and keep doing every week. Try to get things fixed within the game itself, and hopefully try to eliminate any of those situations to start."