Patriots begin self-evaluation week

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FOXBORO -- On Monday, Patriots running back Stevan Ridley said he would be off hunting this weekend when asked if he would be paying attention to the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
That was a day after New England had clinched a first-round bye.
Two days later, the tone inside the Patriots' locker room is "business as usual." And the responses to the "Will you be watching this weekend?" question was somewhat different than Ridley's.
 "I'll watch every game this weekend, closely," said Patriots' safety Steve Gregory after Wednesday's practice at Gillette Stadium.
"I'll probably watch HoustonCincinnati pretty closely, as I will all the games," said wide receiver Wes Welker. "And make sure I'm trying to stay on top of it all."
But until Saturday, the Patriots have a few days to not worry about their next opponent, mainly because, well, they don't know who that next opponent will be.
So there's no sense in preparing for three teams. Instead, they'll take the time to self-evaluate.
"We'll see how it plays out this weekend," said Gregory. "Right now, we're focused on us, getting some things corrected that we need to get corrected, and getting better.
"You want to narrow down on the things that you need to get fixed. And we've been doing that this week. So it's a good week for us, a big week for us to get better.
"It's just a week that we have an opportunity where we don't have to really necessarily game plan for one team," added Gregory. "It's a week where we can focus on ourselves a lot and get better at some of the things that we need to get better at."
Cornerback Aqib Talib referred to the bye week as a "free week."
"You can work on everything with a week like this," he said. "So, it's big for us."

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