FOXBORO -- What you saw on Sunday in Pittsburgh, that wasn't the New England Patriots defense.
At least, that's what safety James Ihedigbo believes after watching the game film on Monday at Gillette Stadium.
"You watch that tape, and it's nothing that we want to represent us, as a defense, in this league or as a team," said Ihedigbo. "We watched that, and everyone had that look on their face, as you know, 'Hey, this isn't us. What we put on tape isn't us.' And we're going to correct that, and come out this next week, and show how the New England Patriots play defense."
The Pats hope they play defense with better communication in the secondary, something that plagued them against the Steelers.
As they get deeper into the season, the Patriots believe that communication will only improve.
"It's just going to get better," said safety Patrick Chung on Monday. "Some miscommunication, but it only gets better with guys coming in and starting to play more with the guys that are in there. It's just going to get better as the weeks go on."
As for the team's red zone defense, allowing only two touchdowns on five Pittsburgh red-zone possessions on Sunday wasn't something to hang their head over. But even that can improve.
New England Patriots
"Sometimes you've got to hold them to zero points," said Chung.
And sometimes, you have to take what happened on a particular Sunday, and use it as motivation for the next weekend. After watching film on Monday, the Patriots' defense seemed dead set on doing just that.
"I've never been around a group of guys that want to win more than the group of guys in this locker room," said Ihedigbo. "And winning is everything. We work too hard during the week and we watch too much tape and we study too much as a group to come up on the short end of a week that we put so much effort into preparations.
"We're definitely going to have a chip on our shoulder this week," added Ihedigbo. "And I know, our defense, we're going to be fired up, we're going to be ready to go, we're playing back at home. We're going to study the game plan hard, and we're going to be ready to go on Sunday."