The Patriots got inside Seattle's 20-yard line six times on Sunday and came away with just one touchdown. Tom Brady lamented his team's missed opportunities as he spoke with WEEI's Dennis and Callahan Show on Tuesday morning.
"I wish I would have completed more passes, but the guys were running good routes and getting open, and we had a lot of chunk plays, and we moved the ball up and down the field," said Brady, who indicated that Seattle's run defense encouraged the Patriots to attempt 58 passes.
"The problem was we didn't score points. And when you're one-of-six in the red area, you leave so many points on the board that you lose by one, you're one-of-six in the red area, you're not giving yourself much of a chance to win."
One of those red zone chances came at the end of the first half when the clock ran out on the Patriots after Brady threw an incomplete pass on second down and then was called for intentional grounding on third down. The penalty prompted a 10-second runoff and ended the half.
"They did a good job covering us, and I have to make a better decision with the ball," Brady said. "I just gotta find a guy. I looked at Wes Welker, I came back, Deion Branch, I probably just gotta throw it near someone's feet. That's what you gotta do."
Brady was 5-for-12 in the fourth quarter with an interception and another grounding penalty. On the final play of the third quarter, he took a blow to the head from Seattle defensive lineman Jason Jones. Brady appeared to be slow in getting up after Jones was flagged for a personal foul penalty, but the Patriots quarterback said that the hit had nothing to do with his sub-par final quarter.
"No I don't think so at all. It was just poor execution by myself, and poor fundamentals, and that's the cause of it," Brady said. "And certainly I give Seattle a lot of credit on defense, and I credit them for the way that they played, they're a very good defense. They came into the game first in pretty much every category. They rush the passer, they stop the run, they're good on third down, they're good in the red area, they've got a lot of playmakers, and they made it hard on us. There were really no easy plays out there, we had to earn them."
New England Patriots
Brady said that for the Patriots to see better results at the ends of games -- Sunday's loss was the second Patriots lead blown in fourth-quarter this season -- they have to put the work in.
"I dont think there's any magic formula to making good decisions and good plays, it's a matter of just doing it," he said. "It's not that we can't do it, because we're up for most of that game, we just didnt do it situationally there in the fourth quarter. It's something that we're going to keep working at. We're not going to stop working, we're going to work hard at it and see if we can get better at it and make those improvements so if we're in a situation like this again, it doesn't come up. It's not like you go to bed and you go 'Next time, sure, I wish we could pull out the win' and close your eyes and go to sleep and magically it happens. You've got to put work into it."
One of those players that will be working alongside Brady this week, healthy permitting, will be Welker. If the receiver needed an extra day or two off, though, no one would blame him. He took a couple of very big hits over the course of the day Sunday, and Brady praised him for his toughness.
"He got drilled, he got drilled," Brady said. "He's so tough, there's nobody as tough as Wes. His mental toughness, hisphysicaltoughness. He runs over the middle fearlessly and makes play after play after play. He made a ton of plays the other day and was open on a ton more plays that I didn't throw to him. He finds the hole and knows how to get open. He's just a great player for us."
The Jets come to Foxboro on Sunday without one of their great players. All-Pro cornerback Derrelle Revis has a torn ACL and will miss the rest of the season, but Brady said Rex Ryan's defense is still a talented group.
"He's a phenomenal player. He's as good a corner as there is in the league, and as good a corner as I've faced," Brady said. "But their team has always been built around their defense, and not really one player. He's a great player, I certainly dont want to discount them, but they've got some other really good players too.
Antonio Cromartie is a great player, and they've got some guys on the 'D'-line that can rush, a solid group of linebackers, a very good secondary with Yeremiah Bell and Laron Landry. Its going to be a good challenge for us. It feels like we're playing good defenses every week, and the Jets are no different. We've got to spend a week to get ready for them, and hopefully go out and win a very important game for us."