Usually, Tuesday conference calls with Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels are a look ahead.
But with New England falling to 1-2 after Sunday's 31-30 loss to Baltimore, there were some unanswered questions left to tackle before moving on to Week 4. For Josh McDaniels, especially.
Here are the highlights.
Yesterday the NFL announced a few things were under review as they relate to officials. Have you had a chance to let them hear your side of things as to how the field goal situation unfolded at the end of the game Sunday night?
Belichick: "I think I'll just keep all of that process private and whatever the league has to say in the announcements -- whatever they have to say -- they can make them, or not make them, if and when they decide to do that. So I'll just leave all that to them."
Have you felt the players are too preoccupied with the fact that there is a situation with the replacement officials?
Patricia: "I think we do a great job here of everybody understanding you control what you can control, and we don't waste any time of effort worrying about any of those things that we can't. Just really focus on the things we can control and put all our effort into that and we'll be all right."
What did you like, or what did you think improved in the offense Sunday?
McDaniels: "There's a lot of little things, but we played a game without turning the ball over against Baltimore, which we haven't done in a while. It was an important factor in making sure the game stayed the way we wanted it to in terms of staying in the game, being close; of having the lead, protecting the lead. We really made an emphasis of that because they have historically always done a good job of taking the ball away, so I thought it was important that we come out of there without turnovers, so we did a good job there.
"I though the guys executed on no huddle fairly well in an atmosphere that I was say difficult in terms of communication. I thought we did a decent job of getting our calls in and then they communicated the formation, the plays, adjustments -- all the things they needed to do after the snap-- and then worked well once the ball was snapped to try to make those things successful. The two minute drive at the end of the second quarter I thought was a positive for our team. We battled, and I thought the guys played hard. Certainly we all can do better -- coaches, players -- and that's going to be our focus going forward. Hopefully there's some things we can build on.
On the second quarter end-around (a direct snap to Danny Woodhead and reverse to Julian Edelman) that got blown up for a loss of 13 yards:
McDaniels: "You can't regret calling those plays. When we practice things during the course of the year, and the week, we practice them with the intent of... with all the right intentions that we feel like they have a chance to be successful. Hopefully we'd never put a play in the gameplan that we felt going into the game that it had a very slim chance of helping our team win. And I think you practice those types of plays plenty before you actually go into a game and call one of them. It's a play that we've run multiple times around here before and have had some good success with it.
"Earlier in the game we ran a different style of a reverse and it worked just fine. I think there's a risk and a reward factor that go into schemes like that, and if you're going to be willing to call them, sometimes you've got to be willing to live with the result when a defensive player makes a good play on it."
On Rob Gronkowski having a limited receiving role (two catches for 21 yards):
McDaniels: "Rob can do a lot of good things for our team. So many times if he gets involved in the passing game I think it's a positive thing for us. And at the same time, at the position he plays, there are definitely occasions where we ask him to protect and do things in the pass protection game. They give some of our other players an opportunity to get open on other schemes, too. Rob's always worn different hats in that regard and I think it just came out in the game the other night that it ended up with limited opportunities.
"It wasn't that he wasn't out of the pattern and it wasn't that Tom did a poor job of reading the defense and what have you. I think it's just a factor of the ball came out quick sometimes and had some other people that were in situations to make plays based on what Baltimore did defensively to us.
"He's always going to be a big focus of what we're trying to do in our passing game, it just so happens the other night there were a few other guys who had more chances."