Bill Belichick Talks Playoff Losses In 'Do Your Job': Gronk 'Might Have Made A Difference'
BOSTON (CBS) -- When the Patriots lose, Bill Belichick isn't one to make excuses. The team just needs to play better in all phases, and he needs to coach better.
But in a surprisingly candid admission, Belichick says in the newest clip for Do Your Job: The Story of the 2014 New England Patriots that had the Patriots played with a healthy Rob Gronkowski and played better defense, maybe they would have won the Super Bowl instead of lost in the 2011-13 playoffs.
"The two big factors in those seasons, in the ultimate end of those seasons, were [Gronkowski's] lack of availability, and our overall ability to play defense in some critical situations," he says. "It was obviously good enough to get to the Super Bowl or the AFC Championship games. But just the improvement in the overall defensive play, that was one thing that we wanted to continue to try to build on."
"Had Rob been healthy in any of those three years, as close as those outcomes were, it might have made a difference."
As Patriots fans know, Gronk limped into Super Bowl XLVI with a high ankle sprain and was a shell of his former self. Tom Brady's up-and-down performance, combined with Gronk's ineffectiveness and one of the league's worst defenses, led to the New York Giants ultimately prevailing 21-17.
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In 2012, the Patriots lost cornerback Aqib Talib early in the AFC Championship game and didn't have the talent on defense to overcome the injury, getting stomped by Joe Flacco and the eventual champion Baltimore Ravens 28-13. A year later, Talib got knocked out once again as Peyton Manning shredded the Patriots secondary en route to a 26-16 win that wasn't as close as the score indicated. Gronk was out with season-ending injuries in both losses.
While it's not always fair to use an injury as an excuse, it's hard to ignore it when it happens to an unstoppable force like Gronk. But there's no excusing the Patriots' longtime inability to stop the pass with their secondary.
The above clip seems like a lead-in to the Patriots' 2014 acquisitions of cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner, who suddenly made the secondary one of the best in the league, and Gronk's first full healthy season since his rookie year in 2010. Both were huge factors in the Patriots' playoff run, culminating in their Super Bowl win over the Seahawks in which Gronk caught a touchdown and Revis shut down Doug Baldwin for all but one play.
Entering 2015, the secondary is once again a question mark with Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler assuming the role of No. 1 corner, but Gronk has had his first injury-free offseason in four years. If Butler can prove he's the real deal and Gronk can stay on the field, expect another deep playoff run that goes through Foxboro.
Matt Dolloff is a digital producer for CBSBostonSports.com and collector of Patriots porn. Read more from Matt here and follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff.
