Matthew Judon on 0-2 Patriots: "This is not a bad team"
FOXBORO -- The Patriots are once again looking for answers after losing a close game, falling to the Miami Dolphins 24-17 Sunday night at Gillette Stadium. While New England had another chance to come back on its final drive, another slow start and early hole ultimately doomed the team's chances.
In Week 1, the Patriots fell behind the Philadelphia Eagles 16-0 before embarking on a spirited comeback. They had a chance to win in the final minutes, but Kayshon Boutte couldn't get both of his feet in-bounds on a fourth-down feed from Mac Jones.
On Sunday night, the Patriots fell behind 10-0 early in the second quarter and were down 17-3 at halftime before making things interesting in the second half. Jones and company had a chance to pull even with the Dolphins on their final drive, but once again couldn't execute in the moments they needed to -- both at the beginning and at the end of the game -- and are now 0-2 on the season.
It's a frustrating and slightly disheartening way to start the season, but the Patriots aren't going to hang their heads. They all understand that racking up "moral victories" will only go so far, and if they don't start snagging some actual victories, the season can get out of hand quickly.
Edge rusher Matthew Judon isn't going to let that happen. He delivered a passionate rally cry from the podium inside Gillette Stadium after Sunday's loss, and says the Patriots know exactly what they need to do to get this moving in the right direction.
Now it's just a matter of going out and doing it.
"We're gonna talk from a place of praise. We're gonna talk from a place of gratitude. We get to play this game. I know we lost. I know it looks bad. You're [0-2]. You start [0-2]. But this is not a bad team. So don't go to asking those types of questions," Judon started.
"We're going to speak matter of fact, but I don't think we're about to hang our head up here or in our locker room. When we come back (on Monday) and we watch this film, we're gonna get our corrections corrected. Then we come back on Wednesday, it's not gonna be, 'How are y'all going to pull it together?' We already know how," he said.
Judon said that these slow starts need to end. The team needs to take the field with more "juice" to avoid those double-digit holes in the first half.
"We've got to just play how we play in the second half from the first play. We've got to get the crowd involved from the get-go. When we take the field, we've got to have some type of energy. We've got to have some type of juice. We can't wait until we down 17. We can't wait until we down 13 to try to make a comeback," he said. "It's too hard in this league. It's too hard in this league. People are too good. Schemes are too good. You don't have enough time. So you can't play from behind. You can't come out here and have slow starts. I think that's what we're doing and we've got to get it correct and have a faster start."
The odds are against teams that start a season 0-2, with just over 11 percent of them making the postseason since 1990. The Patriots understand that time is still on their side, but they can't just wait around for things to happen; they have to make things happen on their own.
"We have more games. We have more life in us and we don't know what can happen from here, but something's got to happen. Something's got to give," said Judon. "We're not just going to be a pedestrian team that lets people score on us and we don't score. We're going to bow up. We're going to have a backbone."
The Patriots will look to get their first win of the season Sunday when they visit the 1-1 New York Jets.
