Patriots Players Offer Actual Insight Into What Went Wrong During Bye Week

The New England Patriots lost the regular season finale to the Miami Dolphins. As if this wasn’t enough, they also lost the wild-card game to the Buffalo Bills. Patriots players opened up and shared their insight about all the things that went wrong in the bye week.

Patriots made the top of the AFC at one point of the 2021 season. However, something went wrong during the bye week. Players lost three of the remaining four games on their schedule.

Patriots receiver Jakobi Meyers talked about the wild-card loss and some of the mistakes his teammates made.

“I would say … I feel like our intensity going into the bye was great,” he said. “And I don’t feel like it dropped off. But that’s the problem: It didn’t build up, either. So, I feel like we still tried to ride the wave as far as what we were doing when we got to the No. 1 spot, and we needed to build on that. And we didn’t do it.”

Patriots players share their insight into the problems they had during the bye week

Safety Adrian Phillips shared his thoughts, too. What went wrong?

“I definitely feel like the intensity was still there, and I feel like people were preparing the way that we did before the bye week because we knew what we had to do,” Phillips said. “At the same time, it was just one of those things. Just an unlucky roll. We just gotta make sure that we stay locked in for however long the season is.”

The safety didn’t stop here. He offered a few more details of the failure and also promised to avoid similar mistakes in 2022. Players will have to be better and stronger next season.

“From a defensive side, we weren’t dialed in like we were pre-bye week,” he said. “And it’s up to us to get that figured out. When we come back from the offseason … I’m pretty sure that’ll be a talking point. We’re gonna make sure we don’t let that happen again.”

Head coach Bill Belichick will agree on this one. In fact, he has already signed six players to future contracts. Wide receiver Kristian Wilkerson is one of them.