The Patriots will be playing against one of the best defenses in football on Sunday.
The New England Patriots have been able to keep mistakes at a minimum this season, but there were some hiccups lately: against the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild card round of the playoffs, the team of head coach Mike Vrabel turned to the ball over twice.
While this did not prevent them from still winning 16-3, a repeat performance could spell doom for the Patriots on Sunday. After all, their divisional opponent, the Houston Texans, are one of the top teams in the NFL taking advantage of other teams’ miscues.
During the regular season, Houston ranked second in the league with a +17 turnover differential. They dropped to +16 last week versus the Pittsburgh Steelers, but it is clear that this is a team more than capable of winning the turnover battle and making the most of those extra opportunities afforded.
And yet, Vrabel is not demanding perfection from his team when it comes to ball security. Instead, he has something else in mind: precision.
“We want to try to be as precise as possible,” he explained on Friday. “Nobody’s going to be perfect. We’re going to need to be precise. We know how critical taking care of the football is in every game, especially against a team that’s plus-16 in the turnover margin. But I’ve never once said that we have to be perfect at anything.”
Despite their coach not putting that kind of pressure on them, the Patriots as close to perfect as one could expect from a team winning only eight games over the last two seasons combined. Going 14-3, winning the AFC East, and locking up the No. 2 seed in the conference, they were among the top-performing clubs in all of football.
They did so despite finishing with only three more takeaways than giveaways, ranking 10th in turnover margin. Vrabel and his team are well aware of the impact this part of the game can have, but New England’s first-year head coach also knows that mistakes can happen.
For him, therefore, the aim is a different one than playing the perfect game.
“We haven’t talked one time about being perfect since I’ve been here,” he said. “We’re aiming for success and not perfection.”
Category: General Sports
