New England Patriots: Bill Belichick likes fight of his team

There is good and there is good enough.

Head coach Bill Belichick's message during his traditional day-after-game conference call Monday morning following the New England Patriots comeback, last-second 36-33 win over the Texans at Gillette Stadium was that his team was much closer to the latter than the former.

Sure, it's early in the season. Sure, every team across the NFL appears to have its weaknesses, lapses in play and inconsistencies.

But Belichick has been down this road so many times. He knows where he wants to get his defending champions to and what it takes to get there.

"We did enough to win, but there are a lot of things we can do better and a lot of things we need to do better. If just a couple of things had gone differently we would've had a different outcome," Belichick declared. "So we have a lot of work to do and that includes everybody and every position and every unit. Pretty much pick out any player and it's going to be the same for all of us, players and coaches. Some good things and then there were other things that just weren't good enough and aren't going to be good enough."

Some of the deficiencies are obvious right now. The New England pass defense, which sports a $65 million newcomer in cornerback Stephon Gilmore and two returning Pro Bowl talents in cornerback Malcolm Butler and safety Devin McCourty just isn't getting the job done.

Sunday afternoon, Deshaun Watson looked too comfortable taking on the Patriots defense, looking more like a polished veteran than a raw rookie. He threw for 300 yards and a couple touchdowns. Some came with his ad-lib athletic ability, but more came in a traditional passing offense.

Through three weeks, the Patriots have been a pass-happy team on both sides of the ball. Offensively, that's seen Tom Brady tally a 121.5 passer rating through three games, completing 64.5 percent of his throws for 1,092 yards with eight touchdowns and no interceptions. That's tremendous production for anyone, never mind a 40-year-old.

But opposing quarterbacks have actually been almost as good. Alex Smith, Drew Brees and Watson have combined to complete 68.1 percent of their passes for 1,025 yards with eight touchdowns and two interceptions for a 112.9 passer rating against New England.

In improving to 2-1 with Sunday's last-minute comeback win, Belichick did see improvement from his team. That was most evident in the fight to the finish. While Brady may have questioned his team's "attitude and competitiveness" in the opening night loss to K.C., that certainly wasn't an issue this week.

"I thought we battled for 60 minutes," Belichick said on Monday. "It took all of it, all the way down to the last three seconds on the final play. The competitiveness of the team was evident. From a conditioning standpoint, we were able to compete for 60 minutes on a warm day. So yeah, those things were all things that the team, I think, were on the positive side. Like I said, we made some plays that were good, but didn't have enough consistency on offense or defense, like we need to have, like we feel like we should have. Playing all the way through the game, competing hard - we did that."

Brady had a similar view in the immediacy of the win, taking it as a step in the right direction even if it was far from perfect.

"We just kept fighting. That was the most important thing," Brady said. "When we were in this stadium a couple weeks ago, we talked a lot about that - playing four quarters and playing all the way down to the last minute - and we needed it (against Houston). It's a real good football team. I thought they played really well. It was just a great win for our team."

As Belichick pointed out on Monday, though, a great win does not mean a team is great.

But it's a step in the right direction.

REPORT CARD VS. TEXANS

--PASSING OFFENSE: A-minus - The reigning AFC Offensive Player of the Week put up award-worthy work once again in the comeback win over the Texans. Tom Brady completed 25 of his 35 throws for 378 yards with five touchdowns and no interceptions for a 146.2 rating despite a Houston pass rush that sacked him five times and hit him eight times. Brady did fumble three times, including a strip-sack that led to a Jadeveon Clowney touchdown. But he made the plays he needed to pull out the hard-fought win, including the eight-play drive to a 25-yard game-winning touchdown to Brandin Cooks with just 23 seconds to play. The newcomer Cooks came up huge for New England, breaking out with five catches for 131 yards with two touchdowns and a two-point play. Rob Gronkowski showed no limitations from his groin injury, hauling in a game-high eight passes for 89 yards and a touchdown, including two key grabs to jumpstart the game-winning drive. Chris Hogan had a pair of touchdowns on his four grabs, including a 47-yard catch-and-run score. Dealing with the Texans talented pass rush was a clear problem at times, but not enough to derail Brady and the home squad on the way to victory.

--RUSHING OFFENSE: D - The Patriots want to be more balanced and less predictable in the backfield this fall. So far, it hasn't worked out. New England ran the ball just 20 times for a mere 59 yards (3.0 average) against Houston. Mike Gillislee continues to get the most carries, but the newcomer was able to gain just 31 yards on his 12 attempts. In the face of the pass rush New England tried to turn to the ground attack in the fourth quarter but it didn't work. Gillislee picked up 5 and 4 yards on consecutive carries to start a drive trailing 30-28, but was stuffed on third-and-1 leading to the punt. Short-yardage runs have been an issue through three weeks, but the bigger concern is the inability to really get much of a complementary ground game going in New England. That's on Gillislee and the offensive line, neither of which were good enough against Houston.

--PASS DEFENSE: C-minus - While the back end is supposed to be the strength of the New England defense, the group continues to allow opposing passers to throw all over the field. Devin McCourty and Co. allowed Deshaun Watson to look like anything but a raw rookie. Watson completed 22 of 33 passes for 301 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions for a 90.6 rating, one of the picks coming on a desperation Hail Mary attempt as time expired. Watson kept plays alive with his legs and spread the ball around to eight different receivers, led by seven catches for 76 yards to DeAndre Hopkins. Tight end Ryan Griffin (5 for 61) and wide receiver Bruce Ellington (4 for 59) hauled in Watson's touchdown passes. Big plays continue to be an issue as New England allowed Houston to complete five passes longer than 25 yards.

--RUSH DEFENSE: C - The New England run defense that struggled so much on opening night is clearly moving in the right direction based on the work in the last two weeks though their remains room for improvement. Houston ran the ball 32 times for 125 yards (3.9 average) as a team. Lamar Miller led the way with 14 attempts for 56 yards (4.0 average), while Watson used his legs to pick up 41 yards on eight attempts/scrambles. The Patriots didn't allow a run longer than 12 yards all day and came up with a big stop when it needed one on a Texans third-and-1 attempt from the New England 18 late in the fourth quarter to force a field goal. That stop of Miller by Malcom Brown, Lawrence Guy and the rest of the front kept the door open for the eventual Brady-led comeback. Linebacker Kyle Van Noy led the front with 11 tackles, including nine solos, for a run defense that's showing improvement.

--SPECIAL TEAMS: C - It was a relatively quiet day in the kicking game. Stephen Gostkowski did not attempt a field goal, hit all five of his PATs and put four of six kickoffs into the end zone with a pair of touchbacks. Ryan Allen had an up-and-down day punting. His final two punts of the day were 59 and 60 yards. But he had a 36 yarder from his own 8 in the second quarter and a 38 yarder for a touchback in the third quarter. He did finish the day with a 45.3 average, 38.7 net and three inside the 20. Danny Amendola gave the punt return game a jolt with a 33 yarder, while Dion Lewis had a long of 24 on two kickoff returns. Coverage was solid as Houston averaged just 18.8 yards on four kickoff returns and 6.7 yards on three punt returns. Just an average overall day in the third phase.

--COACHING: B - The Patriots seemed to have a pretty balanced, basic, traditional game plan on both sides of the ball against Houston and in the end, it was enough to eke out the win. Offensively, one key to trying to deal with Houston's talented front was extra help from the tight ends and running backs dealing with J.J. Watt and Co. It didn't always work, but it was a sound approach. There was also an attempt to run the ball more as the line struggled in pass rush, but that effort never really got on track. Defensively Matt Patricia used early 4-3 fronts with four defensive backs, a rarity these days in New England. The Patriots coming up strong in situational football, on both sides of the ball, is a credit to the preparation not just in the week leading up to the game but all the way through the year. There weren't a lot of real dramatic decisions on the field for New England or crazy game plan wrinkles to either applaud or question. In the end, it all worked well enough for the win.