As Thursday night’s game wound down and it became clear that the Patriots were going to be on the losing end of their matchup with the Chiefs, more than a few minds likely wandered back to 2014.
That’s when the Chiefs routed the Patriots 41-14 in Week Four and coach Bill Belichick used his postgame press conference to turn the attention to the next week by repeating that the team was “on to Cincinnati” many times. The Pats won that game 43-17 and went 9-2 the rest of the way to set up a playoff run that ended with a Super Bowl title.
Belichick was asked about that 2014 game, specifically his feeling that the Patriots finished well, during a Friday conference call. If anyone was expecting an answer that would link this team with that one, Belichick’s answer probably wasn’t too satisfying.
“I think I said it a thousand times. I think we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Belichick said. “I don’t think anything that we did really was good enough. I’m not really interested in living in the past in 2014, 2015, 2003, 2004, which constantly keeps coming up. I mean, everything’s about some other year but this year and this team. I don’t really think all that’s relevant because we’re talking about another team, but we’ve got a thousand questions about it every week. So, I’m really concerned about the 2017 team, what this team is, what this team needs to do. I’m not trying to live in the past like everybody else is.”
The answer wasn’t “on to New Orleans,” but the message was pretty similar. The Patriots can’t change what happened on Thursday night or in 2014, so they shouldn’t be thinking about it on a Friday in 2017.