The Patriots have drawn some motivation this year from feeling like people counted them out as championship contenders earlier in the season and a team looking for something extra to push them forward might also look to a painful loss from the past for a boost.
For the Patriots, that would mean looking back to last year’s Super Bowl when the Eagles beat them 41-33 in Minneapolis. On Thursday, head coach Bill Belichick was asked if that memory has made the team hungrier heading into their matchup with the Rams.
“Well, I think right now, this football team is this football team,” Belichick said at his press conference. “It’s not any other one, and we’re going to do the best we can to perform as well as we can against the Rams. That’s going to be a huge challenge, but it’s really just about us right now — there’s nothing in the past that does or doesn’t help us. We’re going to bond together and coach and play as well as we can next Sunday night.”
Winning a Super Bowl offers plenty of motivation regardless of what’s happened in the past and the Patriots’ history suggests hunger to win won’t be a problem for New England.