Anything that can cause you to lose a game, it happened this past week to us. We had a lot of turnovers. We were beaten in all phases. We had a field goal blocked and returned for a touchdown. We threw an interception for a touchdown. So everything that can go wrong, it went wrong for us this week.
It was really disappointing to have that sort of game because we had put a lot of work into practice and we felt like we were going to come out ready to play hard. After all the good work we put in last week we felt like we were prepared and ready to play. But it just came down as one of those games where a lot of mistakes just killed us. All our turnovers came in the red zone this time, too. It wasn't like it was in the middle of the field. We got into places where we were getting ready to put points on the board and then we ended up turning the ball over or committing penalties that killed us. It was one of the two.
It was really frustrating to have a performance like this considering we can blow our chances at any time. We are still competing hard. We just need to eliminate a lot of the turnovers because it's going to come to that time where we are right there on the bubble [for the World Bowl] and a penalty can just kill you.
As far as my personal performance, it started out pretty good this week. I felt like I was loose and my heart was in it and I gave it all I could. Right now I just feel like I am finally just feeling it. My offensive line is doing a real nice job of making holes for me. Everything else is just falling into place. We have a real feisty group of offensive linemen. It's a line that once the ball is snapped, they really get after you.
The crowd for the Monday night game this week was pretty cool. A lot of fans came out for the game. They support the Admirals pretty well in Amsterdam and we had a nice crowd that followed us down there as well. And the Amsterdam ArenA was really nice. It was one of the nicest stadiums we have played in this year. It got real loud a couple of times.
Looking ahead to the final two weeks of the regular season, we are just looking to play one game at a time and hopefully we can come out and execute off the things we did last week. We just have to eliminate all the turnovers. This is going to be a rivalry game [at home against Rhein] and there are going to be a lot of people there. We just have to come out and play our best game.
So far our team has stepped up and responded to pressure. So we are OK right now. We know what we have to do. I am not really a talker. Usually I try to let my actions speak for me and do something that can hype the team up, then they try to feed off what I am doing. So hopefully I can make a play this week that will make the whole team respond.
I haven't really noticed any culture shock in my time here. Other than the staring, everything is pretty similar to the U.S. When we walk through areas with lots of people sometimes people really seem to stare at us. I guess it's because we are Americans. We get a lot of attention because we are Americans. Other than that, it's basically the same as living in the U.S. I wake up some mornings and I forget that I am in Germany.
My days are all pretty much the same though. I wake up in the morning and go to practice. We take the train to practice. It's probably about five miles from the hotel. We practice at the stadium for the Cologne soccer team. We don't actually practice in the stadium, but on a field outside. We have a nice little area. We have a film room, a training room and an equipment room. It's a nice setup. We have everything we need; it's basically right there. After practice I usually get something to eat. We hang around the hotel and sleep most evenings, and then usually at night we go down to the city. We hang out there. They have a pool hall we go to a lot. Then we come back to the hotel to watch film and play in the hallway or something like that.
As told to Patriots Football Weekly’s Andy Hart.
