The Patriots have little time to savor their impressive 45-7 win over the Browns and will quickly turn the page to the Atlanta Falcons, as New England prepares for their only Thursday Night Football game of the season.
The short turnaround will put added pressure on the coaches and players as they hurry to prepare for an unfamiliar opponent that they have not seen since the 2017 season.
"It's really about, for the coaching staff to the players, learning about your opponent," said Bill Belichick on Monday morning. "You have less time to make decisions. From a coaching standpoint, you need to make good decisions. You need to make them quickly. If you give the team a poor game plan or poor direction, then it's really hard for them to overcome that. There's pressure on both coaching staffs to do that, and, again, Atlanta is a hard team to get ready for. They do a number of different things, both offensively and defensively. You have to make a decision, whether you're going to put your chips on, 'They do a lot, but this is what we think they're going to do' Or, 'Cover everything and be light on something they end up doing a lot of.'"
"The Browns game was put away last night," said Adrian Phillips in the afternoon. "When you play on Thursday you pretty much have to wake up and go. We didn't really have time to go over [the Browns game]. You kind of go over the problem plays that you've seen, corrections here and there but with our game being on Thursday it's all about Atlanta right now."
The Falcons are 4-5, coming off a significant loss to the Dallas Cowboys, but are just two weeks removed from knocking off the New Orleans Saints, a team that beat the Patriots. With a league filled with parity and upsets happening all over the place, there's no complacency from New England, as David Andrews has seen in the past what the Falcons are capable of.
"I think it's going to be a big week for us honestly," said David Andrews. "Different challenges, facing a really good defense. I've played a lot of those guys, Grady [Jarrett] and Dion Jones before. I know they can make some plays and wreak some havoc. We've got a big challenge."
Though the team did not practice, they released an injury report with three players -- Damien Harris, Gunner Olszewski and Josh Uche -- listed as Did Not Practice, along with 12 other players who would've been limited. The short week will put more focus on players like Rhamondre Stevenson, who is coming off his first 100-yard rushing game.
"I think it was just a good team win," said Stevenson of the victory over the Browns. "We just put it all together pretty well that night, I just want to build on that and keep things moving forward."
