New England Patriots - NESN.com
The New England Patriots improved to 10-2 with a 26-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals that hardly represented their sharpest performance during a nine-game winning streak.
New England didn’t turn either of its two red-zone trips into touchdowns, a growing problem for the offense all season. Up 17-13 in the third quarter, Mike Vrabel’s team squandered an opportunity to extend its lead.
A defensive pass interference on fourth-and-goal gave the Patriots a fresh set of downs at the 1-yard line, but the Bengals stuffed them inches shy of the end zone. Vrabel stressed the need to improve on goal-line offense during Monday morning’s interview on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.”
“There’s a million things I could say right there, but I’m gonna try to say that it has to be better,” Vrabel said.
The Patriots rank 25th in success rate and 27th in EPA inside the red zone this season. They’ve turned 54.8 percent of their red-zone visits into touchdowns, a rate that trails 19 teams.
Vrabel acknowledged that injuries to offensive linemen Will Campbell and Jared Wilson hurt their goal-line efforts on Sunday, but he didn’t want to make any excuses.
“At the end of the day, you have to be able to move somebody into the end zone,” he said. “You have to be able to score with your man, and that’s really what happens. We have to be better. We have to be able to convert those into touchdowns.”
Vrabel said the coaching staff takes responsibility for those shortcomings along with the players.
“It’s everybody,” Vrabel added. “It’s the design. It’s the execution. You’re not gonna win too many games if you can’t score from inside the 5-yard line.”
The former linebacker wants his offense to better anticipate whether the defense will play zone or blitz and respond accordingly.
“We always talk about operation,” Vrabel said. “That’s not gonna change. That can be better from yesterday on the goal line, and we’ll just have to keep working.”
