The best way for the New England Patriots to forget about last week's deflating loss to Indianapolis is to have something to occupy their minds.
Luckily for the Patriots, they have an equally important game on the horizon Sunday against the rival New York Jets, who are still alive in the AFC East race, albeit on life support.
There will be no distractions because the Patriots can't afford to have them. The challenge now is to put last week's loss in the rear-view mirror and focus solely on the task at hand.
"You lose those games and emotionally you're pretty drained," quarterback Tom Brady said. "It's disappointing for everybody, but the reality is there's a lot of games left for us. We all understand that.
"If you can make the improvements that we need to make and clean up some of the things that we've made mistakes on, then you can come out with a win. And we're playing a team that's already beat us this year. That presents some different challenges for us. I just hope we play better than we did the last time against them."
The Patriots dropped their Week 2 showdown against the Jets at the Meadowlands, 16-9, in what many viewed as a lethargic effort against a team that, at the time, appeared to be one of the top contenders in the AFC.
Since then, the Jets have dropped four of their last five games and are now 4-5 in the AFC East. Nonetheless, they still only trail the Patriots by two games in the race for first place. Another win Sunday would put them a game out and give them possession of the tie-breaker.
"I'd like to think that we're a better team now than we were in the second week of the year," Brady said. "We've made some good improvements. But this team really challenges us. It was probably our lowest output of the season in points, yards, production, third downs, all the way across the board.
"We had a bunch of yards in penalties, also. They're a good team and they challenge us in a lot of ways. Playing them one time, I think that's going to help you, but we can't play much worse than we played. There's got to be some saving grace in that."
Anything would help take their minds off last week's loss to the Colts in which their coach, Bill Belichick, was criticized for a curious decision down the stretch. The Patriots have deflected the criticism and are now focusing squarely on beating the Jets. They don't have any other choice.
"I don't take anything personally," Brady said. "It's nothing about our personalities. You know, when you lose, people place the blame in certain areas and we all know in here that there's not one thing to blame. We all could have done things better."
SERIES HISTORY: 99th regular-season meeting. Jets lead series 50-47-1. The Jets won earlier this season, 16-9, but the Patriots overall have won 11 of their last 14 against New York and have swept the season series four of the last six years. However, the Jets won last year at Gillette Stadium.
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