The New England Patriots squeaked by on Sunday with a 23-21 win over the Buffalo Bills. With an offense full of new faces and no clear-cut No. 1 receiver, quarterback Tom Brady admitted his team has a lot of work to do, the Boston Herald reports.
Brady completed 29-of-52 passes for 288 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. Danny Amendola (10 rec, 104 yds), Julian Edelman (7 rec, 79 yds, 2 TD) and Shane Vereen (7 rec, 58 yds) emerged on Sunday as Brady's top options. Undrafted rookie Kenbrell Thompkins was targeted 14 times, but only hauled in four receptions for 42 yards.
Without Wes Welker, Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski, Brady is reliant on a young, unproven group of receivers. Despite the hiccups against the Bills, the veteran quarterback is confident the offense will gel as the season progresses.
"It's hard to simulate game action. It's hard to simulate the adjustments that are made, the speed," Brady said on Monday during WEEI's Dennis & Callahan Show, via The Herald. "Yesterday, for both teams, neither team really knew how we were going to play the game. You don't know how you're going to attack each other. As the season goes along you have better ideas how the season is going to play out. It's hard to look in Week 1 to go out there and play the best game you're going to play all season. Yeah, that's possible but we have a lot of football left and we have a lot of things to learn from and a lot of things to grow from.
"The strength of our team will be defined over the next couple of months. We really don't know those things now. We're going to try to get there as fast as we can. Usually it takes a while for those things to play out."
The biggest issue for New England on Sunday was turnovers. The team coughed the ball up three times, with two of the turnovers leading to the Bills scoring touchdowns.
"The turnovers were one thing that really held us back from scoring more points and allowed them to really score their points," Brady said. "It's a big part of the game and if you really take away the turnovers, it's a different outcome. ... We didn't play great and allowed them an opportunity to stay in the game and obviously be ahead in the fourth quarter. We needed to make a lot of good plays at the end to overcome them."
It's a short week for the Patriots - the New York Jets visit Foxborough on Thursday.
