Bill Belichick busy getting up to speed on Falcons
FOXBOROUGH — The Patriots have played the Falcons four times since 2001. That New England has won all four of those games isn’t entirely relevant to next week’s Super Bowl, because the Falcons the Patriots face on Feb. 5 won’t look anything like the group New England played in 2013. Those Falcons featured Tony Gonzalez and Jacquizz Rodgers. These Falcons might as well be a new team.
“Getting ready for Atlanta now, this is a team we’re really not very familiar with,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said during his news conference on Thursday, one of his longest of the season. “We’d better do a lot of digging and get caught up here. Fortunately we have a little bit of time to do that, and I think we’ll need it. I know we’ll need it. They’ve done a great job . . . We have a lot of work to do.”
Belichick said that the Patriots will be somewhere between 50 and 100 percent prepared for the Falcons before leaving for Houston on Monday. Most of that preparation will be studying an Atlanta team built on speed, from wide receivers Julio Jones and Mohamed Sanu to running backs Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman.
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