Sure, Patriots are left with a long list of things to improve, but there’s a long ways to go

Granted, the Patriots had a number of issues arise in a poor showing at Jacksonville on Sunday, but Bill Belichick’s teams have had their struggles early in the season and overcome them a number of times before.

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FOXBORO – Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone made news last Wednesday when he told New England reporters during a conference call that he hadn’t watched the Super Bowl in years.

On Monday, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick reviewed a Marrone-produced film he’d been forced to watch live.

It obviously wasn’t any better the second time around.

“There’s certainly things that we could have all done better as a coaching staff and as a team could have done better yesterday in the game, absolutely, in every area of the game,” Belichick said a day after his team’s 31-20 loss to Marrone’s Jaguars at TIAA Bank Field. “From an overall standpoint, we’re better than what we showed yesterday but that’s what it was yesterday so we have to work harder to improve it. That’s what we’ll do.”

As Belichick said immediately after the loss “there’s a long, long list” of things for the Patriots to improve going forward.

Where to begin?

Offense? Defense? Special teams?

All three phases contributed to an 11-point loss in a game in which they trailed by 21, the so-called AFC Championship rematch proving to be a mismatch from the get-go.

“In the end we just didn’t have enough productive plays in any phase of the game,” Belichick said Monday. “We just have to do a better job. I wouldn’t say we were way off in a lot of areas, but it didn’t even have to be. It just took one thing and they were able to take advantage of that like a good team does. We’ve just got to do a better job.”

Physically, the Patriots were overpowered up front on both sides of the ball.

Mentally, Jaguars offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett adjusted to life without his biggest threat, workhorse running back Leonard Fournette (who missed the game with a hamstring injury), while neither Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels nor de facto defensive coordinator Brian Flores seemed to have an answer for anything.

Belichick’s decision to send Stephen Gostkowski out to attempt a 54-yard field goal early in the game rather than having Ryan Allen punt and pin the Jaguars deep in their own territory led to a short field and a 7-0 deficit the Patriots could never overcome and his decision to have Allen punt rather than go for it on fourth-and-a foot on his own 18 with his team down 24-13 with eight minutes left was puzzling and immediately led to the 61-yard touchdown pass from Blake Bortles to Dede Westbrook that put the game away.

When all was said and done, the Patriots’ defense had made Bortles (377 yards, four touchdowns, a passer rating of 111.1) and Keelan Cole (seven catches in eight targets for 116 yards and a touchdown) look like the second coming of Montana and Rice; the Patriots’ offense had made Jalen Ramsey, the Jaguars’ cornerback, look like a prophet, for tight end Rob Gronkowski might as well have stayed back in Foxboro, limited to just two receptions in four targets for 15 yards.

Looking for some solace among this mess?

For all their success, many have been the years when Belichick’s Patriots have suffered an ugly early-season loss – 42-27 to Kansas City after raising their Super Bowl LI banner on opening night last year, 16-0 to Buffalo in Week 4 of 2016, the “we’re on to Cincinnati” game in 2014 (41-14 to the Chiefs in Week 4) – and they’ve gone on to finish with double-digit win totals each and every time.

After a 20-point loss to Miami dropped them to 1-3, the 2001 Patriots buried a football. From that point on, far more often than not, they buried their opponents en route to the first of their first Super Bowl championships.

All that’s been settled at this point is that there won’t be any pursuit of perfection in New England this year and there is ground to be made up on the Jaguars and yes, even the Dolphins, the loss leaving the Patriots at 1-1 and looking up at Miami in the AFC East at the moment.

But the formula to rebound is no mystery at One Patriot Place.

“We’ve got to get better,” veteran safety Devin McCourty told reporters in Jacksonville following the loss on Sunday. “We talk about it all the time in the early part of the season in September and October. We’ve just got to get better and stick together. Obviously, after watching film, it’s easy to do that.”

Following a day off, the Patriots will get back to work at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday.

They’re on to Detroit.

“It’s already turned,” wide receiver Phillip Dorsett answered when asked Monday how quickly the team turns the page on a performance like Sunday’s. “(We’re) on to Detroit already. It’s already turned. We’ve got to come in Wednesday with the mindset of just attacking the day. We can’t dwell on what happened last week. We played a great team. We know that. It is what it is.”

Glen Farley may be reached at gfarley@enterprisenews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @GFarley_ent.