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New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick addressed his team's historically bad play to end Sunday's (December 18) loss to the Las Vegas Raiders during his postgame press conference.
Tied at 24 and facing what seemed to be a likely overtime situation, the Patriots called a handoff to running back Rhamondre Stevenson, who gained 23 yards before deciding to lateral the football to Jakobi Myers, who then threw it across the field before it was recovered by Raiders -- and longtime former Patriots -- defensive end Chandler Jones for a game-winning touchdown.
"I would say we made a mistake on it. You know, play didn't work. Made a mistake on the play," Belichick said when asked about Stevenson's decision to lateral the ball, via CBS News.
The six-time Super Bowl champion was then asked if any coaches had told players to go down and force overtime, rather than risking a possible defensive touchdown on a lateral play.
"Yeah, well, obviously that would've been better than the result," Belichick added. "Yeah look, we've talked about situational football, we talk about it every week. But we've obviously gotta do a better job playing situational football and not making critical mistakes in the game."
New England made several other mistakes during Sunday's loss, which included a would-be first-and-goal touchdown being erased by Belichick calling a timeout just before the snap.
The Patriots would then burn two timeouts and get called for a penalty on fourth down, which pushed the ball back to the 6-yard-line and instead resulted in a field goal.
"Yeah we need to try to eliminate all of the mistakes that we made. All of us," Belichick said.
The Patriots fell to 7-7 with Sunday's loss.