Tom Brady ‘couldn’t really care less’ about Patriots going undefeated

Instead, Brady said that the “one game at a time” cliché that so many teams preach is one that he fully subscribes to and that his focus is squarely on Week 9 and no further.

On WEEI’s Dennis, Callahan & Minihane show, Brady said that it’s Washington drawing New England’s attention and a 16-0 record isn’t the goal of any Patriots player right now:

“That would be the furthest thing from anybody’s mind,” he said. “I [couldn’t] really care less about those type of things. When you reflect back, you think, ‘Wow, that was a great year.’ But when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t do anything about a game in December. We’ve got one mission, it’s this week. It sounds like a cliché but it’s not, because it works, and it’s what our team’s about. We’re short-term focused.

The 2007 Patriots boasted the NFL’s No. 1 offense and the No. 4 defense, and finished each of their first eight games with at least 34 points and a margin of victory of at least three scores. In the second half of the season, the team won four games by four points or fewer.

While the Patriots lead the NFL in points in 2015, the team has the No. 5 offense, No. 12 defense and has four wins by a touchdown margin. But Brady hasn’t compared the two teams at all and insists that looking any further than a Week 9 game against Washington would be a mistake.

“It’s hard to win. It’s really hard to win. It’s easy to take it for granted, because we have a good record and we’ve played well for a period of time. But I don’t think we as players ever take it for granted, because I’ve been around long enough to realize how hard it is to get the ball in the end zone, to put together drives. It’s no easy task. You’ve got to keep working at it.”

Washington enters Week 9 after a bye, but is No. 25 in offense and No. 17 in defense. Brady has just one interception and Washington is No. 28 in the NFL at forcing interceptions, hauling in only three in the first seven games of the year.