New England remains focused on what it needs to do to improve its chances of reaching the Super Bowl.
The Gillette Stadium locker room will never be classified as exciting during the 45 minutes each day the doors open to the media and the outside world is allowed a peek inside.
The poor Patriots who aren't savvy enough to get away end up trapped at their lockers and answer questions with the same enthusiasm as someone sentenced to a court-ordered therapy session, providing just enough to feed the machine.
But this week, with New England traveling to Jacksonville to play the 2-12 Jaguars Sunday, even that bit of enthusiasm was hard to manufacture and the machine stalled. Players started the week talking up Jacksonville running back Maurice Jones-Drew until it became apparent he'd miss his ninth consecutive game with a foot injury, so then they tried to sell quarterback Chad Henne and his 51.9 completion rate as something to fear.
By the end of the week, when asked about the trip to Jacksonville, tight end Aaron Hernandez simply said, "I hope the weather is good."
After the Patriots' games against the titans of each conference – Houston and San Francisco – it's hard to get excited about playing a team that ranks 31st in the NFL in both offense and defense. But New England needs to overlook that fact and the apathy it can create to avoid getting upset by Jacksonville.
To combat those feelings, coach Bill Belichick has been selling the game as a tune-up for the most important games of the season. With a Patriots playoff spot already clinched, he's been careful not to overhype Sunday's game as a must-win, even though New England still has an outside shot of earning the AFC's No. 2 seed.
"There is going to be a point where the season is going to come down to a game, a quarter, a series, a play, and when the team is able to execute at a high level at that particular point in time, that's going to decide which teams move on, which teams are the champions, which teams aren't," Belichick said. "I think it's all part of the process (of the season) and we're still in that process."
At his point in the season, New England has already proven it is one of the best teams in the NFL. The offense can still score points in bunches and the defense appears good enough to get the team where it wants to go. The Patriots have shown heart in a tough win over Miami in Week 13 and again Sunday by overcoming a 28-point hole against the 49ers.
The team's biggest issue still appears to be closing out games, a problem prevalent early in the season that popped up again vs. San Francisco. If all goes to plan and New England does what it's supposed to do this week, that shouldn't be an issue against the Jaguars.
And that's what Belichick is hoping for. His team needs to show its professionalism by getting up for this game so things aren't sloppy, and his players need to demonstrate they can do the things he talked about when it matters most.
"(The Jaguars) do some things well," Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said. "I think that Coach talked about focusing on what we need to do and getting a lot better as a team. Our execution needs to be better. That's what it's got to be this week in practice and carrying all the way through the game."
It's a tune-up. And to be a Super Bowl team, New England needs to prove it can get up for these games the same way it can for teams that arrive with a built-in adrenaline rush.