Bill Belichick was clear in his message on Monday morning, the day after his team moved to 3-0 on the season when it beat the Jaguars, 51-17.
"It's nice to be 3-0, but, I mean, big deal," Belichick said. "Three wins isn't going to get you anything in this league, I'll tell you that. Probably just get a lot of coaches fired. And then the players will go right behind them . . . It's not a big deal."
Belichick knows that there are still improvements his team can make, and that includes improvements to his own performance as well as that of his coaching staff.
During Belichick's conference call with reporters on Monday morning, he lamented having to burn a timeout in the first quarter. He did not get into the details of the decision, but he blamed himself for not doing an effective enough job.
Belichick also admitted that he challenged a play that, in hindsight, he believed was called correctly by officials. It appeared as though Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles fumbled in the second quarter, but the play was ruled an incomplete pass, and that called was upheld upon review.
"We have a lot of work to do," Belichick said. "We have a long way to go. I don't think we're doing a good enough job coaching or playing, really, in any area. We need to execute better. We need to be sharper on a lot of things. I think we're improving. I think we're making some progress, but we need to move faster, and just do everything better. We'll work hard on that.
"I'm sure I'll be saying the same things in a couple of weeks. There's still going to be a lot of football left. We need to keep getting better all the time, but we leave some plays on the field, things we could definitely do a better job of coaching on -- really, everything. I don't think there's any balance to it at all. It's pretty clear cut. We have 13 regular-season games left. Three wins in this league isn't going to get you anything."