By ROBERT LEE
Journal Sports Writer

FOXBORO -- For a coach like Bill Belichick, the way their season opener against Buffalo played out was probably a good thing.

The Pats got a 25-24 victory and he will get to show them a lot of things that they need to improve on this week. He won't have to worry about them being overconfident like he might have been if it was a blowout.

"It was a great effort by our team," Belichick said. "I'm really proud of our players. We didn't play our best but we hung in there. We kept playing. We were down by 11 with four or five minutes to go in the game and came back and made the plays we had to make to win. We certainly don't put ourselves in that position very often.

"That's not what we are trying to do but whatever it was, they dealt with it and made some smart plays at the end. I wish we would have played like that more earlier in the game. Give Buffalo credit. They played extremely well tonight."

And that seemed to be the mindset of the Patriot players as well - that the Pats didn't play to the best of their ability and made a lot of mistakes, the Bills played well, and they were happy to eek out the victory.

"We know we have to get better," running back Kevin Faulk said. "With the performance we had on offense, we know that there was a lot of mistakes - a lot of dropped balls and penalties. They took advantage of it. If we play this way next week, we won't win."

"We did some good things out there but I think coach is going to give it to us Wednesday about the things that we did out there," Randy Moss said. "I guess you take it as it comes and take the coach's lashings but at the same time enjoy this victory."

"It doesn't matter how much you win by; whether it's pretty or ugly," running back Fred Taylor said. You definitely want to win the game, there's no doubt about that."