Bill Belichick has said that the New England Patriots were not "competitive" during their pre-season defeat to the Detroit Lions.

The AFC East champions turned the ball over four times in the opening quarter on their way to a 40-9 loss at Ford Field last night.

The head coach told reporters: "They thoroughly handled us in every phase of the game. We really weren't very competitive in anything. We got thoroughly outplayed and outcoached. They just did everything better than we did.

"Obviously, when you turn the ball over four times in the first quarter, it'll knock you out in most any game and it practically knocked us out of this one. We couldn't ever make a stop in the second half defensively to every really make it competitive, even though we had a couple of decent drives offensively.

"Too many negative plays. There were too many bad plays in all phases of the game. We got a lot of work to do and it certainly wasn't a very competitive performance tonight."

The Patriots play the New York Giants next Thursday.