FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- In the previous two victories leading up to Sunday night's game, the New England Patriots' offense had a chance to close out the games and didn't, which forced the defense back onto the field.

Thus, one of the notable areas of improvement for the Patriots in their 23-7 win over the Atlanta Falcons was their ability to run out the clock after recovering an onside kick attempt at the Falcons' 49-yard line with 4:09 remaining.

"We're getting good play from our backs and our line. We've just got to be a little more consistent," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said, already looking ahead. "We have another team this week -- the Chargers -- I don’t know how we'll run the ball against them. We'll have to go out there and do it again against another good defense, another good team. Whenever we get the opportunity to run it -- whether it’s the first quarter, fourth quarter, whatever it is -- we've just got to [do it]."

Overall, Sunday marked the first game this season that the Patriots had more rushing attempts (36) than passing attempts (29). Belichick said part of that was because the Pats had control of the game and were playing with a lead.

As for the running back group of Dion Lewis, Mike Gillislee, James White and Rex Burkhead, Belichick had positive reviews.

"I think all of the players have been productive for us. It was good to get Rex back, and he gave us some production as well, both in the kicking game and offensively. I feel like we have a lot of depth and quality players at that position -- really all five of them, including Brandon [Bolden]. They all have the ability to help our team in a number of different ways," Belichick said. "We’ll just see how it goes going forward, but we have confidence in all of those players, and they were all able to contribute last night, so it was a good performance from that group."