Matthew Slater: ‘We can’t hang our heads’ with ‘amped’ Ravens up next

Matthew Slater talks about the Ravens on Monday at Gillette Stadium. (Mike Petraglia/WEEI.com)

FOXBORO — Patriots special teams captain Matthew Slater is one of the most friendly faces in the Patriots locker room.

But he had no intention of talking about the blocked punt or missed field goal from Sunday that combined to spell disaster in Sunday’s 20-18 loss to the Cardinals at Gillette Stadium.

“No, we didn’t dwell on it,” Slater said of his special teams meeting Monday with the coaching staff. “No need beating a dead horse. We know, obviously, we can’t do that and we’re going to get beat if we continue to experience plays like that. It’s just a matter of going back to our fundamentals and the techniques we’re taught in training camp. I’m confident it’ll be fixed.”

The added motivation for moving forward this week is the upcoming opponent. The Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night in Baltimore in a rematch of last January’s classic AFC championship game at Gillette that propelled the Patriots onto Super Bowl XLVI.

“They have great leadership over there,” Slater said. “They play the game the right way. They’re coached very well. We know we’re going to have our hands full as we do every time we play them. If there’s thing that we know, we need to prepare to play a physical football game. There’s going to be a lot of hitting involved. So, you know that going in playing this team. I’m sure they’re going to be amped up, Sunday night football at their house. We can’t hang our heads from [Sunday]. It’s time to pick up the pieces and move forward and get ready for these guys.”

Another topic that was off-limits Monday was improving the work ethic during practice, something several players hinted after Sunday’s loss was missing last week.

“I really don’t want to address that one, to be honest with you,” Slater said. “We just have to go out and practice hard and do the right things.

“We’re moving on. You know I’m going to talk about that. We saw what happened and we have to learn from it and hopefully we can improve upon it going forward because I’m sure we’re going to see similar things, similar rushes from teams and they’re going to try and get after us. It’s been corrected and we’re going to move on.”