FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- As the final two minutes unfolded Thursday night and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were driving for a potential game-winning touchdown against the New England Patriots, there were two different stories in the works.

The first, which would publish if the Patriots held on for the 19-14 victory, was how the much-maligned defense led the way -- just barely -- with an improved performance.

The second, which would be pushed to the forefront if the Buccaneers pulled off the victory with the last gasp-effort, was set to highlight how New England showed troubling characteristics of a bad football team by letting the opposition hang around with undisciplined play and uncharacteristic penalties.

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That’s how fine the line is through the Patriots' first five games.

They are 3-2, but how good are they?

In four of their five games, the score was within two points in the fourth quarter. The only game they truly had control of was a 36-20 victory over the Saints on Sept. 17.

“We’re not where we need to be as a team,” quarterback Tom Brady acknowledged during his weekly appearance Monday on sports radio WEEI’s “Kirk and Callahan” program. “We need to make improvements.”

Everyone seems to be in agreement on that point, but as special teams captain Matthew Slater said Friday, players can feel good about how they responded to adversity against Tampa Bay. Part of becoming a good team is finding a way to win close games when not having an A-plus type performance.

Perhaps ESPN analyst Tedy Bruschi said it best when he said of the defensive improvement: “They put a Band-Aid on the wound and gave the wound more time to heal.”

The key word: time.

That’s what the early part of the season is often about, the idea that teams don’t want to dig themselves too big of a hole (such as the 0-5 Giants) to climb out of as the season progresses and more practice time helps aid improvement.

The Patriots, who always seem to improve as the season progresses under Bill Belichick, will have three more practices this week to tighten things up leading into Sunday’s road game against the 3-2 Jets.

The areas in which they’ve struggled are obvious: too many penalties, inconsistent play in the secondary that has led to struggles against the big play, too many hits on Brady and inconsistent short-yardage offense, among other things.

The optimist might look at things and say the issues aren’t overly concerning when considering how their two losses came against the Chiefs and Panthers, who have been two of the best teams in the NFL this season (they’re a combined 9-1). The Patriots should still be favored in their next three games before their early-November bye -- at the Jets and then home against the Falcons and Chargers.

The pessimist might point out that wins over the Texans and Buccaneers -- which came down to the final play – easily could have us talking about a 1-4 team.

It’s still a developing picture.

“In general, we’re not a finished product right now,” Brady said on WEEI. “We’re still trying to figure out what we are, what we’re good at … it’s still relatively early. We’ve only played five games, and there’s still a lot of football to play. Hopefully, our best football is ahead of us.”