FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Does New England Patriots wide receiver Brandon LaFell deserve criticism for cutting off his routes twice in Sunday's loss to the Philadelphia Eagles?

LaFell's work in this area was highlighted by analyst Charles Davis twice during Sunday's broadcast on Fox.

First, there was a long incompletion up the left sideline at 9:36 of the first quarter, and this is what Davis said: "Watch Brandon LaFell, No. 19. He essentially stops his route. Tom Brady throws it deep. If he keeps running and gives himself an opportunity, there's probably a play on the football. But LaFell thought the play was dead, then he had to get on his horse again. A little bit too late."

Then, on Brady's second interception (2:26, third quarter), Davis said: "Let's see what happens here as they go downfield. LaFell coming across field, and then he kind of cuts it short. You see that, and Tom Brady is expecting him to take it all the way to the end zone. So the receiver became the defensive back, Byron Maxwell. You see Tom Brady, 'I thought you were going to end zone', and he cut it short on him."

On Tuesday's conference call with Patriots coaches Bill Belichick, Josh McDaniels and Matt Patricia, I asked McDaniels if any criticism of LaFell in this area was fair.

"I thought our guys played with great effort, obviously played with a lot of fight," McDaniels said, speaking generally and not answering specifically about LaFell. "It wasn't an ideal situation we found ourselves in in the second half. You know, there are a lot of guys out there, for one reason or another, we didn't make enough plays to win the game. It certainly doesn't fall on any one player, and I wouldn't question the effort of anybody on our offense."

Earlier, McDaniels had described the second play as a scramble-drill type of situation, saying the Eagles did a good job of covering the initial pattern.

"We didn't really have an opportunity to get the ball out of our hands quickly," he said. "The protection was good, so Tom had an opportunity to hang on to it. Any time the pattern develops the way it was designed and the ball isn't thrown yet, there are a lot of things that could happen at that point. We try to practice scramble drills and scramble plays. I don't think there is a perfect science on that. Sometimes guys that are deep come back short. Sometimes guys that are short go deep. Sometimes it's somewhere in the middle.

"I think a lot of times you're trying to get on the same page, even in an unscripted manner. Just the overall finish of that play, whether it was trying to make a play or just get the ball thrown away, Maxwell made a good play on the ball there at the end."