Tom Brady knows that changes need to be made in the wake of the New England Patriots' 33-20 loss Sunday afternoon to the Miami Dolphins, and it started Monday morning with the man in the mirror.

This beard is no more: Tom Brady shaved it off Monday morning after Sunday's disappointing loss to the Dolphins. Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

"Well, the beard is gone," Brady said during his interview on Boston sports radio WEEI’s "Dennis and Callahan" show. "I was pretty pissed off this morning."

Brady said, laughing, that the beard just wasn’t working. But that was far from the only thing that wasn’t working for the Patriots on Sunday. Their offense, facing increased pressure from Miami’s defensive front, produced an anemic 100 yards after the second quarter.

"We have to find ways to not get into those long-yardage situations where we become one-dimensional," Brady said. "Because when you become one-dimensional against a good pass rush, that’s how they win a lot of games. Just not the way we needed to play that game.

"It’s on us players to do a better job. When we have opportunities to hit open passes, we have to hit them. That’s what it comes down to. You can’t draw up a magic play. We are trying to do everything we can to make the plays that we need to make. And the execution of it out there on the field -- we need to do a better job of it."

As the Patriots' offensive line struggled to buy time, it seemed as if the offense strayed from quick-releasing plays, though Brady said that was not the case. The issues were more complex than getting rid of the ball earlier.

"We did a little bit of that," Brady said. "For example, the one I threw to Danny [Amendola] on our sideline where [Brandon] LaFell got called for pass interference. We are running a slant route and the guy runs into LaFell and they call us for P.I. Things like that came up yesterday that I kind of shake my head at and say we run a simple pattern and they call us for a penalty. Those are just some of the things that happen that we have to try to overcome.

"You’re right. Getting the ball out of our hands quickly. Getting the ball to the guys who can actually do something with it is an important part of our game plan."

Brady wants to see his team work at becoming consistent and said that this week will be a gauge for how mentally tough it is.

"Nobody feels sorry for this team, and there is nobody that can do anything about it except for the guys that are going to be [at Gillette] today," Brady said. "And we have to do a lot better job than we did yesterday.

"I think we are much better than what we were yesterday, but we have to go out and prove it. We have a lot of opportunities left -- this isn’t the last game of the year. We need to learn from it, see what kind of mental toughness we have and dig deep and get back to work and see if we can make the improvements that we need to make and try to go out and win a game on the road this week."