FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The New England Patriots woke up in unfamiliar territory Monday morning – both literally and figuratively.

In a literal sense, coach Bill Belichick’s team finds itself on the West Coast this week, traveling directly from Green Bay on Sunday night to San Diego for a week of practice leading up to Sunday night’s battle with the Chargers.

Mentally, not only is the team dealing with a week of work away from home, but it’s also dealing with its first loss since Week 4. Sunday evening’s 26-21 defeat in Green Bay snapped New England’s seven-game winning streak.

The loss also dropped the team into a tie in the AFC playoff seeding picture with the Denver Broncos, although the Patriots still hold the tiebreaker over Denver thanks to a victory over Peyton Manning’s squad a few weeks back in Foxborough.

And while a Patriots team that had started the year a much maligned 2-2 hasn’t had to deal with the letdown of losing in more than two months, it’s not like the hard-fought contest against Aaron Rodgers’ squad left New England reeling. Quite the contrary, players and coaches alike seemed happy with the effort and energy of the loss, if not the result, in a game that many were billing as a potential Super Bowl preview.

“Around here we’re never satisfied with losing,” wide receiver Julian Edelman said Monday in his weekly spot on WEEI radio in Boston. “That was a good football team. They outplayed us a little bit yesterday, and they made more plays than us. We still have a bunch of games, we have four games, a month of football. Every game counts. So we have to turn the page, learn from it and try to get better. And that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

A few hours after the loss, Belichick was also resigned to the close-but-not-good-enough nature of the defeat to the team that currently sits atop the NFC.

“I think I talked about it after the game and I probably feel pretty much the same way. Obviously they’re a very good team, they’re well coached, they do a lot of things well,” Belichick said of coming up short in Green Bay. “We were close on a lot of plays throughout the course of the game. (We) had some chances there at the end, but the result was they made a few more plays and coached and played a little better than we did and we give them credit for that. They did a good job. Things we needed to have done better to win last night, we just weren’t able to do them all the way across the board.”

Despite giving up nearly 500 yards of total offense, and thanks in large part to red zone defense that forced the Packers into field goals on their four trips inside the 20-yard line, New England went into Green Bay, dug out of an early deficit and had the ball with a chance to win in the closing minutes.

The comeback attempt camp up short but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Belichick expressed immense pride in his team’s fight and effort in the immediate aftermath of the loss.

But as Edelman said, there is not satisfaction in losing New England. No moral victories. In fact, first-year Patriots cornerback Darrelle Revis hasn’t been on a team that took losing to heart as much as the Patriots do since he entered the NFL.

“Have I been on a team (that takes each individual loss so hard)? My high school team,” Revis said after Sunday’s loss. “My high school team, I’m being honest. We wound up winning states, but we went 14-1, we lost midway through the season, but my high school team, man. This organization has a lot of pride in winning. My high school did, the same thing, we had a lot of pride in winning every game. We want to win every game every week we play.”

For the first time in two months, that didn’t happen. Now, New England has a week to work out the kinks in an effort to get back on the winning track in San Diego against a Chargers (8-4) team coming off an emotional comeback victory in Baltimore that reignited its hopes in the AFC West heading into the final month.

Winning ain’t easy. But in New England, losing can be even harder.

NOTES: DE Chandler Jones (hip) traveled with the team to Green Bay but did not play, missing his fifth straight game to the injury suffered in Week 7 against the Jets. Jones practiced on a limited basis last week for the first time and was listed as questionable on the injury report. … LS Danny Aiken did not play against the Packers, missing his first game with a concussion suffered a week earlier late in the win over the Lions. … WR Julian Edelman, who had been listed on the injury report with a thigh issue, missed a handful of snaps to the injury in Green Bay. He finished the game but was clearly limping. … LB Dont’a Hightower missed a few snaps against the Packers due to an unknown injury in Green Bay. The veteran returned to finish the game but the issue certainly bears watching moving forward at a position where New England already lost Jerod Mayo for the year and has very limited depth.

REPORT CARD VS. PACKERS

PASSING OFFENSE: C-plus – Tom Brady’s final numbers in Green Bay were ones that many quarterbacks would be ecstatic with on any given Sunday. Brady completed 22 of 35 passes for 245 yards with a pair of touchdowns and no interceptions for a 102.7 passer rating. But the high-powered Patriots passing game never quite got into full gear against the Packers and couldn’t finish enough plays to pull out a victory that was there for the taking.

Despite only being sacked once – on New England’s final offensive snap of the day – Brady was under decent pressure for most of the evening. That forced him off his spot on occasion and appeared to adversely affect his throws at other times. Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman each had seven receptions, the former for 98 yards the latter just 48. Brandon LaFell continued to be a solid contributor for Brady to turn to, hauling in five passes for 35 yards, two of which were touchdowns. Overall, though, the protection wasn’t good enough, the efficiency wasn’t good enough and the productive from a passing game that had keyed the team’s seven-game winning streak came up short.

RUSHING OFFENSE: C – Heading into a battle with the NFL’s 30th-ranked run defense the expectation was that the Patriots could and would be able to run the ball in Green Bay. LeGarrette Blount picked up 6 yards on his first carry and that plan seemed to be hitting stride. But two runs later the Patriots had to punt and the expected dominant rushing attack never got going.

By halftime, with the visitors trailing 24-14, New England had just 36 yards on nine attempts, 12 yards coming on one Brandon Bolden run. By the time the final whistle had blown New England had 84 yards on 18 attempts, 50 yards below the Packers’ per-game average allowed coming in. Blount led the way with 58 yards on his 10 attempts, as both he and Bolden each averaged better than 5.7 yards per carry. But like the passing game, the rushing attack never hit its stride for an offense that never got into rhythm in any real fashion. It wasn’t a great day for the run blocking, either, especially extra tackle/tight end Marcus Cannon who struggled in power sets.

PASS DEFENSE: C-plus – In many ways the Patriots did a lot of good things in pass defense. For the most part Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner had a solid game against Green Bay’s top two targets, Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb. But rookie receiver Davante Adams took full advantage of his matchup against Patriots second-year corner Logan Ryan, and later Alfonzo Dennard, with his first career 100-yard game totaling six receptions for 125 yards. Nelson had the play of the game when he took a slant 45 yards for a touchdown in the final minute of the first half after the Patriots had pulled to within 16-14.

All told Aaron Rodgers had way too much time to throw and was able to complete 24 of 38 throws for 368 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions for a 112.6 rating. He spread the ball around to eight different receivers, led by Cobb’s seven catches for 85 yards, with 33 coming on one play. A Patriots defense that had done a good job avoiding the big plays allowed this year saw five different Packers notch a catch of 28 yards or longer. Green Bay moved guys around to get favorable matchups and took advantage of those, including twice getting New England defensive end Rob Ninkovich in coverage and running wheel routes right by him down the right sideline.

It wasn’t a horrific performance on pass defense against Rodgers’ impressive attack, but it wasn’t a winning effort, either.

RUSH DEFENSE: B-minus – New England had been dominant against the run for the last month, thought that came mostly against suspect rushing attacks. Eddie Lacy represented the first big back and big challenge for the front since Chris Ivory ran all over the Patriots. Lacy’s first two runs of the game went for 13 and 24 yards, respectively. It looked like it might be a very long day for the Vince Wilfork and Co. But after those 37 yards, Lacy would gain just 16 yards on 10 more first-half carries.

Overall, Lacy finished with 98 yards on 21 carries, for a 4.7-yard average. Rodgers had five rushes for 22 yards, the bulk coming on a 17-yard scramble. Overall Green Bay totaled 130 yards on 29 attempts for a 4.5 yard average. Like the pass defense, the chunk plays overshadowed at times decent run defense. Dont’a Hightower had three tackles for a loss, but the New England front never did take away the ground attack to make the home team one-dimensional.

SPECIAL TEAMS: C – Rob Ninkovich has to get credit for his efforts as the defensive end had to fill in for an injured Danny Aiken (concussion) and handle the long snapping duties. He did the job without erring. The rest of the unit wasn’t as impressive.

Punter Ryan Allen had a 37.0-yard net on four punts, his longest going for just 41 yards. Stephen Gostkowski miss his only field goal attempt, pushing his 47 yarder wide right in the final minutes as the Patriots were grasping to an unlikely comeback attempt that faded away with his failed kick. Wind was an issue, which also kept the kickoffs low and short throughout the evening.

Danny Amendola averaged just 19 yards on four kickoff returns and managed just 3 yards on his only punt return. Neither team was overly dominant in the kicking game, but New England’s special teams unit had been an almost flawless strength for most of the year and that was certainly not the case in this one.

COACHING: D – Bill Belichick and his staff had been dialing up impressive, successful game plans during the team’s seven-game winning streak. Things didn’t go quite so well in Green Bay. New England got away from the running game too early. It also opened in some passing sets with Shane Vereen and the little-used Brandon Bolden in the backfield rather than focusing on the power running game with Blount and Jonas Gray.

Defensively the Patriots couldn’t find an answer in terms of a pass rush or for Packers third receiver Adams. Mike McCarthy found ways to get Cobb and James Starks one-on-one on wheel routes with Ninkovich in coverage, leading to big plays. New England also seemed to be having success early with Browner on Nelson and Revis on Cobb, but then got away from those matchups for more zone and other man looks. Overall the game had a feel of the Patriots outthinking themselves while the Packers did what they do and took care of business. Not one of the better days from the New England staff.