It’s simply the way they’re programmed.

“We’ve always been on alert and we’re going to continue to work hard,” Patriots running back James White said Monday. “That’s all we can do is take it one week at a time, just try to continue to be a better football team.”

New England (10-2) was dealt its second straight loss Sunday in a surprising 35-28 setback to the Philadelphia Eagles. A week ago, the Broncos handed the Patriots their first loss of the year in a 30-24 overtime thriller in snowy Denver.

It marks the first time since the 2012 season that New England has lost consecutive games.

“It’s very rare that we go out there and perform like that, but that’s the nature of the NFL,” wide receiver and special teams player Matthew Slater said. “If you’re not ready to go and on top of your game every time you take the field, the other teams and coaches in this league are very good and they can make you pay for it.”

Slater was especially complimentary of the next opposing coach the Patriots will face, Bill O’Brien of the Houston Texans. O’Brien spent five seasons as an assistant in New England.

“Obviously, Coach O’Brien knows this team very well, so a lot of familiarity there,” Slater said.

New England hasn’t lost three straight since 2002, when it stumbled through a four-game skid.

“We’re thankful we have another opportunity to take the field on Sunday,” Slater added. “It’s going to be a good game.”

NFL union accuses Goodell of power grab

NEW YORK — The NFL Players Association told a federal appeals court Monday that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was making a “sweeping grab for power” in the “Deflategate” controversy and a judge was right to reject his handling of the scandal.

Lawyers for the union made the claim in papers filed with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan. A three-judge panel will hear oral arguments in March before issuing a decision weeks or months afterward.

The appeals court is hearing the National Football League’s appeal of a judge’s ruling that nullified the league’s four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

The union said Goodell ignored the collectively bargained agreement between the league and the union when he upheld the suspension in July.

“It is a sweeping grab for power that is contrary to collectively bargained penalties,” union lawyers wrote.

They said the league has for decades provided all players with hundreds of pages defining league policies including conduct detrimental to the game, with some penalties collectively bargained. Under “equipment violations,” the union said, the league provides notice in bold, italicized type that “First offenses will result in fines.”

The union has asked the court to uphold the decision issued by Judge Richard Berman just before the season began. Berman said the league’s discipline of Brady was based on “several significant legal deficiencies,” including that it failed to adequately provide notice that a lengthy suspension could result from deflating footballs.

Union lawyers noted that the NFL’s investigation of deflated balls at January’s AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts reached a conclusion only that it was “more probable than not” that two Patriots ball handling employees deliberately released air from Patriots game balls. The Patriots won, 45-7.

Goodell affirmed Brady’s suspension in July, concluding Brady conspired with his team’s ball handlers to underinflate balls and then obstructed the probe, including by destroying his cell phone.

The union said no player in NFL history has previously been suspended for obstructing an NFL investigation, so Brady had no notice of that.

League lawyers did not immediately comment, though they said in papers filed with the 2nd Circuit in October that Berman ignored decades of legal precedents and approached the case through a “fundamentally flawed” analysis, refusing to accept Goodell’s view of the facts.

“The district court egregiously overstepped the bounds of its proper role,” the NFL said. “Where lower courts have committed a similar error, appellate courts have not hesitated to reverse. The court should do so here.”