Rhamondre Stevenson made a mistake that cost the New England Patriots the game in their 22-18 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday.

As the Patriots were driving to take the lead in the final minutes, Stevenson fumbled the ball at the Bengals’ 5-yard line with a minute left, essentially ending New England’s comeback bud.

Despite his game-deciding mistake, Stevenson’s head coach is standing by him.

“I'm not going to second-guess Rhamondre on what he did,” Bill Belichick said during a Zoom press conference on Monday.

Stevenson’s blunder was a pretty uncharacteristic play from him. It was only the second fumble of his two-year career. He has also made a name for himself this season as being bruising and powerful running back, creating yards after contact on several occasions throughout the season.

Belichick didn’t question Stevenson’s execution and technique on that play.

“Rhamondre's ball security has been pretty good all year,” Belichick said. “He had two hands on the ball, they were running him back, and they knocked it out at the end.”

Stevenson’s running style and ability to break tackles might have cost him on that play. It appeared as if his forward progress might have been stopped before he lost the ball, which meant the play would’ve been whistled dead before the ball jarred free.

Stevenson didn’t want to make any excuses, though, following the Patriots' loss.

“It don’t really matter what I think,” Stevenson said of the refs’ decision to let the play continue. “They called a fumble. They recovered the ball. Whatever they called, [they called].”

Stevenson took full ownership of the mistake, too.

“I got the ball and was trying to make something happen,” Stevenson said. “I was probably doing something more than I was supposed to. I probably should’ve just went down. Ultimately, he took the ball from me and went down.”

Saturday’s game was pretty underwhelming for Stevenson. He rushed for only 30 yards on 13 carries (2.3 yards per carry), well below his season average of 4.8 yards per carry as he has rushed for newly 1,000 yards this season.

That might be just part of the reason why Belichick isn’t being too hard on Stevenson.

“Rhamondre is a really good competitor,” Belichick said on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Monday. “He's one of our best players. I'm sure he'll be ready to go.”

Stevenson and the 7-8 Patriots still control their own playoff destiny and hope to make up the blunder when they host the 8-7 Miami Dolphins on Sunday.