Tom Brady says he’s throwing the ball better than ever.

Journal / Bob Breidenbach

FOXBORO — New England quarterback Tom Brady was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Week yesterday.

Brady posted a career-high 150.9 passer rating and tied his career-high with four touchdown passes in a 38-7 victory over Buffalo last weekend.

The veteran signal-caller completed 23 of 29 passes (79.3 percent) for 311 yards. It was Brady’s eighth career Player of the Week award.

Brady says his mechanics are the best that they’ve ever been in his career

“I think this is the most comfortable I’ve felt with it,” Brady said. “For eight years [I’ve] put a lot of time and effort into trying to get things the way [I] want them. There’s a lot that goes into throwing, the mechanics of it. It’s not just coincidence that you complete certain passes that maybe you struggled with in the past. It’s probably just better technique. And obviously there are a lot of other great things in the passing game too, like great protection, which allows for good technique, and [the receivers] doing a great job of getting open and catching the ball.”

Because Cincinnati is averaging 31 points per game, Brady said that it’s imperative that New England scores touchdowns on Monday when the Patriots get in the red zone, as opposed to kicking field goals.

“You don’t want to kick a lot of field goals, and that is something that we haven’t been doing very well — getting the ball inside the 5 [-yard line] three times and kicking three field goals, once not scoring, and a few other times inside the 10 and not scoring,” Brady said. “This isn’t the game where you want to just want to get down there and score points. You really need to score touchdowns. The red area is going to be a huge point of emphasis this week.”

Belichick: Room to improve

It started with head coach Bill Belichick saying that the Patriots’ impressive 3-0 start is nothing to get overly excited about.

It doesn’t matter to him that the Patriots are outscoring their opponents by a 38-11.7 margin, that they’re producing a league-best 441 yards per game and are limiting teams to an NFL-best 207 yards allowed per game.

The Patriots, Belichick said, need to continue improving each week.

That message has trickled down to the players in the locker room. They believe it, and for good reason.

In the other six seasons that the Patriots started with a 3-0 record, they missed the playoff four times.

“[It’s] so early in the year, we need to make improvements each week,” Brady said. “You just can’t lose ground, and no matter who you play you have to have three great days of practice of out here — this week it will be four — so we can get ready to play and continue to get better.”

“We’ve left a lot of plays on the field,” Brady added.

“Continuingly improving is what you’ve got to do to stay in this league, to stay ahead of the game and on top of what you are doing,” New England offensive lineman Matt Light said. “…When you go out there and you don’t have a lot of mental errors, and you don’t create turnovers and you play a smart physical game, then you’re going to create success, and we have to keep doing that.”

Practice squad standouts

Quarterback Matt Gutierrez and practice squad players Bam Childress (receiver) and Ray Ventrone (safety) wore black jerseys at practice yesterday, signifying that they are the practice players of the week. That designation is given to the players who best prepared the team for the previous week’s win.

Here and there

The Patriots signed defensive lineman Zach West yesterday to fill the final spot on the eight-man practice squad. West was with the Patriots in training camp. He signed as a rookie free agent out of Texas El-Paso … On Tuesday, New England signed cornerback Antwain Spann to its practice squad. Additionally, the team released cornerback Gemara Williams from the practice squad and placed tight end Jason Rader on the practice squad reserve/injured list on Tuesday … Several Patriots are banged up this week. Outside linebacker Rosevelt Colvin (ankle), cornerback Randall Gay (thigh), running back Laurence Maroney (groin), offensive lineman Stephen Neal (shoulder), wide receivers Donte Stallworth (knee) and Kelley Washington (hamstring), nose tackle Vince Wilfork (shoulder), safety Eugene Wilson (ankle), and guard Billy Yates (shoulder) had limited participation in practice yesterday.

roblee@projo.com