Pats Posits: This Feels Different

The Patriots have had plenty of September stinkers over the years where an average-to-terrible team goes toe-to-toe with them and either flames out right at the end or dispatches the Patriots, and the punditry gleefully jumps to pronounce the dynasty dead.

Usually, in those games, it was just a case of a good football team playing bad football and the Pats would snap out of it with a statement win near the end of the month and then they’d cruise into the playoffs, constantly getting better and fighting through the kind of injuries that would derail every other team.

I’ve spent the early parts of those seasons being level-headed, reminding everyone how hard it is to win in the NFL, how amazing it was that we just took for granted that the Pats had been doing it for going on two decades. Because it was always clear to me that those Patriots teams that sputtered in September were far better than they looked on the field. I still believed that last week after the perfect storm loss to Jacksonville, but now, after an all-around flat performance in Detroit, even I’m starting to wonder if this is finally the year the Patriots just don’t have it.

Boil it down and we’re seeing a team that lost some key clutch playmakers while none of the replacements have stepped up. Aside from Dietrich Wise, no other young player has shown anything. Coming off the Jags loss it was easy to just assume the Pats would bounce back, but that meant brushing aside the losses of Patrick Chung and Trey Flowers, arguably their two best defenders.

So yes, this looks exactly how you’d expect a team to look that doesn’t have Amendola, Edelman, Lewis, Chung, and Flowers, while Dont’a Hightower, Duron Harmon and Devin McCourty have begun to regress and none of the developmental players have developed. No one outside of Brady-Gronk-White and Wise for a down or two were able to make any impact.

Outside of Edelman’s return in Week 5 and the hopefully-soon return of Chung and Flowers there isn’t much to “yeah, but” about.  The Patriots have been pushed all over the field for the past two weeks and it’s unlike anything we’ve seen at least in the last 10 years.

Simplified, it starts with the run on both sides and the bad start is mirrored by the two units. The offense can’t run it, leaving themselves in impossible long third downs. With limited weaponry, they can’t climb out of those holes like they could when they had Amendola and Edelman, or anyone who could just get open.

The defense can’t stop the run, leaving themselves in third-and-shorts when they even get to third down. And when they do hold on first and second down and get into a favorable third-and-long, they have no pass rush to get off the field on third-and-longs. They look like just a bunch of guys up front and they look old and slow in the back. And that’s with bigger personnel than most NFL teams. If you can’t stop the run with Guy-Brown-Shelton and Hightower as a core, what can you possibly do to save the rest of the defense?

I don’t doubt the Patriots will start playing better football. They’re too well-coached and too hard working for them not to at least show competent football on both sides of the ball. But I’m not sure how much more than competent football we can expect. There’s just nothing to hang their hat on. No string of solid play that signals this team is even capable of being a Super Bowl contender at this point.

With teams around the league getting more and more explosive how could anyone possibly make a case that this New England football team could possibly keep pace? Chung, Flowers and Edelman will help, but they are not going to do it all. Bentley and Wise have been the only ones to show flashes, but even Wise’s overzealous celebrations felt a bit desperate as the rest of the defense just sleepwalked through most of the game.

It’s gut check time in Foxboro for the first time in a long time because these last two weeks have not been the Patriots football we’re used to. With the 3-0 Dolphins coming to town, the Pats’ backs are already against the wall. I’ve said for years that until an AFC East opponent can come to Foxboro and win a meaningful game I wouldn’t hit the panic button, but I can’t remember the last time a divisional rival had the kind of golden opportunity the Dolphins had.

2009 is universally accepted as the most trying year of the Patriots dynasty, but 2018 is shaping up to be even more challenging. Still, football is a bizarre sport. It really is possible to look terrible for a couple weeks then turn it around no matter how much no one wants to believe it. The Pats aren’t dead yet and will continue to fight all season no matter how bad it gets, but through the first three games, this just feels different.