The Patriots suffered one of the worst losses in the Belichick-Brady era on Sunday to the Seahawks and as expected sports radio was blowing up on a number of topics Monday. Obviously the poor secondary play was the leading topic of discussion, but also being discussed was the trend of losing close games, Brady’s play, Belichick and the coaches needing to take more accountability on defense and then comments made by Seahawks players following the game, particularly defensive back Richard Sherman. (It should be noted one of the tweets has been removed from his account)

Many have over-reacted following the loss proclaiming what an average team the Patriots are, Brady and Belichick are losing their touch, etc. Taking a step back things are not as bad as they seem. The Patriots have lost three games, by a combined four points. This is not even close to a disaster, just a few plays in each game that need to be made to turn losses into wins. Their losses to the Cardinals, Ravens and Seahawks are not as bad as they look on paper as their combined record is 11-6. Most importantly, the AFC is wide open this year. There are only two teams with winning records (Ravens and Texans), and both of those teams have suffered season-ending injuries to their top defensive players. The Patriots will get better as the year goes on, playing their best football in December and will once again be there in the end.

For full Patriots coverage visit Patriotslinks.com.

Sure, man, whatever– Gerry Callahan looks at the post-game comments made by Anthony Sherman, a guy most people never even heard of until Sunday.

Patriots can’t cover flaws vs. Seahawks– Chad Finn says the Patriots once again struggled to close out their opponent on Sunday.

Patriots report card– Ron Borges has his grades for this week.

Patriots are now mired in mediocrity- Tony Massarotti says the Patriots aren’t anything special so far this year.

Patriots show trouble at the top– Mike Reiss says Belichick and Brady are largely to blame for the loss.

Tom Brady not to blame for Patriots’ struggles– Chris Gasper says it is not Brady’s fault, it’s on the secondary.

Why drafting and developing defensive backs continues to be a struggle for Patriots– Christopher Price looks at a major issue, which has hurt the Patriots over the recent years.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Chris Serino who lost his battle with cancer on Monday. Serino coached college hockey at both UNH and Merrimack followed by acting as both athletic director and hockey coach at Malden Catholic. He was one of the good guys and will certainly be missed.

Warrior Serino dead– John Connolly and Jim Clark have an outstanding piece on the late coach.

 

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Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

19 thoughts on “More Patriots-Seahawks fallout”

  1. #Patriots have lost 7 games since 2009 when leading in final 5 minutes (T-3rd most in NFL)
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    R_Sherman stuff.. is this overblown or what? I saw that Seattle fans didn’t realize who @GregABedard on twitter was and were sending some very nasty stuff to him (still are). Now, we have certain media members sending him nasty tweets.. really? Leave that to the “bloggers” and “idiots who post on forums like Bruce Allen’s BSMW”.

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    Charlie Gasperino strikes again last week: Another article about potential cash problems/Red Sox sale and you basically get 0 response in the local media. I think the only stuff that was followed-up on was your obligatory Peter Gammons reminder that John W. Henry is smarter than the scientists/team who just put Felix Bumgartner’s capsule together. Why do people not care more? 1.) Lack of sources here or ways to find out what Charlie does? he is quite an insider. 2.) Are people so bias because of his employer that anything he puts out is junk? (Which is a joke if true.) 3.) Usual circling of the wagons from the BBWAA?

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    Another potential story coming out of Liverpool. The reporting (non wire things) is quite selective and usually only positive. I could see the press ignoring this here but also be a great nugget for someone to follow because of the amount of symmetry to what happens here.

    How about this one:

    When all the nasty stuff was coming out of the clubhouse about BobbyV/Shoppach’s texts/etc what if we heard that Pam Ganley was meeting with and also possibly threatening a blogger or someone writing about this behind the scenes? What if she claimed to hire a PI and collect information on the family of that person? I think this would blow-up into a pretty big scandal here. No, she did NOT do this but her counterpart at Liverpool did. Why care or does it matter? Same employer and front office as the folks who love smearing people on their way out.

    Her counterpart is named Jen Chang. Chang was a long-time LFC fan who, in the wake of the front office cleaning after Liverpool’s failures, was “Rob Bradford”-ing in SI.com for LFC (previous ESPN.com too) and wound up with a job as their press guy. Basically, even in the wake of Liverpool’s meltdown (like the Sox) in 2011-2012, he was still writing puff pieces for SI on Liverpool.

    So far, it got major press/attention after making rounds on Deadspin sites and local papers in the UK have begun to cover it. The orignal is here:

    http://deadsp.in/V4XclD

    This is one side to the claims, but, if true, are pretty serious.

    Since then, it’s begun to get enough traction that Liverpool have “launched an internal probe” because the press won’t let this go. Unlike something like the BBWAA, there is competition for stories there.

    If you’re interested: https://twitter.com/sportingintel (go back about 48h to this weekend)
    Independent Article: http://ind.pn/V4Z4uu
    Article in the Daily Mail: http://bit.ly/Rxf2qr

    Will this get any traction here? It has a lot of legs and can easily be written about given the reputation. On the other hand, it also can be conveniently ignored.

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    1. BSM…great stuff on the Sox cash issues. I first heard about this on the weekend shows on WEEI before the game. I started to dig a little. If the reports are correct I would think the Sox are going to try and scale back to about $120 mill with the highest ticket prices in the game. Imagine what the ratings and attendance will look like if the team stops spending. Oy vey.

      More importantly on this story goes the continually under or flat out un reported story of how John Henry bought/ leveraged the team in the face of the Dolan cash bid. Its been 10 years now so they should be paying down the debt some but they had to have taken on more debt to finance Liverpool. All of that has to be collateralized against something as I doubt banks would have just written the loans against the properties’ equity. It will be interesting to see if the pursuit of cash becomes yet another distraction/excuse.

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      1. A couple of objections I have:

        (1) The Sox sale was hardly underreported, given that Seth Mnookin basically wrote half of his book about it. The Dolan bid wasn’t exactly what he led us to believe. His initial bid was inferior to the Henry group’s bid — it didn’t have nearly as much non-contingent cash as Henry’s, and I think he was going to put a lot less in personally, relying heavily on leverage — and the revised bid wasn’t much stronger. It was nominally greater than the Henry group’s bid, but relied on some smoke and mirrors to get there (if memory serves, part of the “cash” was expected revenue from post-sale syndication of limited partner interests, i.e. cash that didn’t actually exist yet). McCourt’s bid was also inferior, and dependent on the Fan Pier stadium plan that rapidly fell apart. The Henry group was the surest thing of the offers, and that’s why it wound up winning. But that doesn’t sell as well as “bag job” does, of course….

        (2) Commercial banks will absolutely loan against future cash flow, so whatever debt was incurred in the Sox purchase isn’t necessarily secured debt. That doesn’t mean it isn’t secured — it just means that it’s not necessarily secured. And in fact I think that the Henry group’s offer involved a lot less debt — a lot less — than the competing groups. But it’s been a while since I read the book, so don’t quote me on that.

        Liverpool is off to a historically bad start this year. Stop me if you heard this one before: overpaid, underachieving club finds new ways to perform poorly while stringing along loyal fanbase; absentee owners seem powerless and/or unwilling to do anything. The main difference is that Brendan Rodgers is no Bobby V — he’s actually the right guy to run that club,

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        1. Dave,

          rather than arguing the finer points of whose deal was better…I think the bigger point, that has always been there is that the Henry group was always underfunded. Maybe they got banks to loan on future revenue, maybe the loans were secured through other assets…I doubt we will ever know for sure. What we do know is that the Sox ownership today seems over extended and that is effecting the team on the field and might do so for the foreseeable future. So not only are these guys in financial trouble…they are about to destroy the fan experience.
          As for Liverpool…from what I keep reading their books are worse than the Sox’s…regardless of the product on the field/pitch.

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  2. Per usual after a Pats loss, D&C went on a rant about how rude and arrogant Belichick is towards the media. Saying if Belichick treated them like he treats Ordway and Holley they would call an end to the interview…..yeah right, easy to say stuff like that when your NOT the ones doing the interview. D&C = faux tough guys….. Also love how D&C act like they are trying to defend the “honor” of the fans..”the paying customers want Belichick to answer questions”…..BULL….the reason they get upset is they perceive Belichick is disrespecting THEM and their media buddies. They could care less about the “fans”

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    1. I saw that segment this morning, presumably while NESN was not allowed to show the Brady interview. All I could think about was how D&C LOVE Doc Rivers because he talks to them and gives them “real” information. And then I thought about Bruce’s piece about the perception of Doc and BB and I just started laughing. Did they cut Brady’s interview short because he didn’t throw his secondary under the bus? Nope. Absolute hypocrites!

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      1. Exactly…Belichick just doesn’t “play the game”. Other coaches/players might use more words but they are also end up saying NOTHING. BB doesn’t sugarcoat it, he can’t be bothered, more power too him……
        Brady is a great example, do D&C really think their interview with Brady is informative?….Brady DOES “play the game” he uses alot of words, he keeps the interview going, it might not be as awkward as the BB interview but in the end he says the samething every week. “It’s about the EXECUTION”….too comical

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  4. Bruce;

    I know the Pats have lost 3 close games. But I am sorry…you lose to Pete Carroll…it is the end of the world. There is no excuse for it. There is something fundamentally wrong with how that team is performing down the stretch. 8 minutes left and they could not hold a 13 point lead. 1 minute left and they have the ball on the 20 and they go 4 and out. The botched series of plays at the end of the first half that cost them a FG.

    Could they still go 13 or 12-4…sure. Will they win the AFC E? Probably. Might they do well in the playoffs…who knows. All I know is they lost to a team coached by California Clueless…a game they had won. So yes the sky is falling…at least until they play and beat the Jets and restore order to the universe next weekend.

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    2. I’m sure Bruce would like to know that but Ryan is the author.
      Also the Giants lots to Sea by 10 last year

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      1. My apologies to Ryan. And here is the rest of my mia culpa. My posting was kind of an inside joke between Bruce and me…my feelings about Pete Carroll and his competency are well known to some people. I am so angry about this loss that I have not listened to or read any Pats related stuff this week…and probably won’t until after the Jets game.

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  5. “The Patriots have lost three games, by a combined four
    points. This is not even close to a disaster, just a few plays in each game
    that need to be made to turn losses into wins.”

    This “just need to make a few more plays” has been a far overused refrain with this team for a while now. These were the types of excuses you
    would always hear from teams that consistently underachieved, like the Colts
    and Chargers during the mid-to-late 2000’s. Look at the stats for Brady or the
    defense while holding a lead late in games over the past 3 or 4 seasons. Not
    good. There was a time when you could pretty much pencil in a victory if the
    Pats were down by 3 late in a game.
    Now I’m uneasy being up by anything less than 3 scores going into the 4th quarter.

    The Patriots are still a great team capable of looking
    unbeatable on any particular Sunday, but there’s definitely that intangible gutty,
    and clutch play-making characteristic missing that those early 2000’s Patriots teams
    seemed to possess in spades.

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  6. I am just sick of reading this crap and stinks from Tony Mazz. We get it all our teams suck and are crap when they lose and when they win its nothing special they should win. I am sick of ripping his crap in Globe each week and his YARMing(Your Absolutely Right Mike) on radio with Felger. Enough Tony my goodness just stop it the Pats are 3-3 and have lost the games by 2,1,1 points they have struggled, but without Baltimore healthy if the AFC Championship game doesn’t have NE vs. Houston I will be very shocked.

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