After their thrilling-yet-ultimately-disappointing 31-24 loss to Seattle, it’s apparent that over the past 15 years the Patriots tend to lose in three different ways.
1.) The Blowout – just one of those games where the opponent plays well and New England seems to do everything wrong and have everything go against them. At some point in the fourth quarter, fans realize they’ve continued watching because they want to see the backup QB and/or maybe they enjoy the feeling of suffering. See: Chiefs 41, Patriots 14, 2014.
2.) The Nap – Possibly due to underestimating an opponent, maybe because of overabundant contentment with an early lead, or a combination of both, these head-shakers come around every couple of seasons or so. The prime example was 2004’s loss at Miami, but the 2015 upset by the Eagles counts, too.
3.) The Better Team That Day Won – Think Green Bay in 2014. Yeah, the Patriots lost, but fans came out of that game with respect for the Packers and confidence in New England. Half “If Only,” half “Meh, What Are You Gonna Do?”
So, where does the loss to the Seahawks lie? It’s tough to tell. We do know that the NFL has no great, unstoppable team this year. The Patriots are one of the best, yet they have obvious holes that need work and, at this point in the season, probably won’t get 100 percent fixed.
Was this a mediocre New England defense in disarray, or a Seattle offense waking up for the second half of the season? We’ll have a better idea after Sunday’s game in San Francisco. If the Patriots have trouble containing the 1-8 Niners’ 29th-ranked offense, with its 36-percent third-down conversion rate and 20.8 points per game, then the defense has more issues than your grandmother’s attic full of Reader’s Digest.
This could be one of those “Win That Feels Like A Loss” weeks. Ooh. Fun.
Game/Player Observations
Straight Outta Complementary: Metaphors abound regarding the relationship between offense, defense, and special teams. I’ve heard the trio compared to legs on a stool, where the failure of one brings the whole thing down. Now, while the Patriots defense was only slightly more effective than taking Airborne during the bubonic plague, it’s hard to say that offense or special teams had a great day.
That’s complementary football. One team makes a play that sets up the next team. Defense stops them deep, punt return gets a few yards to set up the offense, offense delivers with points. Last week, the Patriots actually converted 60 percent of their third-down opportunities, while the Seahawks cashed in on 50 percent. Looking at the game stats, the Patriots’ two turnovers set the teams apart. The defense too often failed to hold up its end of the bargain, but they weren’t the only reason for losing.
Not to be too much of a grammar weirdo, but “complementary” means to combine and enhance each other, “complimentary” is the other thing. (I try to remember that the word “complete” starts out with the same five letters.) I always think of complimentary running backs as a couple of teammates saying things like, “Nice block!” “Thanks, man. Way to cut and go!”
I reiterate: grammar weirdo.
Two Halves Make A Hole: The Patriots allowing the Seahawks to drive the length of the field in less than a minute at the end of the first half lost them the game, not just because of the seven points, but due also to its impact on Tom Brady’s reluctance to score with about 40 seconds left in the game. This is actually detailed well in this piece by Mike Reiss of ESPN.com.
The Patriots have used this goal-and-minutes-to-go strategy before. Against Cincinnati, LeGarrette Blount appeared to score a touchdown with two minutes left, but the replay ruled him down at the one. On the next play, Brady took the snap and flopped toward the line of scrimmage, gaining nothing and taking 35 seconds of the clock. Blount then went up and over the pile for the score. Now, the Patriots held a 28-17 lead at the time, so Brady could have done the meringue behind his line and lost a couple of yards to no ill effect.
The first time I remember seeing this type of play was in 2008 when the Matt Cassel-helmed Pats hosted the Bills. New England led 13-3 with 11:05 left on the clock. They chewed up over nine minutes on their final scoring drive. With a first down at the Bills’ one with 3:18 left, Cassel took two snaps in a row and made zero yards. It was easy to see that he had no intention of making it into the end zone, as his first move was to crouch behind the center. On third down, BenJarvus Green-Ellis plowed in for the necessary yard, 20-3, Patriots.
We’ve seen this strategy work before; I’m just not sure I’ve seen it when New England trailed. But, even with less than a minute left, the Patriots thought it more important to force Seattle to call a timeout than to tie the game as soon as possible. Here we get into the loser’s side of “ifs”: if Blount reached the ball over the plain, if Brady went the right way on the ensuing sneak, if they tried Blount one more time on fourth down. We’ll see how much this loss makes a difference in January.
Call-Ins For Collins: “Did trading linebacker Jamie Collins hurt the defense?” is one of the myriad reasons I have ignored talk radio this week. As Coach Bill Belichick might say, Look, I’m just trying to do what’s best for the team. Short term, it’s easy to see that the lack of an oak-sized uberathlete didn’t help, but I don’t think Belichick was looking short term. Again, we’ll have a better idea of what’s up after their meeting in San Francisco, because they looked off. Seattle marched down the field meeting all the resistance of tulips to a tank, and Doug Baldwin was so open for his second TD that he could have stopped at the one-yard line and celebrated before stepping into the end zone.
The next three games are away at San Franciso (1-8), away at the Jets (3-7), and home vs. the Rams (4-5). That makes three teams with a combined eight wins. The time for fixing is now.
Spitting Out Pieces Of His Broken Luck: I have never had a punctured lung. I can’t imagine it’s pleasant. The fact that tight end Rob Gronkowski took a nasty hit and, after a five-play respite, returned to the game says so much about his character. Gronk thought he just had the wind knocked out of him. That’s like thinking you got a splinter in your toe and, when you look for it, finding a 10-penny nail.
Cutting the game observations a little short today due to a cold. When I blow my nose, it sounds like I’m starting up a Harley-Davidson. Accidentally took some NyQuil during the day but so far no negative effectsaadcvx#%zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Random Observations
If Tom E. Curran Were Born In County Mayo, We’d Have A Hell Of A Subhead Here: Kudos to Curran and Jerod Mayo for their analysis of New England’s zone breakdowns (you can see their video here). In it, Mayo shows how the Patriots failed to drop back far enough to cover the middle flat, making them especially vulnerable to mid-range down-and-outs. Mayo also has some notable comments on the impact of the Collins trade (hint: it’s not what you might think).
So, salvageable. The next few weeks should see New England bulking up the win column; fans have the luxury of deciding on the quality of those expected wins. Not a bad spot to be in.
Cris Crossed The Line: On a personal note, I was not a big fan of how Cris Collinsworth played up the hit on Gronk. I know, I know: I’m biased, and maybe due to my age I don’t relish the big hits in football like I used to (in part because it hurts enough to get out of bed these days without having gotten tackled the day before). Still, when Collinsworth starts that hawnh-hawnh-hawnh guffaw during the replay and fails to note the sobriety of the moment as Gronk is getting looked at by the training staff, it can be difficult to listen to.
You can note the severity of the hit, praise the defense, and still show proper concern for player safety. We can have nice things.
Hello, My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare To Be Reprimanded: If you search for “Seahawks–Patriots–Revenge,” you get several headlines from national outlets promoting the storyline of how Seattle got back at New England on Sunday.
Ah, yes. Revenge. Because the Patriots may have beaten the Seahawks in one of the most tense and memorable Super Bowls in history, but Seattle came to Foxboro two years later and upset the home team in Week 10. Even Steven!
They certainly seemed both pumped and jacked.
Officially Bad: We can all agree that Kam Chancellor committed pass interference on Gronk, right? The tight end tried to get to the ball but the safety prevented him from doing so, impeding him from behind. I’m not saying Seattle stole the game or that, even if New England had scored there, they would have won in overtime. Hell, if the Seahawks won the toss, Russell Wilson could have gotten them down the field in the time it took for fans to fill up the chip bowl. Questionable calls went both ways, from Seattle’s fumble that wasn’t called to Richard Sherman’s phantom face mask penalty. And that’s the issue.
Post-game discussion should not come down to a tradeoff of bad calls like we’re swapping properties in Monopoly: “If I give you the Marvin Gardens fumble, you have to hand over the Park Place pass interference in the end zone.” There exists a parallel universe where this game was officiated well; and frankly, I don’t know how that game ended. Did the Patriots win on a field goal? Did the Seahawks end up with a 14-point lead? There’s no telling.
Referees are human. In some instances, maybe the video guys should buzz in for a second look without a coach’s challenge, especially where fumbles and face mask penalties are called. With help from instant replay, some of these calls are obvious and could be changed quickly.
Or, hey, we could do away with instant replay all together and make it more of a free-for-all. Look everybody! I got Free Parking!
The Most Memorable Play Of A Forgettable Season: Very happy to report that Cassel’s third-down punt at Buffalo in the Patriots’ last game of 2008 is now on YouTube. If you’ll remember, this was the wind game, where Zephyr swirled with such force that the goal posts ended up slanting in different directions. With 6:36 left in the fourth, leading 13-0, they ran Lamont Jordan for one yard twice, then had Cassel boot it out of the shotgun. The wind was such that, once the ball hit the ground at the 25 and bounced to the 11, it featured a breeze-aided roll all the way to the one. Cassel was credited with a 57-yarder.
You know, 2008 was not the most fun year, but it had its moments.
Different Bites For Different Likes: Food fads come and go, so it’s time to get rid of the culinary horror known as caramel and sea salt. I love caramel. It’s a delicious treat. I still don’t understand how people want to add an overabundance of salt to something so delicious. Yet, every time I go to the supermarket, I see a picture on a box of dark chocolate treats, and I read the word “caramel,” and then “sea salt” reaches up its little calcified hands and punches me in the nethers.
Believe me, I understand food fads. No one liked sun-dried tomatoes in 1987 more than I. But we’ve had enough of this sweet-n-savory experiment, right? I don’t want paprika in my butterscotch. I’m sure I wouldn’t like garlic powder on my ice cream. By the way, why sea salt? Regular salt not pretentious enough?
This seems like what would have happened if the Reese’s peanut butter cup people started out in the wrong direction. “Hey, you got sea salt in my caramel!”
And you got caramel in my sea salt. I guess they’re just two great tastes that taste great together!
“No. No way. You just totally effed up my caramel.”
Walking I’m Not Dead Yet: For all my ranting about the first episode of the season, I of course went back and watched the next two eps of “The Walking Dead.” I think I see the problem. As a reader of the comics, I wasn’t a fan of Negan, but I did see his value as an outsized, over-the-top character. As much as I like Jeffrey Dean Morgan as an actor, I don’t think he’s right for the part. He’s charming, and handsome, and not nearly as loathsome-seeming as the Negan character needs to be. At times it seems like Morgan’s doing an impression of Al Pacino, bigger than every scene. Doesn’t work for me.
I referred to the books as “comics” because I’ve decided to restrict my use of the term “graphic novels,” for a couple of reasons. One, I don’t see the term “comic” as derogatory, and two, we’re talking about a zombie narrative. If I wanted to recommend a novel about zombies, it would be Colson Whitehead’s evocative, harrowing Zone One. To me, calling a comic book a graphic novel is like referring to a movie as a sight sculpture: it’s simply a different art form.
On to San Francisco. Losing is never fun. How lucky for Patriots fans that, for the past 15 years, they have done it so rarely.
Chris Warner was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea where, apparently, he stopped breathing on an average of 35 times per hour. Sleep well, everyone! And tweet him: @cwarn89
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