Patriots Need To Learn From This And Move On

bradysits

I’m going to skip the whole “Mark’s weekly in game thoughts” post because I can sum it up with just one bullet:

  • WHAAAAT IS HAPPENING?! (repeated about 300 times in my head last night with various swears thrown in)

No doubt about it the Patriots got absolutely destroyed last night. The Chiefs were better in every aspect of the game. The New England defense looked like a JV squad, the offense couldn’t get on the same page and the best drive of the game came from the one and only Jimmy G. Hell, they looked so bad out there it looked like Brady was speaking a different language in the huddle. I’m sure some people out there will still beat the this-offensive-line-can’t-block drum and pin a lot of it on them and a lot of it should be on them, but this failure was on the entire team. Offense, defense and special teams (except Matthew Slater, he’s a beast) all sucked. Everyone looked rattled from the start.

Maybe I’m living in a fantasyland where the Pats have a sure fire first ballot hall of fame QB at the helm with one of the best coaching minds alive pulling the strings, but I think the Pats use this dumpster fire game film as the catalyst for something great. The Patriots always perform at their best when the rest of the world turns their back on the team and I fully expect every pundit, power ranker and analyst out there to beat on the Patriots like they were Ray Rice in an elevator (people don’t forget, Ray). What’re the chances the Patriots are ranked 17th or lower?

Next weeks game against the Bengals will be a huge moment for this team and I think they’ll thrive. The Bengals are a great team coming into Gillette off a bye that can do damage both offensively and defensively, but I think Belichick makes this Pats team do nothing but eat, drink and breath football for the next week to prepare. I’m sure he’ll make them go 24 straight hours watching nothing but the game film from that atrocity last night.

So what do I think will happen next week? Well I see KT and Dobson playing (or at least I hope they do), I see the defense winning the turnover battle while playing angry and I see Brady throwing for a couple TDs. If you think that these men are going to shrink from this moment and just roll over you’re dead wrong. Yes they’re at a tough spot and yes things are going poorly for a team that has experienced continued success over the last 14 years, but these are the times when good teams circle the wagons and make that final push to be something great. Hopefully in a week I’ll be writing a post about how right I was and not one about how being 2-3 isn’t the end of the world. Fingers crossed.

PS: Despite what you’ll hear on talk radio and read in troll-job-articles there is no QB controversy for this team. That was a blow out and it was good for Jimmy G to get some in game playing time and put together one solid drive. Brady is still the Pats QB, he is still a competitor that can add a lot to this squad and will continue to start under center until he retires. Count it.