There’s work to be done
Pats must be better
“We made plays when we had to, but if we want to keep winning and want to move on, we can’t play like that.” — Julian Edelman
FOXBORO — The Patriots were so bad, so often, so early last night at Gillette Stadium that for a while there it looked like Bill Belichick was going to have an opening on his schedule next Friday for the Trump inauguration.
But, sure, the Patriots did emerge with a 34-16 victory over the Houston Texans. And because of that, Belichick, quarterback Tom Brady and the rest of the boyos will spend this week preparing for either the Kansas City Chiefs or Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game.
Know this, though: The Pats have a lot of work to do between now and next weekend, because at this very moment they’re not as good as you assumed they would be. That’s not an opinion. That’s a fact. Anyone on the Pats will tell you that; by the end of business last night pretty much everyone did.
Brady probably broke some more records last night — we’re at the point now where he does that simply by getting out of bed in the morning — but he was 18-for-38 for 287 yards and two interceptions. Those numbers are not Brady numbers.
Consider that he tangled himself up in diplomatic knots after the game, trying to walk a fine line between praising the vaunted Houston defense while also saying, screw that, his team’s offensive problems had nothing to do with the Texans and everything to do with the Patriots.
“Yeah, there were a lot of things, between what they were doing and what we were doing,” he said. “Just very inconsistent for us, all the way around. We just didn’t do enough in any area. But they’ve got a good defense, they’re a first-ranked defense, and I thought they did a good job, had a good scheme, they were prepared, they played well.
“I think we just gotta learn from it,” he said. “This team did a good job playing against us. They had some good scheme stuff that worked. They have some good rushers and they have good guys on coverage.” But . . . “And then you add our poor execution on top of that and then you add our turnovers on top of that and it doesn’t feel great because we worked pretty hard to play a lot better than we played.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they beat the Texans and they beat the spread . . . but to some degree the Texans didn’t have a whole lot to do with what happened. It could just as well have been the Jets, Jaguars or the godforsaken Cleveland Browns. The 2016 Texans were a 9-7 team that weaseled their way into the postseason for no other reason than because they play in a barrel shed of a division. The quarterback they rolled out last night, the thunderously overpaid Brock Osweiler, was almost comical in his futility (three interceptions), and yet the Pats led 17-13 at the half and 24-16 early in the fourth quarter. Sheesh. But again: Forget Houston. This game was all about the Patriots — all about their mistakes and their unpreparedness. That they ultimately won is a testament to their superior athletic might, but for a team with a supposed take-no-prisoners, Delfategate-fueled quest to win a fifth Super Bowl there was enough bad, goofy football on display to put a serious scare into Pats fans.
Mistakes? How about cornerback Eric Rowe being flagged for pulling a player out of the pile after a 10-yard Osweiler completion? The ensuing 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty helped lead to a Houston field goal.
How about Michael Floyd getting his fingers on a bad pass from Brady, after which the ball landed in the arms of grateful cornerback A.J. Bouye? It led to another Houston field goal.
How about Dion Lewis fumbling the ensuing kickoff? The Texans got the ball on the New England 12, and two plays later Osweiler connected with tight end C.J. Fiedorowicz for an easy 10-yard touchdown.
As Logan Ryan pointed out, “We’ve been there before. We didn’t panic. And we made them kick a lot of field goals and we know field goals aren’t going to beat us.” Not last night, anyway. “Give them credit,” said Belichick of the Texans, “but we’ve got to play better than that.”
Yep.