After losing back to back games on the road, at Miami and Pittsburgh, the Patriots drop to 9-5 on the season. They currently sit in the 3rd position atop of the AFC Playoff Picture behind the Chiefs (11-3) and Texans (10-4). With the last two games of the season being two divisional games, against the Jets and the Bills, the Patriots remaining schedule isn't necessarily the easiest, especially with the way they have been playing recently.
Last week, the Patriots traveled to Miami to play the Dolphins in a very important divisional game. This game was important because the Patriots had the opportunity to close out the division with a win. However, the Patriots ultimately lost this matchup 34-33 via a last second TD from the Dolphins on what is known as the "Miami Miracle". The Patriots didn't necessarily play too bad in this game, especially in the first half as they were leading 27-21. However, after being shut out in the 3rd quarter by the Miami defense, the Patriots headed into the fourth quarter being down for only the second time all game, as their defense gave up a TD late in the third quarter making it 28-27 Dolphins. In the fourth quarter, the Patriots offense wasn't any better than what is was in the third quarter. They couldn't get much going with the opportunities they had, and ultimately had to settle for two Gostkowski field goals. The Patriots were now clinging to a 33-28 with 16 seconds left in the game, and now had to rely on the defense to prevent Miami from getting into the end zone. However, they couldn't do that because Miami went 69 yards and scored the game winning touchdown on a perfectly executed last resort play, a pass-catch play with 3 laterals. It was very hard to watch this as it happened, however the Patriots defense shouldn't have been put in this position in the first place. The 6 total points scored in the second half by the offense, made the defense have to work even harder than before just to keep them in this game. Now on the other hand, this wasn't just the offense's fault either. This same defense held Miami at home, in September, to just 7 points and a Vikings offense, that's arguably one of the top offenses in the league, to just 10 points the week before. It was a very poor effort on both sides of the ball, and this game should've served as a learning experience for them heading into one of the biggest games of the year. Yet as you might already know, this wasn't the case.
On Sunday afternoon, the Patriots traveled to Heinz Field to take on their "rivals", the Pittsburgh Steelers. This was yet another important game for the Patriots, as they had a chance to clinch the division again yesterday. Many people predicted this game to be a shootout and very high scoring, however that was not the case with this game. This game was more of a low scoring defensive battle as there was a combined 704 total yards and 27 total points between the two teams. However, once again the Patriots for the second week in a row fell just short by a final score of 17-10 Steelers. After coming off a brutal outing against the Dolphins, the Patriots defense looked much better out there yesterday. They held one of the best offensive teams with arguably the best WR core in the league to a mere 17 points. Holding a team to under 20 points should give you a pretty good chance of winning, especially if they're one of the best offensive teams in the whole league. This wasn't the case yesterday as the Patriots offense continued their struggles from the second half of the Miami game last week. After scoring on the third play of their opening drive to knot the game up at 7 apiece, the Patriots offense scored 3 points the rest of the game. These 3 points came from a Gostkowski field goal came with seconds remaining in the third quarter. This means that the Patriots were shut out in the second and fourth quarters of the game. Now looking back on this game down the stretch, there was a lot of poor decision making and play calling made by the Patriots. This includes the interception Brady threw late in the fourth quarter, that was intended to be thrown away out of bounds but didn't have enough power behind it and got intercepted by Steeler's corner Joe Haden. Although this looks really bad on Tom Brady, it wasn't all his fault. His targets had 3 crucial drops in the game, with Edelman having 2 of them and Gordon having the other 1. In addition to this, the Patriots racked up 14 penalties, the most in a game for them since 2014, for 106 yards!!! 10 of these 14 penalties happened on the offensive side of the ball, with 8 of these 10 penalties being against the offensive line. This included the one holding penalty that ultimately sealed the fate of the game for the Patriots that made it 3rd and 15, instead of 3rd and 5 inside the red zone with no time outs and under 30 seconds to play. This game, just like the Miami game, was also very hard to watch because the Patriots didn't deserve to win this game. They had multiple opportunities to score and put points up on the board, but they couldn't convert. They played very sloppy having 3 crucial pass drops, 14 penalties, and scoring a mere 10 points. This shows that they didn't deserve to win this game despite the effort from their defense stepping up, holding the Steelers to 17 points and also making them turn the ball over twice, as compared to last week against Miami.
Personally after watching the Patriots play these past two weeks, I am worried for what's in store for them. The reason being is because this team isn't as talented as previous teams, and their play recently shows that. Last week, their defense gave up 34 points and almost 200 rushing yards to a Miami team, who's backfield consists of 35 year old Frank Gore, rookie Kalen Ballage, and Kenyan Drake, that they gave up a mere 7 points and just over 50 rushing yards back in September. Not only that but they gave up over 150 yards on the ground, not to James Conner or Le'Veon Bell, to the Steelers third string running back alone yesterday!!! Now in terms of the offense, over the last 6 quarters the Patriots have been outscored 30-16. This is all while facing defensives that are 12th (Steelers) and 24th (Miami) in the league. If they are going to have any chance at all in the playoffs, they are going to have to become more consistent on both sides of the ball. With two games remaining before the end of the season, don't be surprised to see the starters getting more reps than in past years. This is because they need all the game experience and practice they can get before the playoffs. I really hope the Patriots could get their act together fast or else an early round exit is looming for them.