The Patriots have lost two games in a row for the first time in a while, and clearly they have some issues. But they were in both these games at the end, unlike their two losses last year. Still, let’s take a look at the issues, what caused them, and what, if anything, can be done.

On defense, the Patriots really lack personnel in the defensive backfield. McCourty has regressed from last year, their 3rd/4th corners are free agents off the street, and they have a rotation of players at safety next to Patrick Chung. These are all because of personnel decisions made by Belichick (letting Jarrad Page go, cutting James Sanders, cutting Leigh Bodden, drafting the injury-prone Ras-I Dowling, etc). Their other big issue is that the defensive coaching has been very poor. Against the Steelers they played a very vanilla soft zone defense that really gave them no chance. At least against the Giants they changed things up, showed some different looks, dropped Mark Anderson into coverage, and blitzed a few times. And they held the Giants scoreless through the first half and to 10 points through 3 quarters.  There’s nothing that can be done about the Pats personnel except to hope that the players improve. But the coaching schemes can be better, hopefully we see more of the creative defense from the Giants game than the plain defense played against the Steelers.

On offense, there are number of issues. The offensive line is pretty sub-par outside of Mankins and Waters. Connoly was not good enough to be a starting guard (which is why they signed Waters), and he’s not great as a center either. And the tackles have not been so hot either. At WR, there’s nobody after Wes Welker. Deion Branch can’t get separation, OchoCinco can’t really do it either and doesn’t know the offense. I’m still hopeful for Taylor Price, but he hasn’t seen much action. Finally, Brady looks off, making lots of poor decisions and poor throws. Here, we can hope some WR develops (Taylor Price?) and I think it would also help if the offense ran the ball more (letting the O-line be more aggressive, taking some pressure off Brady).

Special teams have also been bad. The pats have no threat at kick returner (Woodhead returned every kickoff to the 20 or 21 yard line), have missed 2 FGs in the past two weeks, and fumbled two returns. I liked McCourty’s kickoff return at the end of the game, I hope he gets more opportunities. Otherwise it’s just execution and ball security.

The solvable parts of the Patriots problems come down to two things:

• Execution
• Coaching Scheme

Hopefully we’ll see improvement in those areas this week against the Jets.

I’m pretty excited for this year for the Patriots. With some of the moves they’ve made (drafting two OL and two RB, bringing in lots of free agent D-linemen), I’m hopeful they’re going to go back to the more successful formula of the early 2000s: great defense, and a solid running game. Trying to win with a ridiculous passing attack is fun, but the way to win Super Bowls is to have a great defense and run the ball. I decided to make my season preview a series of lists this year:

Concerns:

1. Safety: Who is going to play safety alongside Patrick Chung? The Patriots released both Brandon Meriweather and James Sanders, so they’re planning on either Josh Barrett or Sergio Brown being the starter. Can they cut it?
2. Offensive line:  The Patriots had issues the last few years with teams getting pressure on Tom Brady (Giants SB, Jets, etc).  Can the offensive line do better this year? In particular, can Brian Waters help out at right guard? Can the Patriots run the ball?
3. Offensive coordinator: I really worry about the offensive play-calling, especially when teams do start getting pressure on Brady. The Patriots need to run the ball more, and not solely rely on the passing game from Brady. Of course, this depends on the O-line again.
4. Defending the run: The Patriots appear to be moving to a pressure-based 4-3 defense, can they still stop the run? I worry there will still be some kinks to work out with this new defense before they fully figure it out.

What I’m excited about:

1. Pressure defense: I’m excited about this new pressure 4-3 defense with Albert Haynesworth and Vince Wilfork in the middle. They can create lots of matchup problems for people. In addition, the Pats brought in a bunch of pass rush defense ends as well, I’m hopeful we’ll see lots more pressure on the QB, forcing more mistakes and turnovers.
2. Patrick Chung and Jerod Mayo: I’m looking forward to the season from both these players. With the new front freeing up Mayo more on the weakside, I think he will be all over the field making plays. In addition, Chung is set for a break-out year, making plays all over the field as well.

Predictions:

1. Ochocinco experiment fails: I really don’t think the Chad Ochocinco experiment is going to work out. I think he just doesn’t have the chemistry with Brady, like what happened with Joey Galloway. I also keep thinking back to the Bengals-Jets playoff game 2 years ago… Revis had Ochocinco covered easily, and Ochocinco appeared to give up pretty early. He also seemed to drop the ball at the most critical times.
2. Playoff win: I think the Patriots go 14-2 again, and this time, they don’t lose the first playoff game at home. Beyond that, we’ll have to see how good this new defense is, and how dedicated the Patriots are to running the ball.

The NFL draft is coming up this weekend! Hopefully it’s followed by a full season of NFL football!   Let’s take a look at what the Patriots might do this Thursday with their stockpile of picks (3 in the first 33).

The Patriots have a huge glaring need for a pass rusher. They had no pass rush last year, resulting in terrible 3rd down defense, and they were really dependent on turnovers to stop drives. Next, they need some offensive linemen, with Stephen Neal retiring, Logan Mankins possibly holding out, Matt Light a free agent, Dan Koppen in his 30s, etc. After that there’s some case to be made for a RB to fill in the spot after BJGE and Woodhead, and possibly a deep threat receiver in the Moss mold. Personally, I’d be pretty happy with a draft of all offensive linemen and pass rushers.

The Patriots own the 17th, 28th, and 33rd picks in the draft.  RB Mark Ingram from Alabama is a possibility that’s been tossed around, but I just don’t think a 1st round RB is worth while. RB’s have a high bust rate (think Laurence Maroney), and you can often find them in the late rounds or undrafted (BJGE and Woodhead). Although if you think Ingram is going to be the next Adrian Peterson or Chris Johnson type back, then it might be worthwhile.
Pass rushers on the other hand, are a surer bet, and harder to find later. Some of the names that have been talked about for the Pats are DE JJ Watt, DE Cameron Jordan, and DE Cameron Heyward. Will the Pats take one of the players at 17? Possibly. If the Pats have one guy rated higher than the other two, they could try to trade up to ensure they get him. If they feel they can drop back and still get him (like they did with McCourty last year), then they’ll likely do that. If they have two or three rated equally rated and think they can drop down and still get one, they’ll probably do it. So I’m expecting some trade movement, and one of those pass rushers (or maybe an OL).  With the 28th pick, I expect the Pats to trade down with a team that wants a QB, probably getting their second round pick (maybe around the 39th pick) and their 1st next year. Then with the 33rd pick, the Pats can listen to trade offers Thursday night, and be willing to move, knowing they’ll have a pick just a few down.

My expectation is that the Patriots will take some pass rushers and offensive linemen in the first two rounds. I would expect a RB and WR somewhere in the middle rounds. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see another young QB to develop behind Brady.

I fully expect the Jets to come out trying to run the ball, unlike the last time these two teams faced each other. There’s no scheming to be had here, it just who wins the battle in the trenches.  I think that Vince Wilfork will have a monster game, dominating the line and helping to shut down the run.  On offense, the Patriots will do their usual, spreading the ball around to the open man, and getting some good running yards from Green-Ellis and Woodhead. My prediction: Patriots 35 - Jets 17.

That couldn’t really have gone much better.  The team gets a dominating win, Brady throws some more TD passes, Gronkowski gets another TD catch, Benny gets to 1000 yards rushing for the season, and the backup players (Tate, Hoyer, Edelman, Price, all the extra O-linemen) look pretty good.  That 42 yard TD pass from Hoyer to Tate (Hoyer’s first TD pass of his career) was pretty impressive. And it was nice to see some good plays from Tate and Edelman who will be called upon as 3rd WR in the playoffs.

And the Pats lock up the AFC East and home field advantage in the playoffs with this 34-3 win in which they forced the Bills into 7 (seven!) turnovers! The Patriots have turned the ball over 9 times all season.  Brady now has a record 319 passes without an INT, and the Patriots have gone 7 games without a turnover.  Pretty impressive stats!  The Patriots have 9 turnovers on the season, Eli Manning by himself has turned the ball over 25 times (20 INTs and 5 fumbles lost).

What an impressive victory over a Jets team tied for the best record in the league.  The offense basically scored at will, including 93 and 94 yard touchdown drives in the 3rd quarter.  And the defense, after all its struggles, played well against the pass and on third down and held the Jets offense to just 3 points!  The key thing is that everything is coming together at the right time. Unlike 2007, when the Patriots started out red hot and then struggled to win in Nov and Dec, they are just starting to play their best football now.

Looking at this game, I think Rex Ryan making this a personal challenge with Belichick was a mistake. You give a motivated Belichick 11 days to plan for your team, along with talk about being out-coached by Ryan in week 2, it’s going to be trouble.  And of course the fact that it was the Jets, they were tied for the best record, the Jets were talking all week, the playoff implications, the extra time to prepare, and that it was a home night game on national tv, and you knew the Patriots would come out and play hard and execute well.

Brady: Tom Brady has played lights out the last 4 weeks. He’s completed 73.4% of his passed for 1204 yards, 13 TDs, and 0 picks, defeated the Steelers, Colts, Lions, and Jets by an average score of 34.75 - 20.25.

Looking ahead: The Patriots can take the #1 seed and home field advantage if they win out their last 4 games. And they are clearly the class of the AFC as they have beaten all potential playoff contender (Jets, Steelers, Ravens, Colts, Chargers) other than the Chiefs. And they’re just playing their best football now.

The future: The future looks very bright. 1st round pick Devin McCourty looks very much like a shutdown all-pro corner.  The rookies and second year players on defense (McCourty, Chung, Spikes, Cunningham, Pryor, Brace, Deaderick, Fletcher) all are developing nicely.  On the offensive side, Green-Ellis and Woodhead might be the answers we’ve been looking for at running back.  Our two rookie tight ends, Gronkowski and Hernandez, have both made a big impact all season.  And the Patriots have 2 picks each in the first, second, and third rounds of the NFL draft next year

Brady v. Manning: This email to Mike Reiss’s mailbag from Allyn W I think sums up well why Brady is better than Manning.  When they both had weak receiving corps, Brady was better:

If you rewind back to 2006, the Patriots have no experienced wide receivers, and Brady and Belichick have to coach up Reche Caldwell, Jabar Gaffney and an assortment of others. Lots of injuries and defections. Brady is able to get the Patriots to the AFC championship game and nearly wins it. Every week the Pats don’t use any excuses, but play with who they have. This year, The Colts are the ones with injuries and changing personnel. Yet they are 6-6, are always moaning about the injuries, play most of their games indoors, and will struggle to make the playoffs in a weak division. Manning does not look great, and it is understandable. Yet Brady overcame similar adversity, contract squabbles and injuries four years ago by leading his team to the brink of a Super Bowl. Explain again why Manning is considered better than Brady in the long run? I think this year should show that under adversity, Brady has been the better quarterback based on ever-changing teammates and weather conditions throughout their respective careers. Has this season changed your view on this debate? No question Manning is fantastic, but I think this year shines a microscope in areas that just haven’t been seen beforehand — and provides another perspective. Thanks as always. — Allyn W (San Rafael, Calif.)

A lot of the talk for this game has focused on the Patriots pass vs the Jets defense.  Their pass rush, who Revis will cover, how will Branch fare, etc.  But I think the key is for the Patriots to run the ball. You don’t want to battle that pass defense every play, you certainly don’t want them keying off on Brady.  And while the Jets have a good run defense, so did the Steelers. I think the Patriots’ offensive line has the ability to push forward and make holes for the running game.  I really think the Pats should come out and pound the ball, and I expect BJGE to have a big game.

Well, some terrible play both lines in the first half, the defense getting scored on at will in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, special teams (especially kickoff return and coverage) unable to do antyhing, and still the Patriots turn it on in the 2nd half and 4th quarter from the win.  From down 14-3, to down 24-17, then end up with a 45-24 win.  The offensive play-calling is still concerning - their drives to start the game and the 2nd half were severely lacking runs and went 4 and out.  The special teams looked bad.  The defense looked bad as well, but came up with key interceptions (thank you Devin McCourty) and stops late in the game when they needed them. And after getting hit around in the first half, Tom Brady came back in the 2nd half to throw FOUR touchdown passes.  On to the Jets!

A pretty impressive win by the Patriots.  It’s amazing to see, that with the offense having lots of 3 & outs, and the defense making any QB look like a HOFer, when it comes to crunch time, both sides do what needs to be done. When they need goal line stops, stops in the red zone, or clock-killing drives to solidify a victory, the team always comes through.  It’s pretty impressive.  And it was good to see Ron Brace and Brandon Tate making some more positive on their games. These young guys are just going to keep getting better.