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.

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.)

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.

Well the Patriots offense looked impressive. But against the worst offense in the league, our defense was unable to do anything.  The Bills only punted one time.  But the Patriots did get two clutch interceptions late in the game to hold the league.

There were two players who really impressed me in this game: Ben-Jarvus Green-Ellis really ran well (16 carries for 98 yards and 1 TD) and the offense looked a lot better with him in there compared to Taylor or Morris.  Patrick Chung was impressive as he has been all year, racing up to make solid tackles, and with that key INT in the endzone.  The whole offense really worked well, with both tight ends making big plays, and Brandon Tate even making a great catch before halftime.

The defense, however, has some holes. The defensive line is anchored by big Vince Wilfork and has looked pretty good. But they still have holes at both outside linebacker spots, both in terms of pass rush and setting the edge in run defense.  Their three safety rotation has looked good, and Devin McCourty looks good at CB, but they really really miss Leigh Bodden on the other side.  Darius Butler looked bad last week, and they replaced him with Kyle Arrington this week and still didn’t look too good.  So they really need to see some improvement out of those two, and at outside linebacker, Tully Banta-Cain, Jermaine Cunningham, Rob Ninkovich and even Shawn Crable need to step up.

Well I got the Bengals score right   The Patriots offense and its new weapons looked good, with the running game working and both rookie tight ends showing up.  And Brandon Tate even had a few catches to add on to his 97 yard kickoff return.  The new look defense looked really FAST.  I like the rotation at safety and linebacker (Chung was always on at safety with Meriweather and Sanders rotating, Mayo was at ILB with Spikes and Guyton rotating).  Chung looked great out there, he was really flying around the field.  There’s a chance this defense could really make some plays.

Outside of this game, I thought the Houston upset of the Colts was surprising. Arian Foster put up some ridiculous numbers. And Michael Vick looked like his old self coming in after Kevin Kolb’s injury in Philly. He’s clearly been working hard, you could see how pissed he was at himself after making a terrible decision in the redzone. But he brought them back from 20 down to have a tying chance.

After a dominating win by the Ravens, the Patriots season is over. They really did not seem to have it this year. Brady never seemed quite right, whether it was from his injury last year, his injuries this year, or just wanting to be back on vacation with his supermodel wife. And the defense was lacking in leaders. No one had that us against them mentality, that bravado that Rodney Harrison would bring.  Thus, Dan Shaughnessy says the dynasty is over. I wouldn’t go quite that far. Although if they get back to their winning ways perhaps it will be a new dynasty.  Makes you wish they had just made a few more plays in the 2006 AFC Championship collapse against the Colts or the 2007 Super Bowl against the Giants. Make 2-3 more plays and we would have had 5 super bowls and a 19-0 season…

So, what do they need to do for next year?  Hopefully Belichick and the staff do a solid internal review to figure out where they went wrong this year. In 2006 they had poor receivers and they went out and got Moss, Welker, and Stallworth.  I’d expect to see some big names this year as well. Offensively, they need way better play calling. They need a new offensive coordinator. They also need to get a 3rd WR as Sam Aiken really doesn’t cut it.  I’d expect to see them both sign a few guys and draft some for this role.  On defense, the biggest thing they need is some leadership. Then they also need some pass rush and some run stoppers. If there aren’t any new labor talks, next year is going to be an uncapped year, with some different free agency rules, so it could be really interesting.

Obviously the big news was Wes Welker getting hurt.  Supposedly it is a tear of his MCL and ACL, which is the same injury that Brady had last year. So Welker may be at risk of missing next year as well.

In addition, we had another 4th quarter road collapse, losing after holding a 14 point lead in the 4th quarter. That was with the starters in there, it really was not good.

Were there any positive signs?  Yes, good play from some rookies. QB Brian Hoyer looked great in relief of Tom Brady.  Julian Edelman looked great in replacement of Wes Welker, catching 10 passes for 103 yards.  But still, he’s not Welker, and it would have been nice to have him as a 3rd option after Moss and Welker.  Now our 3rd WR has to be Aiken, so hopefully we get some play from the tight ends.  Also, great interception return by Darius Butler.

On to the Ravens!