Shabby Patriots, shabbier fans at Foxborough

By Os Davis  |   Monday, November 06, 2006  |  Comments( 2 )

New England Patriots
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The New England Patriots deserved this loss, but those in attendance at Gillette Stadium deserved it even more. (Apologies in advance for a self-indulgent rant.)

It's another ineffable aspect of these New England Patriots: When they're good, they're good; when they're not good, well, um, they're brutal. Posterity will show that the navy blue-and-silver dropped one to their still undefeated arch-enemies, the Indianapolis Colts, by seven points. Those who were watching will remember shoddy play particularly from the offense and mental errors across the board.

Bill Belichick's game plans may be great, but you can't do much to overcome the lack of execution the Patriots can demonstrate from time to time.

Flashback to the 2004 season. New England, on its way to a dominant 14-2 regular season and a romp through the playoffs to a satisfying Super Bowl win over the Philadelphia Eagles, came into Miami for Week 15. At that point, the Patriots were 12-1 and ready to clinch home-field advantage throughout the playoffs; the Dolphins were floundering at 2-11 and eying the No. 1 pick in the draft.

The punch line: Tom Brady throws four interceptions, including the last in a would-be final-minute scoring drive. Miami wins, 29-28.

Or how about that classic opening-day matchup at Buffalo in 2003? After chasing their surprise Super Bowl victory with a dismal 9-7 season in 2002, the swagger was back for the retooled and healed Patriots. The boys from Boston were figured to take apart the Bledsoe-led Bills. What happened? The Patriots were asleep on all sides of the ball, resulting in a 31-0 whitewashing that remains a lowlight of the Belichick era.

Heck, we needn't even go that far back. How about last season, right about this time, when the Patriots entered a much-hyped game "with playoff implications" and got beaten up and down the field, particularly on the long ball, losing 41-20 to, yep, Indianapolis.

Yet again, the Patriots lived up to that abstract notion we call "beating themselves." While the 'D' attempted to keep New England in the game with three sacks and what might have been a key fourth-quarter interception, the mistakes just piled up. Roll the tape!

Brady throws four interceptions, including the game-sealer on a final-minute drive.

That final pick bounced off the suddenly rubber hands of Kevin Faulk, who also had a potential TD carom away with less than 10 minutes in the fourth quarter.

Stephen Gostowski's missed field goal. Did you see that miss? Yeah? Do you wonder if he did? Is there a stronger word than "shank"?

Eight penalties for 81 yards, by far the most egregious mental lapsing by the Patriots to this point in the season.

At this point, the sportswriter is obligated to say something along the likes of "disappointed New England fans" alongside "genius Belichick will cook something up" and "still a force to be reckoned with come playoff time," but you know what? The team deserved this loss, and the attendant fans truly did.

Yours truly, born and raised in New England, has often publicly stated that Boston (and, to some extent, the surrounding six-state area) sports fans are surely among the most knowledgeable in America, that the games are in the blood in the northeast. And then, from time to time, packs of fools proudly put on T-shirts reading "Jeter blows A-Rod" to a Red Sox game advertised as "family entertainment" or whine on talk radio that any representative of any of their teams is nothing but a slacker, and anyone's high opinion of these athletic supporters subsequently plummets quicker than Gostkowski's self-esteem upon reading the Boston Herald.

It seems that Foxborough was filled to the hilt with the petty-minded and unsportsmanlike. Booing former hero Adam Vinatieri every time he came to the tee was 100 percent bush league. Your cheap, razor-mongering owner cut him loose, guys. The network broadcast showed the Vinatieri fourth-quarter miss chased by a shot of Robert Kraft commenting jovially on the turn of events. Al Michaels half-joked that Kraft was saying "see, we didn't need him." You know what? He probably was saying exactly that. Again, Bostonians: Vinatieri was let go. You've got Gostkowski now, and all the booing in the world won't change that.

The silence when Brady and Co. attempted to put together fourth-quarter drives was utterly undeserved. What's the deal, Patriot backers? You're demanding a perfect one-minute drill every time? Don't you care? And how about this key question: Have you forgotten the days of Steve Grogan? You can't all be under 35 out there...

About the only thing worse than this classless crowd will be the incessant callers to sports radio claiming the Pats, at 6-2, "just don't have it anymore" and open lamenting to the effect of "What's wrong with these guys?" (Here's a tip: The Colts were better on Sunday.)

Foxborough attendees, the football gods looked down upon your game-time performance and were not pleased.

Insights into the New England Patriots at RealFootball365.com
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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