Patriots Did Not Play Well On Sunday

By Steve Atkinson 

The Patriots won Sunday against the Bengals, but they didn’t look good. They made the 32nd-ranked defense of the Bengals appear like a top defense in the league. The Patriots’ offense couldn’t get anything going early on, and Drake threw a terrible interception that resulted in a pick-six. It took almost a full half for them to get the offense moving, and even their red zone offense was terrible. They had the ball on the goal line for five minutes and failed to score twice. That’s unacceptable. You can’t be on the goal line and not score any touchdowns.

The Patriots need a lot of work in the Red Zone.

Drake’s offensive line was especially battered, with Will Campbell, who was crying on the sidelines with a towel on his head. It looks like he sprained his knee and could be out for a couple of weeks. The worst-case scenario for Campbell is that they’ll sit him for the rest of the season, and he’ll be back for the playoffs.

Here was Mike Vrabel after the game on the failed goal-line touchdowns.

What happened? We didn’t score any. You have to score, whoever you call. It’ll be a good learning opportunity for us in a lot of phases. It shows just how important and how critical the week of practice is, and being ready to go because you never know when your opportunity is going to come. You need to make sure that everybody’s on the same page. And there were a lot of moving parts today.”

Point blank, you have to score in the red zone with touchdowns. They got lucky with Diggs on a fourth down earlier in the year, but they need to be better with that going forward.

That’s what this league is about — battling adversity. I gave them one early in the game and just battled back on the next drive. Just trying to have a ‘next play’ mentality. That’s what coach (Mike Vrabel) is preaching all the time, battling back from good plays and battling back from bad plays. I’m proud of our defense. They stepped up big time. It’s ‘next man up.’ We had a lot of guys come in, make plays, and help us out. I’m proud of them. It’s good to get that 10th win.”

One thing Vrabel did say in the video of the post locker room speech was not getting your head down when there are injuries. That’s a part of the game, and this time of year it’s going to happen. If you want to be legit and not a laughing Stock to the Cam Newtons of the world, you have to have the next man up mentality, or you’re going to be one and done in the playoffs.