Once the Patriots fell into a 17 0 hole at halftime against the Kansas City Chiefs in Monday night s 41 14 loss there was no way out.
At the start of the third quarter the Patriots went three and out on their first possession Tamba Hali strip sacked Tom Brady on the next possession and it became painfully obvious that one of the most lopsided losses of the Bill Belichick era was brewing.
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In his weekly conference call Tuesday Belichick said the Patriots did little to help themselves.
The offense didn t help the defense the defense didn t help the offense Belichick said. We just did not play a good complementary game.
We put ourselves in some bad situations. We weren t able to make plays to get out of it.
We just didn t complement each other very well as a team put each other in difficult situations and then we had the turnovers in the second half and the game got out of hand.
In victories over Minnesota and Oakland the offense played merely good enough to win but the defense kept opponents in check.
On Monday the defense was not nearly as sharp and the Patriots suffered.
One of the more glaring deficiencies was tackling.
In the second quarter Tavon Wilson was late in coverage and slipped trying to get to Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce who rumbled for a 33 yard gain to the 5 yard line.
Wilson slipped in the grass again in the third quarter allowing Kelce to pick up 16 yards on first and 10.
Wilson wasn t the only one. Rob Ninkovich slipped trying to make a tackle late in the second half as well.
Certainly need to play better fundamentally on defense and tackle better Belichick said. That wasn t as much of a problem the previous couple weeks. It was in the Miami game and it certainly showed up again last night.
The defense also struggled to get off the field allowing Kansas City to convert 7 of 12 third downs and 4 of 6 red zone opportunities.
Anytime you miss tackles and don t convert on third down and don t convert in the red area then you re probably not going to be real happy with the overall defensive performance said Belichick. I d say that was the probably the way we feel today.
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With four regular season games in the books cornerback Brandon Browner and wide receiver Brian Tyms are free from their suspensions and able to rejoin the Patriots. But it is difficult to say how quickly the two will be able to get up to speed and contribute on the field.
It may be easier for Browner to catch up since he has been allowed to work with the training staff and attend meetings though he could not participate in any team football type activities as he served a suspension for violating the league s substance abuse policy.
Tyms who was suspended for performance enhancing drugs was not allowed at the team facilities.
Belichick said it will be challenging to gauge their readiness.
Those two players have missed four weeks four games but all the practice time as well he said. We ll have to see where they are relative to the other players.
I think both those guys had good preseasons and they both had very positive impacts in the opportunities they had in preseason. But in the time that s passed we ll see how far behind or where they are relative to their teammates that have been practicing and working over that time frame.
McDaniels has faith
The Patriots shook up the offensive line Monday starting rookies Bryan Stork (center) and Cameron Fleming (right guard). Throughout the game they used a carousel of linemen substituting in Marcus Cannon and Ryan Wendell and using various combinations in search of the right fit. In a rather surprising move receivers Kenbrell Thompkins and Aaron Dobson were inactive. But offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is confident he has the right personnel to mend the team s offensive woes. He also held himself accountable for the team s struggles. I have a lot of confidence in our guys McDaniels said. We didn t play well last night. We didn t coach well offensively. We obviously have to do a lot better starting with me. There is no shortcut to that but we ve got a lot of players that have played a lot of good football here before. We know it s a long season. We ve got a lot of work ahead of us. We know that it s going to be critical for us to get better and improve each week.
Follow Anthony Gulizia on Twitter at gulizia_a.
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