Do you feel reassured that this ship will be righted?

JR4 said:

I am not very optimistic at this point. If it were just schemes, missed assignments and
over pursuing type errors I would be more optimistic. But what I saw was PATS Dline and Oline
guys being pushed around like a 3 man practice sled. How do you fix that?? Can you somehow
grow these men 10 to 15 lbs of muscle each? It was brute strength against mediocre strength.
Our Dline guys couldn't get off their blocks except occasionally. Miami would have run all
day on us if their QB wasn't getting board handing it off. This reminds me 2002. (there, I vented)

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Many are completely fixable and were, as wilfork said, "bonehead" mistakes. This team will be fine.

Eh I think there is a good chance they lose this week, I don't feel good about it.

FCB02062 said:

ummmmm....miami had the same amount of 2014 game film on the pats....

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From previous interviews I believe the thought was that Miami had a new offensive coordinator; add several new starters, and it makes it more difficult to prepare for the opponent. The Pats on the other hand are running the same offense in 2014 that they ran last year; that made it comparatively easier for Miami to prepare and game plan.

On the other hand, this week the Patriots are up against a team with a new head coach and new defensive scheme. It would be easier for the Pats if Leslie Frazier was still the head coach, running a predictable offense and a Tampa-2 defense that teams figured how to exploit several years ago. One game's worth of film to study is better than none, but it would be better if they had several games to look at. It's an understated challenge that the Patriots will face heading into this contest.

Cautiously optimistic.

If we see the same total system failure in the 2nd half in Minnesota, that we saw in Miami, I'll begin to believe this team is flawed in crucial areas. I still think the heat was the prime factor in the 2nd half performance.

Not really, I am quite Optimistic.

Not worried. They'll get it fixed. It wasn't the first time they got beat by Miami.

Although I think they had real questions heading into the season and those answers came up negative on Sunday, however this coaching staff has a solid history of coaching up their units and their performance and execution almost always progresses over the course of the season so i have a good deal of faith that it will be the same this season. It could be a more difficult struggle than we have seen in the past but i still see them back in the final four again and what happens then is always a crap shoot.

do i think we will make the playoffs? yes

im a little less optimistic about the SB

next week will be telling

I am not overly concerned. If Brady survives, the oline will work itself out eventually. The heat was obviously an issue for Collins. We already know what kind of beast he can be but he was done that game. He looked so tired and alot of those runs were straight up the gut where he was. If Vellano sucks next week, he will probably be cut. Our secondary wasn't bad and year in year out our defense, by the end of the year, is usually good enough no matter how bad we start.

Here are my concerns: Our unwillingness to run the ball, Amendola/Lafell, and Hooman. Amendola and Lafell excel at finding easy receptions and neither of them really showed up. Hooman rarely sees passes his way so he better block adequately and what he demonstrated in Miami was pathetic.

I wasn't overly surprised at the loss, I was however shocked at how poor we looked and the way we played really concerned me. However. We played poorly in every facet and were still in the game until that last TD away in week one in the heat.

The D was awful and should be better, however I believe we can fix that by scheming, shuffling and generally allowing the players to gel a bit more. There's some new faces on D and it seems we've given Revis a different role to what he had in New York, and while I'm not sold on it totally, I believe there is room for improvement everywhere on D without too much hassle.

The offence scared me. I thought we were past this stage after last year. Edelman has announced himself as a safety blanket, Thompkins another year in the system, Lafell brought it, Gronk back...I can only hope Dobson is healthy because he's our only hope to change the pace of things. Lafell looked bad, I know we should give him time but I think there's surely a reason a WR needy team like Carolina didn't want to re-sign him at a measly 4 million a year.

Sure it'd be nice if for once our O didn't have to put up 30+ points to win a game but it's a game of balance and even though our D tired out in the second half I thought they gave us more than enough chances with 3 turnovers only to see the O put up 10 points on those efforts and they didn't pull their weight.

Is the O-line that big of a problem? Wake has always given us trouble as has the Miami front. No team other than the Giants have made Brady rush that much and I can't put this blame on Mankins' absence. Just doesn't make sense to me. It's not the perfect situation but I'm hesitant to put the entire loss on the O-line. The offence as a whole didn't work. And I'm now truly worried about Amendola.

There's plenty of room for improvement across the board, it's just going to take a lot more work than I originally thought.

ensoul said:

I know it was just one game and the pats usually have one or two games a year where they have one glaring weakness that is exposed. I saw three on Sunday....

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The wise guy in me wants say "I saw three areas of weakness too: offense, defense and special teams." That was ugly.

But as others have said, we've seen this before. There usually is one head slapper game where everything looks unfixable. But TFB, BB & Co. have always emerged stronger. We cannot take it for granted that it will happen this year but there's a reason the Patriots have been a consensus pick to reach at least the AFCCG: They have the talent and the tools. As much as losing like this in Week 1 sucks — hello basement, long time no see — Belichick teams have always been built to be strong in November and December.

Sunday, I'm hoping to see a repeat of the 2006 visit to Minnesota, when the Pats appeared to be heading into a hopeless mismatch but came out with a great game plan and destroyed the upstarts.

the thing is, we ALWAYS seem to split with Miami/The Jets every single year even though many here(and in the league) view them as "mid-tier teams" BUT, those are teams that play us twice a year every year.

i'm not too concerned, most of the stuff like tackling etc. are fundamental issues that can be corrected. these arent talent issues as there is ALOT of talent on the defensive side of the ball. I expect bill will stick to a consistent OL this game and they will play better. another week for Gronk to shake off the rust and the return of Aaron Dobson should help the offense.

plus, going to a colder weather climate instead of 90+ degree heat and humidity

Optimistic (cautiously).

How many times in the last 15 seasons has the game in Miami looked like this? I'd guess around half. Its easier to focus on because there is no other sample to convince us the team is ok otherwise...

QB12 said:

Do you feel reassured that this ship will be righted?

Does the absence of personnel moves, comments from players that 'this will get fixed,' 'we will fix it,' etc. make you feel better? I do, somewhat.

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The Patriots, from 2001-present, are 7-7 in Miami. No matter how good New England is, or how bad Miami is, it is a crapshoot going down there in the heat. So losing one game there doesn't worry me at all.

That said, as others have noted, if they struggle this week against Minnesota, it may be time to worry a little. And if they struggle against Oakland the following week….yikes.

But we have 14 years of history to show us that the Patriots will be a top team. They ALWAYS are. Someday that won't be true, but given they still have Belichick and Brady and a ton of talent, I see no reason why they won't make adjustments and improve.

I still see them at 12-4 and reaching the AFCCG.

2003

Bills - 31
Pats - 0

History says that the season opener does not make or break the rest of the year.

I'm not worried.

TedyB54 said:

2003

Bills - 31
Pats - 0

History says that the season opener does not make or break the rest of the year.

I'm not worried.

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That team had guys like Harrison, Bruschi, Brown, Givens, Law, Johnson, McGinest - guys who made big plays in big games...the current team does not. Time will tell if guys like Mayo, McCourty, Jones, etc., can take that "next step" and be mentioned in the same sentence as their predecessors.

I never needed to be RE-assured, because I am always sure that one loss does not indicate future performances of a football team - especially OUR football team. It's not easy to beat Miami in Miami - just ask Seattle, the undisputed best team in the league, who lost down there in 2012. We played one bad game. We're going to finish as one of the top teams in the league, like always. Our talent is too great, our (head) coaching too exceptional, our leadership too strong for any outcome other than 11+ wins to be expected.

Not just being a homer here, either. We went 12-4 last year after getting annihilated in Cincinatti and losing basically all of our key talent except Brady. We will be fine.

its one thing to lose a game. but its the way they lost that concerns me. the foundation of any good football team is line play and they were awful on both sides of the ball. if it continues brady is gonna get killed.

If Belichick can figure out how to win 11 games with Brady being done for the year in the first game of the year, he will figure this out. This team is too talented not to be a top AFC team.

One of the biggest problems on Sunday (IMHO) was that Belichick was doing a little too much tinkering. I think once he figures it out, we will see a lot more continuity. We saw in the first half of the game that the offense can still be elite. We say also in the first half that this defense can still be opportunistic.

The Pats usually have one real clunker game a year, many times against a much lesser opponent. Sunday could have been that game.

If come week four, the Pats are still trying to figure it out. Then I will be concerned. But I wouldn't be surprised if this game wasn't a wake up call for everyone including the coaching staff and the Pats absolutely spank the Vikes.