One of these days the Pats are going to play 4 quarters of good football all in the same game.
Fear that day other NFL teams
I hate this attitude. It's so nauseatingly optimistic, with no reason to believe it other than hope. After the Pats lost to the Cardinals people on here were saying, "Well the Patriots have a loss like this every season, they'll be fine." But is this really true? Last year's team had one fluke loss (Bills), one loss where they got flatly outplayed (Steelers), and a pair of losses where they wrote themselves into a hole (Giants). This team has one close loss to a good team (Ravens), and two stupid losses... a certain stupidity that has also characterized the wins (even the Bills blowout).
The offense last year was competent and patient; this year, despite having a greater array of weapons and the super new genius HYPER OFFENSE, you expect the offense to shatter a china vase. Whether that's McDouche, Brady seeing the twilight, or somewhere in between, the point remains. The defense? My god Belichick deserves all the heat he gets for this atrocity. I think it comes down to scheme. It's like once the league went pass-happy, BB decided that you should just concede the pass and only beef up the front-seven. Meanwhile unemployed computer science majors can play safety. This thought process has defined the ****ty Patriots defense the past three-four year; will Belichick eventually admit it's not working? Still though, even last year this secondary didn't LOSE games the way this secondary has arguably blown games this year... You could argue it's flatly worse this year.
Don't forget, BB himself is the one who scathingly asks players who say they're better than what the standings say: "Based on what?" Fact of the matter is, this team just doesn't look very good so far. As BB also says of the 2009 team: The more critical the situations are, the less likely they are to execute. I think that's very true of this 2012 squad. We can act like things are suddenly gonna get better in November, or being a 3 seed is fine (even though the Patriots have never done jack without a playoff bye). And who knows? They could get their **** together through November. But we certainly have no reason to think so, unless we want to be arrogant Patriot fans. Which is stupid. Based on how they're playing right now, I think 10-6 or 11-5, with contention for the division and an early exit in the postseason, should be the extent of our optimism. Sorry.