Patriots Prove They're Simply Not Winners Yet

INDIANAPOLIS — CBS’s Brent Jones perhaps said it best.

Good teams find ways to win games they should lose.

“Not good” teams (the politically correct equivalent of a “bad” team) find ways to lose games they should win.

And this is exactly what we had here at the RCA Dome today.

On the one hand, here are the Patriots, who dominate the Colts in the first half with a 24-6 minutes edge in time of possession, get 97 yards of rushing from rookie J.R. Redmond, and keep Peyton Manning on the bench longer than Forrest Gump.

And on the other hand, here are the Colts, whose defense they’re so proud of spends the whole game watching this draw play and this counter trey and this quarterback sneak do them in time and time again. They stand by and watch helplessly as the Patriots ring up first-half drives of 18, 14, and 14 plays. They gawk in amazement that not only do they not sack Drew Bledsoe but once, but that he has literally all day to throw on most every pass play.

Okay, logicians, go. Quick, who won this game?

Only you buffoons in the back who perhaps think that the earth is still flat would answer “The Indianapolis Colts”. Because it was a totally illogical win the Colts pulled off today.

Well, not totally illogical, if you go back to Jones’ statements.

The Colts are the better team. The Patriots have zero margin for error. When they had to, the Colts made the plays and won the game. The 30-23 victory by the Colts should have surprised no one who watched the game closely.

This has been going on all season, save for last week’s blowout against the Jets. In every Patriot loss, they have lost a game they should have, or could have, won. Sooner or later, this team will learn how to put a beaten opponent away with regularity. It just won’t be in the year 2000.

The 2-6 Patriots now head into their bye week, with their thoughts directed towards 2001. At least that’s where they should be.

Okay, there is still a second half of the season to play, but the second half should be more of a “teaching” half than a “playoff” half. This would serve the team best. They should play the games not to mail the season in, but rather to look ahead to the next year when they could be more competitive.

Face it, this team is suffering through the teeth of the idiocy brought on by the personnel decisions made by previous Patriot personnel decision makers (and we won’t mention any names, thank you very much). Because this loss goes back to every mistake made up to four years ago, and Bill Belichick has to be gnashing his teeth in private.

The problems the Patriots have at running back (today’s problems were tactical versus executional), offensive line, and right cornerback have plagued the Patriots since Belichick took over. With the possible exception of the offensive line (they played well but wilted like the others when the game was on the line), Belichick will have to suffer through the rough times and swallow tough losses like today.

Midway through the third quarter, the score was 16-14 Patriots. It was this score despite the huge edge the Patriots had in time of possession, offensive plays, rushing yardage, and stupid brain cramps (the Colts led at that time, more on this later).

So why were the Patriots up only two with such domination?

Up to that time, and this is midway through the third quarter, mind you, the Colts had only four offensive possessions. But they scored touchdowns on two of them that required only seven plays total to pull off.

The two touchdowns scored were what ultimately cost the Patriots the game in the long run. In both cases, all-world WR Marvin Harrison was matched up against Andre Rison’s best buddy, Otis Smith.

Harrison ran right by Smith in the first quarter and caught a 51-yard touchdown bomb, with Lawyer Milloy arriving too late to help. In the third quarter, the Colts took over at their own 22. On the first play, Manning wound up and fired a deep ball. Harrison had run by Smith again, and the Colts had a 78-yard touchdown bomb.

Given Belichick’s cover-two scheme, and his penchant for shutting Manning down, how in the world did this happen? Not once, but twice?

On the first play, Smith wrongly anticipated safety help from Milloy, and let him run right by him. On the second play, Tebucky Jones bit on a run play fake and left Smith one-on-one with Harrison. Smith may not be the long term answer for the Patriots at RCB, but in each case the coverages were blown, which ultimately cost the Patriots 14 points.

On their first offensive drive, the Patriots discovered (much to their surprise, we would later surmise) that Redmond has finally shaken off his ill-timed holdout and can actually run the ball in the NFL. Redmond ran seven times for 36 yards, and caught two passes for 25 yards. The second of those two passes was a screen for 19 yards that found him in the end zone by play’s end.

For literally all of the first half, the Colts had no answer for Redmond. The Patriots had an answer, though. His name was Michael Bishop.

On their second offensive series, Redmond ran five more times for 32 yards (yikes, we’re talking 78 yards in a quarter and a half for a Patriot running back not named Curtis Martin, we may faint dead away here). The Pats drive from their 20 to the Colt 9. It is third and one at the 9.

In comes Bishop, for the second time today. In the first quarter, he ran a quarterback sneak for a first down. But here, he runs the option left, and Jason Belser stuffs it for no gain. Not only did Bishop look totally silly on the play, he looked like Max Lane could outrun him.

It would not be the last of the options for Bishop this day.

The Patriots would settle for an Adam Vinatieri chip shot field goal, one of three he’d kick today. These were chip shot field goals because the Patriots were stopped by the Colt defense three times inside their 15, twice inside their 10.

Another thing that kept the Patriots ahead of the Colts were the stupid penalties. One in particular was a running into the kicker penalty in the second quarter, in which Marcus Washington shoved Lee Johnson to the turf two seconds after he unloaded the punt. This mother of all brain cramps gave the Patriots a first down and another eight offensive plays, which lasted until the failed Bishop option left.

After Harrison’s second long touchdown bomb, the Patriots answered back with a touchdown drive that was unbelievably quick (only 9 plays), but still got the Patriots seven points. Bledsoe plowed in from the one on a play so close that Colt coach Jim Mora ordered a review to see if Bledsoe really did break the plane of the goal. He did, and it was 23-14 Pats with just over a quarter to go.

So now, you tell me. How did the Patriots not close this one out?

For one thing, the offense just died. The Colts began stuffing the draw play, which had been the Patriot bread and butter all day. Once that was stuffed, the Patriots were toast. Without the butter, even.

The Patriots managed just one first down on their final three possessions, where they had been six of eight in the first half. The Colts scored two touchdowns and a field goal on their last three possessions. This pretty much decided who knew how to win better than the other.

Going further into this fourth quarter, the Patriots began to act like the Colts earlier on. On the first touchdown drive of the fourth quarter for the Colts, three Patriot penalties killed them (although Greg Spires’ “blow to the head” was hardly anything objectionable if you saw it).

On their second touchdown drive, the Patriots totally gave up on trying to bring down James. He carried the ball four times for a ghastly 70 yards, including the clinching touchdown from three yards out. James finished with 124 yards rushing; he gained more than half those yards on this drive alone.

But it was two key junctures by the Patriots which told everyone that they were not the team who knew how to win today’s game.

Just prior to the first fourth quarter touchdown (a one-yard shovel pass to James), Manning was pressured on second and goal at the four. He rolled right, and drilled a bullet right between the 3 and the 4 of Jones (as in Tebucky). The ball bounced right off the 34 and fell to the turf. Jones exploded in a fit of apoplexy. He did because if he makes the catch, he has an easy 99-yard pick return for a touchdown and a win for his team. Two plays later, the Colts scored.

On the next drive, the Patriots were fighting to hold on to the 23-21 lead. It was third and two at their own 28. Third and two. Guess who comes in. Hint: Bledsoe came out.

Bishop rolls out left on the option. Pitches to Faulk. At least Kevin handled the ball without dropping it. The Colts dropped Faulk. Hard. Quickly. Short of the first down by a mile. It was the first three-and-out for the Patriots all day, and it happened at the worst possible time with the game on the line.

So, my friends, there you have it. Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose can’t say it any better than that.

A win for the Colts they didn’t deserve. A loss for the Patriots that they did deserve. That’s how the NFL works, isn’t it?

The team that dominates the stats always wins, right?

This is one thing that the Patriot players will have to chew on for what will be two long and interminable weeks. How to win these close games. Somehow. And it takes more than Charlie Weis yelling “Make a play!!”

Belichick and Weis aren’t held totally harmless today. Belichick must be held to answer for the blown assignments that led to the two Harrison touchdowns. And whoever among the two men still think the Bishop on third down deal is still a good idea needs to reconnoiter. The experiment failed. Drop it. Ask Drew. He’ll agree, just not publicly.

One final thing to take with you this week. The Patriots scored 23 points — and lost. Last time that happened was the 31-30 setback to Miami at home last year. The last time before that was in 1995. Now do the Patriot players realize that they laid a huge egg today? How many more games like this will it take before this team finally learns how to finish off opponents?

Not at least for the next two weeks. Have a peaceful next weekend, Patriot Nation.

About Bob George

Covering Boston Sports since 1997. Native of Worcester, Mass. Attended UMass and Univ of Michigan. Lives in California. Just recently retired after 40 years of public school teaching. Podcasts on YouTube at @thepic4139

View all posts by Bob George