Patriots vs. Chiefs: Fan Notes from the Game

Usually, if you don't stay until the end of a Patriots game, I'm the first one to call you out and remind you that real fans don't leave until the last whistle. Real fans stay with the team through thick and thin, no matter how bad it gets. Real fans ride the highs and endure the lows, and

But if you went to bed a little way through the 3rd quarter of last night's complete, utter beatdown at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs, I'm not going to begrudge you too much. After all, it wouldn't be fair of me to call out any of the fans for calling it a night early; if you showed up for more than five minutes of this one, that's five minutes longer than any of the Patriots players were around.

Let's just get to the notes so we can bury this stinking, rotting corpse of a game and turn the page to next Sunday.

• KC attempted to set a World record last night for loudest stadium; it was hard to tell just how loud it was on TV, but I will say this; the crowd was louder when the Chiefs were on offense than Gillette is at any point during a home game.
• Is it me, or has every QB the Patriots have faced this year immediately gone directly after Darrelle Revis?
• On KC's first 3^rd and 18 of the game, if there was Vegas odds on "Chiefs throw a screen for 19 yards and a 1^st down," I would have lost money.
• You know what really, really doesn't bode well for the future? When you're a 2^nd year, 2^nd round pick receiver that's supposed to represent the only player with any semblance of representing a deep threat, and you're a healthy scratch for three out of the first four games you play.
• I would love to know why both Aaron Dobson and Kenbrell Thompkins were both healthy scratches last night. No point in asking, as the answer I'd get would be "we make decisions based on what we feel will be best for the team," but to me it makes absolutely zero sense why those two guys wouldn't be out there. Who started in their place? It's not like the offense is so potent we don't need bodies out there.
• New England's MVP through four games this year, for my money, is Matthew Slater. Ten to fifty times a game, the Patriots line up in punt formation, and Slater speeds right down the field to tackle whoever is back to return. If you can take any bright spot away from last night's soup sandwich, it was the punt coverage unit.
  
• A defense that thrives on turnovers vs. a QB who has made a career out of taking good care of the ball equals pretty much exactly what we saw last night.
• Did KC even have a 3^rd down on their first scoring drive?
• Scratch that - did KC have a 3^rd down all game?
• The ratio of first downs between New England and Kansas City in the 1^st quarter looked a lot like the score of a lot of my pee-wee soccer games.
• I still, for the life of me, don't understand the complete lack of Stevan Ridley last night. Almost every time he touched the ball, something positive happened. Didn't even try to get Ridley the ball or give him a chance to get going, even during the 45 seconds or so when the game was this close. I simply don't get it.
• Along those lines, I'm having a hard time reconciling some of the coaching decisions that have been made this first quarter of the season. I better just leave it at that before this note becomes a seven page rant.
• KC's 2^nd scoring drive was honestly a thing of absolute beauty.  Confusing formations, misdirections, and mismatches everywhere. Nobody on the Patriots had any idea what was going on at any point and the Chiefs didn't even need a 2^nd down to get in the end zone. The game was pretty much over after that one; completely deflated the Patriots and they simply didn't have an answer for anything KC did.
• Is there a rule that MNF has to break for a commercial at every single opportunity? At no point was this game allowed to generate any flow with all of these one play/commercial break nonsense. I know that there are contractual obligations, but come on.
• I wonder if Brady sends Amendola in motion just to give him something to do.
• Can Danny just get one catch without a penalty coming at the same time?
• You can't really blame last night on pressure, lack of communication, or any one facet of the game where the Patriots weren't delivering. They just couldn't execute. And that might be what scares me most.
• 8 yards per rush from KC is probably the least depressing stat of the night. Yuck.
  
• You ever play Madden on rookie mode and purposely commit a bunch of penalties until it's like 1^st and 50 just to see if you could still get some offense going? I almost wanted KC to do that just to see if they could still punch it in.
  
• I honestly think that the Patriots need to just pick some linemen and stick with it soon. I just can't help but think that five of the same crappy linemen out there consistently is better than five different crappy linemen swapping in and out all the time.
• Was Tim Wright even active last night?
• Ever heard of a concept called "fighting through blocks" on screens, fellas?
• How frustrating is it to see a team absolutely light you up with a 2 TE set? Oh what could have been...
• It's so incredibly obvious when one offense is clicking and the opposing defense it confused and hesitant. It's just a complete snowball effect that is virtually impossible to reverse.
• Anybody with outside speed is going to have a good day against this defense. Lots of trouble setting the edge.
  
• So...as of this note it's 10:20 PM and the Chiefs are up 24-0. Would anyone be too upset if I just stopped writing and stared at the TV for the next 40 minutes or so?
• Who is the worst offensive lineman we have? I have no idea. It legit might be Nate Solder. I mean yeah, the rest of our guys get slapped around, but I'd rather a lineman get slapped around then get completely blown by without even touching his guy. He gets absolutely manhandled at least twice a game.
• Heyy a 2nd half TD! And a LaFell sighting! Two things we haven't experienced this year.
• Why were the Patriots players slipping on almost every play? Are guys getting juked out of their shorts, or was there a big, big mistake in choice of footwear?
• 34-7, 12 minutes left in the 4th. Pull the starters. regroup for next week. Let Jimmy G get some reps. Make sure nothing gets ripped up here other than our defense, offense, collective egos, and hope for a Super Bowl.
• Tom Brady was terrible last night. TERRIBLE. Blame absolutely nobody else on his performance except for him. You can't point to the pressure, or the receivers, or the amount of time he had, or anything like that. He was just flat out bad. Reaalllly not what I needed after defending him all week to the ever-growing group who keep trying to say that Tommy B is over the hill and done but are just grinning so widely that they are unable to form the words.
  
• When the Patriots were in meetings this week trying to think of ways to quiet the crowd, I don't think that "lose in a blowout" was one of their viable strategies.
• As much as I love writing for Pats Pulpit, one pitfall of being a wannabe sportswriter is that you not only have to watch the whole game, but pay close enough attention to it in order to provide some kind of analysis. It's like looking into the toilet after a lunch of the deluxe Chipotle bowl reminds you why you never order a deluxe Chipotle bowl; you don't want to witness the horror, but you just have to.
  
• If John Gruden ever decides to leave football for good, he has an incredibly promising career ahead of him as an affirmation coach. Listening to him as KC marched up and down the field at will last night, I couldn't help but think to myself, "you know what? Maybe things aren't so bad. Thanks, John!"
• The good news about a loss like this is that it's over so early that I didn't experience any of the usual emotions that accompany a primetime defeat - aka staring up at the ceiling a stewing all night. This game was pretty much over as soon as KC went up 14-0 and the Patriots decided to take the rest of the night off. Gave me plenty of time to process this, and I actually slept OK afterwards.
  
• That said, if I ever find myself saying "you know, I could get used to these double digit losses," I may have to go and find a tent in the woods to live in.
  
• Man, thank goodness for the Raiders...if it wasn't for them the entire AFC East would have very little to show for this season.
• Something else I'm going to take solace in is just how much everyone loved watching the Patriots lose last night. I mean people couldn't get enough of that performance. As long as that's still the reaction, there is reason for hope.
• Dammit, Jimmy, why did you have to come out and look good? Threw a few completions, managed the offense well, got the running game going, generated a score. That's not going to do much to silence the "sit Tom Brady" morons. Wish that Jimmy's playcalling consisted of a few runs up the gut and nothing else.
• Nor will Tom Brady's body language do much to keep those who can't get enough of talking about Tom Brady's body language. Is the guy not allowed to get grumpy when he plays like crap? Again?
• Maybe we should call Richie Incognito. There is literally no way he could bully anybody as badly as the Pats got bullied last night.
• And, as always, I'll extend a warm welcome to all the Chiefs fans visiting our site this morning under the guise of wishing us the best of luck and making some thinly veiled comments about how we'll be OK in December when in actuality they are really just here to enjoy this victory that much more by taking a long, hot shower in the blood red waters our despondence. Soak it in. Wash behind your ears. Make a shampoo mohawk. Cherish it. Victory Tuesdays like these are meant to be relished. Might I recommend looking up a guy named Ron Borges if you really want to read some stuff that's going to let you sit back in your chair, cross your arms, and smile.

Brace yourselves, everybody. Get ready for an absolute ONSLAUGHT of words such as "exposed," "over the hill," "overrated," "slumping," and all that stuff. And the amount of smug satisfaction that is going to be dripping out of every single one of those words should be enough to fill more buckets than any of our tears could. And the way I see it, you have two options. One, you can read all of it, let it get to you, and take to any and every message board possible defending what, so far, has been a fairly undefendable performance in 2014. Or two, you can simply accept the fact that wins like what we saw at Oakland and losses like what we saw last night are more or less going to be par for the course this year. We're going to win some, we're going to lose some, and right now the season is more or less hanging in the balance. The good news about something hanging in the balance is that it's just as likely to tip the way you want it to as not. But for that to happen, the Patriots have some work to do.