What Boston sports radio is saying about the Patriots’ rocky start
'I've never seen the Tom Brady offense look worse, have you?'
When the Patriots went to Detroit to face the Lions on Sunday, no one was sure what to expect. The Lions had been utterly embarrassed by the Jets in Week 1 and had two losses under their belts. Coming off of a loss themselves, the Patriots were looking to find an easy win in Detroit before heading back home to host the AFC East -leading Dolphins.
Instead, Matt Patricia led the Lions to their first win of his career and the first of their season against Bill Belichick and his former team. Patricia handed Belichick his second consecutive loss of the season and, even if just for that one game, the student became the teacher.
“The Lions did everything a lot better than we did tonight, so give them credit,” Belichick said after the 26-10 loss. “We just didn’t do anything well enough to give ourselves a chance to win. Similar situation to last week: Got behind early, played from behind, [and] just weren’t able to make it up. So, we’re going to have to work our way out of it.”
Prior to the start of the game, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that there were talks of trading tight end Rob Gronkowski in New England. Gronk confirmed the trade rumors at a post-game press conference.
“Yeah, it happened,” he told reporters. “Brady’s my quarterback. That’s all. [I] wasn’t going anywhere without Brady.”
Here’s what Boston sports radio is saying about Sunday’s loss:
“Dale and Keefe” (93.7 WEEI)
Rich Keefe:
“As a Patriots fan who has been paying attention, you know that what they are in September is not what they are in November, December and then even hopefully February. But [Sunday] night did feel different, it felt worse… The offense was bad, the defense was bad, the special teams was whatever. But it was bad everywhere. There was no sort of silver lining, where as even in some of the other blowout losses, you say ‘I kind of like what they did there,’ or ‘this showed promise.’ This was bad across the board.”
Dale Arnold: “Up front, Dont’a Hightower was getting his butt handed to him.
Rich Keefe: “So, is Hightower still hurt or is he cooked? Because, unfortunately, that’s what it feels like. It’s one of the two thing and that sucks, but that’s the nature of the NFL. You get to a certain age, especially coming off injury, it might not be as easy. I am still holding out hope that maybe he is going to get healthier. Hard to do that, though, during the season, it is, but he looks really slow, whether it was running plays or…
Dale Arnold: “All of the linebackers look slow.”
Dale Arnold: “Tom Brady does not get off scott free here. He has not been good. The offensive line has done a decent job protecting him; not great but decent. When he does have guys open– and admittedly, you know, with Gronk, they’re usually double- and triple-teaming him– but when he does have guys open, he’s missing guys… For the first time in the Brady-Belichick era, I’m starting to sense that things are a little off down there.”
“Toucher and Rich” (98.5 The Sports Hub):
Fred Toucher:
“You gave up 100-yards. To a running back. For the first time since 1993… just horrible.”
Rich Shertenlieb: “There’s a lot of historically bad things that happened yesterday, like things that don’t happen often. Like back-to-back losses, it’s like the first time that they’ve done that in… what, since 2012? And then there’s all the stuff about being 1-2… This seems to be a tougher predicament when you’ve got Miami doing as well as they are.”
Fred Toucher: “Last night was as bad as I’ve seen them play. They were playing a terrible team, with a terrible coach and a terrible defense and a terrible offense, and they went out there and completely crapped themselves. I mean, they were dominated by a bad team with a coach that has no idea what he’s doing and that has been hated by everyone in that town… You want to talk about losing to Cleveland? That’s nothing. You gave up 100 yards to a Lions running back. Woof. That stinks. Awful… and by the way, he was like, ‘Yea, it was easy… most of those carries I just had to hang onto the ball.'”
“Kirk and Callahan” (93.7 WEEI)
Gerry Callahan:
“It was a terribly coached game, but what’s worse than that to me is, if you want another poll question: Belichick the coach or Belichick the GM, who do you blame more?”
Gerry Callahan:“I’ve never seen the Tom Brady offense look worse, have you?”
Mike Mutnansky: “14 of 26 for 133, awful.”
Gerry Callahan: “He had four passing first downs.”
Mike Mutnansky: “Try to remember any of them. He had a nice play to Gronk over in the middle at some point.”
Gerry Callahan: “That’s normally a drive… that was a game; that was 60 minutes; that was 48 snaps, four passing first downs.”
Mike Mutnansky: “This [loss] is different, because it’s the freakin’ Lions. The Lions are the team with the fans who wear paper bag hats. They have Matt Patricia, who they wanted to fire two weeks ago. They got crushed by the Jets; they are terrible. They’re a bottom-feeder, punchline organization in sports and they embarrass you in primetime football. That’s why this one feels different.”
Gerry Callahan: “The problem is, [Tom Brady] wasn’t good and you sound like you’re pointing fingers and blaming others… but he has to be frustrated as hell.”
Mike Mutnansky: “You saw the frustration last night. If you want to play the ‘Read the Tom Brady body language’ game, he’s walking to the sideline on multiple occasions after throwing his helmet– just chucking his helmet at the trainer– and there’s this great shot overhead NBC had: he’s leaning over, head in hands essentially. You could tell on and off the field last night that, whether it’s the talent, the game plan– which, again, was very vanilla and a lot of Sony Michel for a second straight week– he is bothered by what is going on with his team. He was not hiding it last night.”
Guest Adam Schefter, on the canceled Rob Gronkowski trade: “It would have been a trade involving draft picks. That was the basic trade. [Gronkowski] was the only player involved in that trade… It would have been a combination of picks and it didn’t work out for either side and in the end, the Patriots got to keep him. The truth of the matter is, I think the Patriots are very fortunate they didn’t trade him because if they trade him I think one of the issues that they are already dealing with this season is the lack of weapons around Tom Brady… If you take Gronk out of that, who is Tom throwing the football to?”
“Zolak and Bertrand” (98.5 The Sports Hub):
Marc Bertrand:
“The thing that really stands out to me from [Sunday night]… this team is unlike other Patriot teams over the years. Twelve men on the field really sealed it last night– that this is a sloppy team, making mental mistakes, lacking awareness. And those are the things that, every week that we do this, where we go through the wins and say ‘look at the other team, how stupid they are; look how dumb this other team is.’ No. That was not a twelfth guy running off the field and getting caught on the field. No, this was twelve guys in a Patriots uniform went out and lined up on the field, waiting for the ball to be snapped.”
Scott Zolak: “Sony Michel got Trent Brown a holding call. On a runaround left end, because he bounced it for no gain. And then you go back ten yards. You’re trying to get him a preseason right now during the regular season and that’s the problem. Kid didn’t have a preseason. He’s your first round pick. James White will be worn out by Week 8 if you need him every snap.”
Marc Bertrand: “If that was the attitude, then why not just dress Josh Gordon yesterday?”
Marc Bertrand: “How predictable do the Patriots become offensively? They can’t afford to be predictable given the lack of talent that they’ve already got to work with.”
Scott Zolak: “You get predictable when you don’t have depth.”
Marc Bertrand: “But they’ve just become predictable because of play calling… Josh [Gordon] can somehow try to do it for four weeks, but you can’t make chicken salad with chicken s*** and you can’t do it for 16 weeks.”
Felger and Massarotti (98.5 The Sports Hub):
Mike Felger:
“That, to me, is the biggest takeaway of the game: the lack of response from the Patriots. How Bill Belichick and the staff pounded into them all week, ‘Get off to a good start, get off to a good start,’ and they got rolled. They got rolled by a horrible team and they did it coming off of a loss… I’ve seen them overcome issues on their roster before because they play hard, they respond, they circle the wagons, they get better after a defeat, all of those things. I’ve seen them overcome personnel deficiencies this whole run. I’ve almost never seen them lose a game and then it get worse the next week.”
Tony Massarotti: “To me, this was reminiscent of… New Orleans in 2009… that was nine years ago.”
Mike Felger: “I mean, really that’s the last time you had something like this. In 2009, they go down to New Orleans and New Orleans wins the Super Bowl that year. Good team.”
Tony Massarotti: “But the Patriots totally rolled over. And that was a game that, in the Football Life documentary, Bill Belichick stood on the sidelines and said, ‘I can’t get this team to play the way I want them to play.’ That’s what it felt like to me [Sunday night].”
Mike Felger: “But what made Sunday night different is that the Lions suck. A sucky team after a defeat the week before; you win that game 100 times out of 100.”
