The Big Loss of The Patriots – Just One of Those Days

VIDEO: How the Patriots Lost To Broncos. Watch Tragic Video Below..

Eight weeks into the current NFL season, four teams were still undefeated. In week nine, the Broncos lost, leaving three teams. In week ten, the Cincinnati Bengals lost, leaving two. After last night, only the Carolina Panthers remain.

That’s happy news for Patriots haters, of which there are plenty—maybe especially at the NFL offices, given that Commissioner Roger Goodell is still pursuing legal action against Patriots quarterback Tom Brady over last season’s Deflategate scandal. Many fans and pundits have reasoned that it would be the ultimate embarrassment for the league if the team it has antagonized for the past year returns to the Super Bowl again. Based on that theory, Goodell must be delighted to see the Patriots lose.

When the Patriots lost their second game of the season a year ago, the sky was falling. They’d been manhandled on the Monday Night stage at Arrowhead and even New Englanders were starting to write the team’s obituary. One reporter had the gall to ask Bill Belichick if maybe it wasn’t time to sit Tom Brady and give rookie Jimmy Garoppolo a look. (Belichick kindly said nothing in response. Literally. With the question hanging in the air, he just stood there, wearing the type of smirk you’d expect from a Hall of Fame coach who’s been asked about benching his Hall of Fame QB for a guy who’d yet to throw a meaningful pass as a professional football player.)

The sky obviously stayed above in 2014, and it isn’t going to fall now. Does that mean this Patriots team is also Super Bowl-bound? Not necessarily. What it does mean is their back-to-back losses have not uncovered any damning chinks in the armor. They were just losses. Last week at Denver was a hard-fought road defeat against an outstanding opponent. Sunday’s 35-28 home loss to Philadelphia was this year’s face-plant performance.

Look at the game’s four biggest plays:

Najee Goode’s punt block return touchdown

Darren Sproles’s 83-yard punt return touchdown

Malcolm Jenkins’s 99-yard interception return touchdown

Byron Maxwell’s end zone interception

New England’s blunders were aberrational. Or at least that’s what history says. November 22, 2009 was the last time they were victimized by a blocked punt return TD. And Brady, over the past five seasons, averaged nine interceptions per year. He had only four on the season heading into this game.