Trouble in Patriot Nation

Reflecting back on yesterday's 30-10 loss by the New England Patriots to the San Diego Chargers, a few things seem clear to me (and probably to every other New Englander who cares about football).

1. Matt Cassell is not Tom Brady, and he knows it, and so does everyone else on both sides of the ball.
2. The rest of the offense is dealing poorly with Brady's absence. They are not picking up their play; just the opposite.
3. The best defense is a good offense. But when you don't have the best offense, your defense has to actually be good. The Patriots defense is being exposed as less than good in many ways.

On the first point, no one should expect Matt Cassell to be as good as Brady. He is actually a rather competent QB. But for a team that relied heavily on Brady's excellence, anything less puts a huge burden on the line, the backs, and the receivers. Time at time in this game, and previous games as well, these players have not stepped up, in my opinion. In fact, it seems that the staff also has resigned themselves to their fate of mediocrity. Case in point, a long pass that Moss caught, then was hit and lost the ball going out of bounds. The announcers expected the Pats to challenge the call, as Moss seemed to have a strong grip on the ball while in bounds. The ball was knocked out by the defensive back, and no one, Moss or coaches, seemed interested enough to challenge the incompletion. On the next possession, the Chargers scored on a long pass. That was a turning point but NE looked like they were just waiting for the roof to collapse, and it did. With Brady and their top two runners out, the team came into the stadium with a fork sticking out of their backs.

Think about how many times on a 3rd down Cassell completed a pass but the gain was too short for a first. Either the pattern or the receiver or Casell's vision or all three combine to make that a bad call and a bad result. The offense was able to do none of the things that past Patriots could do to pressure a defense. Brady's ability to sense almost supernaturally the open man and hit him was so obviously missing from the Patriot's game. As a result, the Chargers could just play the percentages and rely on their scouting to ID the target player and cover him.

Without the offense to either strike and score or hold the ball, the defense was exposed as lacking in many areas. Particularly in the secondary, the players replacing Randall Gaye and Asanti Samuel just do not stack up, talent-wise or height-wise. They are being exploited by opponent's QBs and the front 7 are generating almost no pass rush to speak of. As a result, Rivers was able to pick them apart. When the Pats used 4 down linemen they could stop up Thomlinson fairly well, but if they stayed in the 4-3, The Chargers were killing them with passing. If they went back to the 3-4, they couldn't contain the run, and the pass plays the Pats generated even less pressure than with the 4-3.

On top of that, it seemed like the Chargers were not being called for holding numerous times. On one of the bombs from Rivers, it looked like a New England blitzer was dragged down by two Chargers, but no call (other than touchdown). On their big punt return, the Pats first man looked like he was hit from behind twice, yet the Pats got a 15 yard facemask called on the play instead. The coaching staff seemed to accept both of these with no argument.

If the rest of the schedule is like this, it will be a long long season.