The Boston Media Is Going After Bill Belichick Today
Boston tears are so delicious. They taste so good! Mmm. I can just drink them in today. Here, drink them with me:
“When you give up 21 points when your defense isn’t on the field,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said after the game. “You lose about 98 percent of those games.”
While the number is actually closer to 97% (come on, Bill), Belichick is right when he says that no one play tipped the scale. It wasn’t just the ridiculous drop kick that made no sense, or the terribly executed blocked punt right before the half, or the Darren Sproles return for a touchdown, but the combination of all the poor executions and ideas that sank New England.
WEEI:
There was a follow up question on how the kick was supposed to be executed, questioning whether the ball should have been kicked in the air, or on the ground like a regular onside kick.
“We don’t have time for that,” he added.
Prior to the kick, the Eagles offense had ran 21 plays for 54 yards and didn’t run a single play in New England territory. Philadelphia’s touchdown was the first of 35 straight points scored, which had the visitors leading 35-14 in the fourth quarter.
Belichick never says much after a loss, but the Patriots coach does have a little explaining to do after Sunday’s sloppy defeat. It’s one thing for the Patriots to simply get out-executed by the opponent. And the offense is obviously struggling without Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, and Dion Lewis.
All you really need to know about the Patriots’ 35-28 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday is this: Seemingly in control of the game, with a 14-0 lead following an 11-yard touchdown reception by wide receiver Danny Amendola midway through the second quarter, the notion suddenly struck the Patriots’ brain trust that this would be a keen time to try a clever, little play they’d been stowing away.
You know the one – the one where place-kicker Stephen Gostkowski flips the ball to former rugby star Nate Ebner, who is supposed to drop kick the ball into open space in an attempt to have his team recover it.
Yeah, that’s the one.
For all the history the Patriots have made since Robert Kraft purchased the team in 1994 — 16 playoff appearances, seven trips to the Super Bowl, four titles — they had avoided being on the receiving end of what transpired at Gillette Stadium Sunday.
Never had a Kraft-owned Patriots team been outscored by 35 consecutive points in any stretch of a game. Until Sunday, that is. The Philadelphia Eagles, bolstered by two special teams touchdowns and a 99-yard interception return for another score, ripped off 35 straight points, turning a 14-0 deficit into a 35-14 lead.
There are usually a couple of occurrences you can count on as December unfurls in New England — darkness enveloping the late afternoons, Christmas lights going up and the Patriots putting the pedal to the pigskin metal to play their best football.
Well, make that two out of three. The oft-repeated In Belichick We Trust bromide about the Patriots is that they’re better in December than they were in September. That didn’t look like the case on Sunday at Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots dropped (or was it onside drop-kicked?) a 35-28 decision to Chip Kelly and the Philadelphia Eagles.
This one’s on Bill.
Belichick blew it.
It was like Einstein adding two and two and getting five.
It was like Michelangelo coloring outside the lines, Emeril mistakenly using pepper instead of sea salt, Gisele Bundchen tripping on the runway at Paris Fashion Week.
The mad scientist tried an experiment and it blew up in his face.
So good, so good!
