The New England Patriots are struggling as they enter Sunday's game in Foxborough against the undefeated Miami Dolphins. The Pats have suffered double-digit losses in two of their first three games. The offense has lacked punch without standout wide receiver Julian Edelman, who's serving a suspension.
And to add to that, we found out this week that running back Rex Burkhead and linebacker Ju'Whan Bentley are done for the season with injuries. New England Public Radio's Adam Frenier asked Matt Vautour, a sports writer and columnist with Mass Live, if Patriots fans should be pressing the panic button.
Matt Vautour, Mass Live: I think fans are pressing the panic button. It's a question of how hard they should be pushing it right now. The Patriots have had rough starts before, but have come back from it. The question I have is how much better will, at least on offense obviously, the return of Julian Edelman make the Patriots next week?
Does he make Chris Hogan better or Phillip Dorsett better because they're not getting the same defensive attention? And Josh Gordon can obviously potentially help that as well, if he comes up to it quickly. I think on offense the Patriots complete inability to stay on the field on third down has been a huge problem and Edelman can fix some of that, but how much?
Adam Frenier, NEPR: And defensively, Matt, the Patriots have given up an average of 25 points in the game. What's been their problem?
I think it starts upfront. In the first game of the season, their pass rush was pretty good, but as it turns out Houston's not very good. And since then, they haven't been able to pressure quarterbacks. They haven't been able to stop the run, and they haven't been able to get off the field effectively on third down either. They look slow and that's a hard thing to fix.
Matt, there's sometimes this feeling that people are waiting for Tom Brady to finally go over the other side of the mountain and start to age before our eyes. What have you seen from him so far this season?
It's not obvious stuff, but he hasn't been sharp. You've seen on a couple of third-down throws, he's thrown the ball high. It's not something when you look at Tom Brady and say, "Well, jeez. He's done." But you know Tom Brady at 5 percent off of his game is a pretty big jump. I don't know if that's happening yet.
I don't know if he just hasn't gotten comfortable yet with some of his newer receivers -- and, you know, that's another thing that Edelman might help [with] -- or something along the lines of that he isn't quite what he used to be. And, I mean, that's going to happen at some point.
After Sunday's loss to the Lions, star tight-end Rob Gronkowski confirmed an ESPN report that he nixed the trade to Detroit over the offseason, and threatened to retire if he was dealt. It's unusual for Patriots players to speak up like that in the media. Is this a sign of trouble that he's putting it out there like that?
Well, I think Gronkowski, if you’re going to pick a Patriots player that's likely to do it, he's the one. If Rob Gronkowski was playing on a different team, I think he'd be a big talker and I think he's always just holding it in as much as as much as he can. I think it was a combination of that coming out when it came out and him being frustrated after the Patriots' loss.
I do think that the discipline and the Patriots' ability to avoid distractions if they keep losing, I think one thing affects the other and...their ability to hold those things together if they keep losing seems a little bit more unlikely.
And finally, let's look ahead to Sunday. The Dolphins will be in Foxborough. Miami is 3-0, and if the Patriots lose, they'd already be down three games within the AFC East. It's early but is that a must-win game for New England?
It kind of feels that way. Being a home game the thing is too, the Patriots very rarely ever play well at Miami. So, you feel like you've got to get this one and, you're right, to be three games behind in the division race, all of a sudden you're starting to think about wild card, and with an older team, you'd like to get that first-round bye in the playoffs.
