Just Disgusting: The Patriots Defense

A friend of mine texted me and put it this way: "Are the Pats trying to "one up" the Sox? We're going to hear the defense was eating fried chicken on the sidelines which made their hands greasy and unable to play defense..."

After watching the Patriots lose a heart-wrencher to the New York Giants (again) Sunday night, 24-20, that's either A) what literally happened, or B) the Patriots defense is absolutely terrible.

Being a New England Patriots fan in the era of Tom Brady has always been fulfilling. A Pats fan these last ten years has always known, that with the game on the line, that Tommyboy would be able to lead the team down the field to victory.

That's what it looked like against the Giants on channel FOX. Tom Brady and crew drove down the field, and after throwing two balls that were dropped by Rob Gronkowski, Brady threw to Gronkowski again for a touchdown.

The Giants then recieved the ball with 1:36 left in the game.

There were two things on the forefront of the minds of every Pats fan:

1. "Oh in the name of Belichick, how are we going to stop Eli Manning (the Giants' quarterback) with the worst pass defense in the NFL?"  (To put it this way to non-sports fans: the Patriots couldn't stop a hotdog from being thrown down the field.)

2. The Play That Shall Not Be Named.

If you don't know what The Play That Shall Not Be Named is, try looking for Patriots-Giants Super Bowl on Youtube. Make sure you have plenty of Tylenol, chocolate milk, and your therapist's phone number on speed dial.

What ended up happening? The New York Giants drove all the way up the field against the disgustingly bad Patriots defense. They got all the way to the 1 yard line and...

We stopped them.... once... twice...

And then they scored. 15 seconds later in football time, the game was over.

The Patriots under Brady and Belichick have always been good, but as I'm sure both realize, they've always been successful in part because of their defense. They don't have a very good one right now.

Given that it's midseason, I'm not sure how they can fix an atrocious defense very quickly, but the smart guys who better run the Patriots better think of something.

It might be funny to note, but right now, with ex-Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein having gone to the Chicago Cubs, the Patriots coach Bill Belichick not turning the defense into an efficient machine, the Celtics not playing for the time being, and the Bruins being last in their division, who's the best coach/general manager of a Boston sports team right now?