Likes and dislikes from New England Patriots Week 4 loss

Dislike: Third down inefficiency on both sides of the ball

The Patriots were a terrible zero for five on third down attempts in the first half. They managed to get one first down in the second half to give them a success rate of eight percent on the afternoon. Awesome.

On the other side of the ball, the defense surrendered first down successes on seven of 15 total attempts.

4 Ripple effects of Pats losing in Week 4

With those two factoids in mind, it’s not hard to wrap your brain around why the Patriots got thoroughly shellacked in this divisional affair. The Patriots simply didn’t get the job done on third in each phase of the game.

Hopefully, the Patriots can right these offensive third down wrongs with Tom Brady back in the fold next week against the Cleveland Browns. As for the defense, it would be pretty surprising to see a Bill Belichick-coached defense put forth two consecutive performances like this, especially against a porous Cleveland offense.

Speaking of the rough effort on defense…

Next: Dislike: Poor tackling