Howe: Patriots Lost Because O-Line Couldn't Protect Brady, Not Because Game Was In Denver
BOSTON (CBS) -- The dust is still settling on the 2015 Patriots' season coming to an abrupt end on Sunday in Denver, and it is the location of that game that still has many fans a bit bothered.
Had the Patriots just beaten the Jets or the Eagles or the Dolphins down the stretch, then Sunday's game would have been in Foxboro instead of Denver, where Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have historically struggled over the past decade-and-a-half.
Considering the Patriots went into Miami in Week 17 with a head-scratcher of a game plan, some have attributed that loss -- and the Patriots' less-than-stellar finish to the season -- to arrogance.
The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe said that's really not to blame.
"I think you gotta look at that whole six-game block as just a lot of different entities," Howe said Tuesday on Toucher & Rich. "There were guys who were hurt. If you want to blame it on arrogance, why were Dont'a Hightower and Danny Amendola playing in that Week 16 game when they clearly didn't look like themselves? Those were two guys that absolutely could have used the rest."
Had the Patriots won either of those final two games of the season, would Sunday's game have been different?
"I just think, ultimately, it comes down to two things for me when you're talking about this whole point. Did they lose because they were on the road? It probably didn't help, because there were a lot of weird things that happened in Denver on Sunday, and things that really you can only expect to happen in a place like Denver that's been such a haunted house for them," Howe said. "Brady throwing those two interceptions -- including one to Von Miller, who can't cover anybody, on a ball that was severely underthrown to Rob Gronkowski. That first touchdown that they allowed, when Jamie Collins -- who is quite possibly the best coverage linebacker in the NFL -- has a miscommunication issue with two captains in Rob Ninkovich and Devin McCourty on the same side of the field, and then Owen Daniels runs free up the seam there. Collins again has a 1-on-1 situation with Owen Daniels on another touchdown and gets spun around; you don't see that happen too often. Stephen Gostkowski misses his first extra point in 10 years. Go on down the list, there were just so many bizarre things that happened.
"So if that game happens in Foxboro, do you expect the myriad of things to go wrong? No, of course you don't. But, if that game were in Foxboro, are you telling me that the six offensive linemen who saw regular playing time are all of a sudden going to stop Tom Brady from getting hit 25 times? Do they feed off the emotion and need [the home crowd] for some of that energy? Yeah, probably. But does that mean you cut it down to 18 times? That still means Tom Brady gets his rear end kicked in all day, because the five guys in front of him on a play-by-play basis couldn't block as much as they needed to. And they lost the game because of that, not because they lost four of six down the stretch. That didn't help, but I have a hard time believing that because they couldn't win games after Thanksgiving, they were all of a sudden completely unable to block the Denver front seven on Sunday."
Listen to the full discussion with Jeff Howe below: