Why Patriots Were Stupid In Loss To Chiefs
BOSTON (CBS) -- After raising their Super Bowl LI banner at Gillette Stadium on Thursday night, the New England Patriots went out and suffered an extremely un-Patriots-like loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
For lack of a better word, the Patriots played pretty darn stupid in their 42-27 defeat.
The New England defense couldn't stop rookie running back Kareem Hunt, who finished with 246 total yards and three touchdowns, while quarterback Alex Smith looked more like Joe Montana with 368 yards and four touchdowns. The D spent more time looking at the back of Hunt and Tyreek Hill's jerseys than they did tackling on Thursday night.
The offense wasn't much better, as Tom Brady wasn't his usually sharp self (completing just 44 percent of his passes) and the Patriots failed to convert a pair of fourth-and-short bids.
Zolak & Bertrand usually spend their Monday mornings during the NFL season breaking down how New England's opponents were dummies in their loss to the Patriots, but on Friday they had no choice but to take aim at the defending champs. Zolak was not a fan of the defensive approach against the Chiefs, which saw safeties lining up at linebacker to make up for New England's lack of depth at the position. That left them vulnerable down field, and the Chiefs took advantage with their playmakers ripping off big plays, including a 78-yard touchdown by Hunt and a 75-yard score by Hill.
"It's like they didn't even have safeties. If you think they're going to continue to fix this front seven by putting safeties up there, they have to fix that," said Zolak. "I thought they were experimenting with that in Detroit, but it seems like this is a big part of what they want to do. That scares me."
Beetle took aim at Patriots players, frustrated by the six penalties they were flagged for throughout the contest.
"What's unfortunate about last night is there was so much in the stupid department for both teams. Kansas City did a lot of stupid things that were wiped out because they could throw 75-yard touchdowns. Imagine what this game would have looked like if the Chiefs cut their penalties in half," said Bertrand. "For the Patriots, in terms of the stupidity, some of it was sheer stupidity and stuff that is correctable, which they should have done during the game. Others were they just got beat.
"This wasn't a good game [for the Patriots]," said Beetle.
Listen to their full breakdown and all the ways the Patriots were stupid on Thursday night in the podcast above!