Broken clutch

WEEK 6
Pats' ball with about seven minutes to play up by six (or three or five or whatever). A time-consuming drive by the offense right here that ends with points puts you in a great position to win. What happens? The offense usually gets a first down ,, maybe two ... but then punts, eating up almost no time.

Pats' somewhat shaky defense comes on to the field with five minutes to go. They need a stop here. What happens? Defense does its job and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. A big sigh of relief.

Brady and the unstoppable offense get the ball back ... this time with just about four minutes to play. The offense doesn't even need to score here. Just a few first downs and Brady can take a knee. What happens? Three-and-out. That's what.

Uh oh. Defense comes back out on the field with about two-and-one-half minutes left. Up by less than a touchdown. Can they make one more stop and win the game? What happens? Well, you know what happens. The opposing QB leads his team pretty-easily down the field as the Pats' secondary runs around looking lost. Game over.

That was the scenario that played out yesterday for the Pats in Seattle. Just like it was earlier in the year against the Ravens and in last year's Super Bowl and the game against the Giants before that and the ...

Brady said after the Sunday night loss to the Ravens "We need to start winning close games." Yesterday was a great chance to start doing that. Instead, it was just another great game wasted. It was a great game. Just like the Ravens game was ... and the Super Bowl ... and the ...

The 3-3 Pats have lost three games by a total of just four points. For comparison, the Pats' next opponent the Jets, also 3-3, lost one game by 34 points. The record is .500 but the Patriots are clearly better than that.  Just like the 5-1 Ravens are clearly not that good. But the Ravens have been able to do something the Pats haven't ... win close games. Maybe even steal a few. That's what teams that get a first-round bye do to get to 13-3 or 14-2. And that's what teams that win Super Bowls do.

As good as the Pats are, until they can start closing out tight games they are not going to take that next step.

They might not get a chance this weekend against the Jets. I think the Pats run all over them. (Although I thought they would beat Seattle, too). But there'll be another game soon where the Pats have the ball and the lead with seven minutes to play. That would be a good time for one of the best offenses to put together one of those 14-play touchdown drives that it does so easily in the first three quarters of the game.