Last night, the New England Patriots were able to defeat the pesky Indianapolis Colts behind James Sanders’s late interception. Several positives came out of the win. Through three quarters, the New England offense absolutely dominated the Colts defense. They moved the ball at will, scored touchdowns in each of their first three possessions, and effectively mixed in the rush with the pass. In addition, they intercepted Peyton Manning twice in the first three quarters. Unfortunately for the Patriots, there are four quarters in football, and the final stanza has been a major problem for this team this season.
Sure, the Patriots are 8-2 and have a share of the best record in the NFL. They have beaten three of the elite teams in the NFL in the Colts, Baltimore Ravens, and Pittsburgh Steelers, who have a combined 20-10 record this season. However, the Patriots have had tremendous difficulties putting away teams this season, as their lone convincing, dominating victory this season came on Monday Night Football against the Miami Dolphins.
If the Patriots continue to allow teams to come back late in games, eventually, they will be punished for their porous fourth quarters. Here are some of the poor second halves the Patriots have had this season: they allowed three 70+ yard touchdown drives to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 1, were outscored by the Jets 18-0 in Week 2, surrendered 17 fourth-quarter points to the Chargers in Week 7, gave up 17 points in the second half to the Browns in Week 8, yielded 23 fourth-quarter points to the Steelers in Week 9, and gave up two late touchdown drives to the Colts on Sunday.
Those are way too many second half collapses for a team with championship aspirations. Bill Belichick-coached teams almost never choke late in games. In fact, in years past, the Patriots always were the team to comeback on opponents or put teams away. Tom Brady is one of the elite closers of this generation, so the porous second halves of late has put him in unchartered territory.
Last night, against Indianapolis, the Patriots had a comfortable 31-14 lead with 10:23 remaining in the fourth quarter. They were in this exact same position (with the same score) almost one year ago to this day, when they allowed three late touchdown drives to suffer a devastating 35-34 loss to their archrivals. You would believe that the Patriots must have learned their lesson from last year about not getting comfortable with any kind of lead against an elite quarterback like Peyton Manning.
However, déjà vu struck all over the again for the Patriots yesterday, as they allowed Peyton Manning to march 73 yards down the field in 2:26 to cut the lead down to 10 points. New England went three-and-out in their next possession, and Manning took advantage by driving 73 yards down the field again, culminating with a second straight touchdown pass to Blair White. That drive took only 2:18 and suddenly, what was once a comfortable 17-point lead dwindled to three in a matter of minutes. The Patriots next drive lasted only 2:21, before punting the ball without forcing Indianapolis to burn a timeout. That gave Manning an opportunity with 2:25 remaining to march 74 yards down the field to pull off an improbable comeback. After driving to the Patriots 24 yard-line, James Sanders intercepted Manning’s pass and helped the Patriots avoid another disastrous result at the hands of the Colts.
New England will eventually be punished, either later this regular season or in the playoffs, if they continue to allow teams to hang around in the game. Although the media blasted New England for running up the score in the 2007 season, they need to return to this mindset and continue to score touchdowns late in games to intimidate opponents and put other teams away. If the Patriots play with the same aggressive mindset in the final stanza as they often do in the first three quarters, they would blow out teams and avoid the possibility of a collapse late in games. The objective of each game is to win, not to satisfy the media’s needs and wants.
The Patriots would not put themselves in this kind of precarious position late in games if they approach each game by seeking to annihilate their opponents. Great quarterbacks like Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, and Ben Roethlisberger will eventually punish the Patriots if they are given the opportunity to win the game. Thus, although the Patriots continue to win and are in a prime position to have home-field throughout the AFC playoffs, they will need to learn to put away opponents and avoid the potential of a late-game collapse.
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