The Problem Wasn't The Play Calling, It Was The Defense And The Final Fumble.

The Patriots were marching down the field looking to take the lead in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. Yet fans are questioning why the Patriots ran the ball that much on the final drive that ended in a fumble. I wanna take on question.

While Mac Jones was playing well, the Patriots had a game plan and I think as the game went on the plan was altered to use more of the clock on offense. Miami had a good defense and the Patriots ran the ball to open up the pass. In defensive games, that's basically what one wants to see.

The Patriots made mistakes, too many penalties, not enough consistency on defense and the fumbles would hurt the team and eventually seal the game.

On the Patriots final drive, they were trying to run out the clock. The clock runs faster when teams run the football. We all know this. The Patriots defense wasn't getting stops when needed, so the team had to eat the clock. Call it smart football or call it conservative play calling, either way the Patriots knew what they were doing. Look at the Dolphins final drive. The Dolphins had their way with the Patriots defense and ate the clock until it reached zero.

The game plan or play calling wasn't bad when you actually look at the fact that the offense was playing defense to keep their defense off the field. It may just be me but the Patriots didn't seem to trust their defense to close out the game. Which leads me to ask, how concerned do we have to be with the Patriots defense without Gilmore? 

I told everyone when we drafted him that Barmore wasn't Wilfork. He is a pass stopper that is okay at stopping the run. Godchaux is the run stopper but it didn't matter because nobody could stop the run. I believe the team was designed for their safeties to come up an be extra linebackers but without Gilmore, their secondary is screwed up. Hopefully Gilmore is the answer to the problem, if not the rebuild is going to take longer than this season.