Houston 34 - New England 27

I didn't write about the Patriots yesterday, or this morning, but I thought about it. I was extremely disappointed in that performance yesterday in Houston, as they completely collapsed - again - in the fourth quarter. The offense was bad, the defense was worse.

I'm now willing to cut them a little bit of slack. Obviously, winning that game yesterday was not the first priority, and that was the case before they started. They wanted to win, but they didn't need to win, and there were other things that we saw because of that. We'd not have seen Brian Hoyer in the second quarter if winning was the top priority. Vince Wilfork and Ty Warren and Kevin Faulk would all have played. Tom Brady would have played the last two minutes.

But they did want to win, and the defense did allow 21 unanswered in the fourth quarter. And now we learn that there were extenuating circumstances. (Beyond the offense going three and out, turning the ball over, lousy punts and good punt returns.) According to WEEI, defensive coordinator Dean Pees, calling the defenses from upstairs, suffered "shortness of breath" and left the stadium during the third quarter to go to the hospital. So the defense was not only without their coordinator (again, in a game where winning was not the top priority), they were without their coordinator AND worrying about the health of their coordinator and speculating and talking about the health of their coordinator.

So I'm willing to cut the 'D' some slack.

The offense - not so much...