Socci's Notebook: Approaching Season's Quarter Pole, Patriots Still Searching For Identity
Late in the lunch hour on Thursday, a question blared from the extremely loud speakers behind Gillette Stadium and reverberated across adjacent parking lots of Foxboro's Patriot Place.
"Whoooo arrrre you?" sang Roger Daltrey, belting out over the ultra-amplified guitar strains of Pete Townshend. "Who-who, who-who?"
Daltrey and the band whose name -- The Who -- is central to the lyrics he was bellowing blasted from the practice fields where the New England Patriots prepped for their trip to Kansas City.
The home of the Chiefs, open-air Arrowhead Stadium, encases one of the most raucous atmospheres in the NFL. Last October it set the sport's standard for loudness when a Guinness Book of World Records adjudicator gauged KC's crowd noise at 137.5 decibels.
Seattle's so-called 12th Man later shouted back, officially making CenturyLink Field the league's loudest. It's a title all the rowdy Chiefs fans want to win back this evening. The team is marketing it as "Loud and Proud" night.
So, to acclimate themselves to amplification expected to be deafening, the Patriots pumped up the old-school British rockers during practice. And while Daltrey was singing to the Pats, he was also singing about them.
Who, exactly, are the Patriots of 2014? Who-who, who-who?
Three weeks into the season, we know what they've been to date. Offensively, the Patriots have failed to adequately protect Tom Brady and suffered inefficiencies, especially in the red zone. Yet they've protected the ball, with just two turnovers overall, and scored enough to win their last two games. Defensively, the Patriots entered the weekend tied for the league lead in takeaways (eight) and hadn't allowed a touchdown in seven quarters.
But who are they, really? Are they as resilient as the group of Patriots who won six games decided by a field goal or less, including five times after facing a fourth-quarter deficit in 2013? And are they good enough to overcome recent struggles and deliver on the usual expectations of double-digit wins and a deep postseason run?
Ultimately, who they are will determine what they will become. Thirteen games and 14 weeks from the regular-season's end, we're a long, long way from finding out.
"Yeah, I think we're learning a lot about it. I know a lot more now than I did three weeks ago," Bill Belichick replied Saturday, when asked if he has a sense of his team's personality approaching the season's quarter pole. "I think our players, they've learned a lot too. Not just the younger guys, but just how our whole team fits together.
"It's one thing to practice with a guy; it's another thing to play in preseason games with your teammate. It's another thing to go into regular-season games where everything is on the line and play with them."
Especially for everyone on the line in New England's offense, tonight will tell us a lot. The unit must try to overcome its well-documented difficulties while dealing with the din of Chiefs fans in full throat. Communication won't be easy, making it even harder to block Kansas City's bookend pass rushers Tamba Hali and Justin Houston.
Hali, who's particularly adept at stripping the ball, has 75.5 sacks and 29 fumbles forced in his eight-plus seasons. Houston, a two-time Pro Bowler, had 4.5 sacks of Michael Vick in Philadelphia in 2013.
But the outcome at Arrowhead will be a telltale for all the Patriots, not just those up front offensively. This is already the third away game of 2014 for a team that's lost six of nine outside Foxboro since last October.
"This will be three out of four games on the road, which I think that's somewhat of a measuring stick as well, just in terms of overall toughness and competitiveness and handling adversity and those kind of things," says Belichick, who gets to coach four of the next five games after tonight from the Gillette sideline. "It's never easy to play on the road in this league. I'm not saying it's easy to play at home, but there's even more challenges on the road."
Whereas the Chiefs, coming off a 34-15 win at Miami, took last Wednesday off, the Patriots padded up to begin a longer-than-usual work week. Tonight they hope to net a third victory from that added investment.
"We've certainly made some adjustments and I'm sure we'll continue to do that," Belichick said. "But yeah, I think that's a key part of it, to see as your team evolves what things you need to correct. Or maybe there's a strength that you didn't realize was a strength or maybe it's a problem that's more a problem than what you thought it was going to be, and how are you going to address it? Yup, that's where we are right now, no question."
REWRITING THE HEADLINE
A shaky offensive line. A quarterback less productive than in the past, being questioned about an over-reliance on a his favorite target. And an expected Super Bowl contender yet to look the part in many eyes.
Sound familiar?
In this case, it sounds and looks like Green Bay in the wake of Week 3, when the Packers were limited to their lowest offensive yard total since 2008 in a 19-7 loss at Detroit. A headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel read, "Is Aaron Rodgers focusing too much on Jordy Nelson?" The accompanying story pointed out that Rodgers had targeted Nelson on 36.3 percent of his passes through three games. That's a higher percentage of targets than any other receiver in the league.
Well, Sunday on the road, the Packers scored on their first six possessions, amassed 358 total yards and beat Chicago, 38-17. Rodgers did hit Nelson 10 times for 108 yards, but also found Randall Cobb for seven receptions worth 113 yards. Each receiver caught two touchdown passes.
Story lines in the NFL are edited on a weekly basis. In Green Bay, last week's news is a non-story this week.
Tonight, albeit in a harsh environment, Brady and company can abruptly change the topic of talk-radio discussions and subject of newspaper stories the way Rodgers and the Packers did against the Bears.
And much like the Pats themselves did late last December in Baltimore, a week after being beaten by Miami. At the time, they had a banged-up offensive line and were being questioned about their toughness.
The Patriots physically dominated the Ravens, 41-7. In the process, they clinched the AFC East and gave the rest of us something else to talk about in the days ahead.
EXTRA POINTS
1. As troubling as New England's offensive line play has been to date, Kansas City is trying to overcome its own problems in the trenches. The Chiefs lost three OL starters from 2013, including left tackle Brandon Albert to free agency. Then right tackle Donald Stephenson was suspended for the first four games of 2014, before his Week 1 replacement Jeff Allen was put on injured reserve. Despite a mobile quarterback who often makes short, quick throws in Alex Smith, KC has allowed 11 sacks in three games.
2. After averaging roughly four penalties per game last year, the Patriots have been whistled for 30 accepted infractions totaling 322 yards this season. Trying to reverse that disturbing trend and return to 2013 form tonight won't be easy. First, the Arrowhead sound effect factored in 17 opponents' penalties last year for either false starts or delays of game. Additionally, tonight's referee John Parry and his crew (see Patriots-Eagles this preseason) have vigilantly enforced this season's points of emphasis. According to ESPN stats and information, Parry's crew called six fouls for defensive holding, a league-high eight for illegal contact and two for illegal hands to the face their first three games.
3. The Patriots closed Week 3 tied for first with Chicago in turnovers forced (eight). But the Bears netted 35 points off those takeaways, compared to 27 for New England. That's a difference of scoring two touchdowns (14 points) rather than settling for two field goals (six points). And while we're on the subject, a big reason the Chiefs charged to a 9-0 start en route to 11 wins in 2013 was their defensive play making. KC forced 36 turnovers, second only to Seattle's 39. Furthermore, the Chiefs scored six defensive touchdowns in 2013. So far in 2014, they have exactly zero takeaways.
Bob Socci is the radio play-by-play voice of the New England Patriots. You can follow him on Twitter @BobSocci.
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