Watching the New England Patriots right now is like watching a tennis match were Rodger Federer suddenly only has a forehand and has lost his backhand after winning four grand slams the year before. His forehand is still on point, it will still destroy you, but his backhand is suddenly completely awful. The Patriot's offense is still Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Chris Hogan, Danny Amendola Brandon Cooks, James White, Dion Lewis, and so on and so forth. The offense still looks like how they did in the comeback again the Falcons in Superbowl 51. However, the defense looks like they are a bunch of freshmen playing for my high school team in Maine. How many Mainers make the NFL? Not many. Now that may be a bit harsh. Malcolm Butler had a great interception, overall Devin McCourty still looks like Devin McCourty. Having Dont'a Hightower back was making a difference for a little bit. One of the biggest problems in the Patriots defense is Stephon Gilmore. He has caused big plays and given up big penalties in every single game so far. In Bill we trust. But this one we trusted him and he and Gilmore have let us down. If he hadn’t had a hand on the face of Devin Fuchess the D would have made the Panthers go 3 and out on their last drive, Tom Brady would have gotten the ball back, and the Patriots would have won the game. Obviously the fact that we were tied 30 to 30 with four minutes left against a team that had hardly scored all season is completely unacceptable. What I find most distressing is that we barely lost anyone on defense from the Superbowl. Ninkovich retiring is a huge blow that we are missing for sure. Rowe caused a lot of the plays on Sunday against the Panthers. I think all Patriots fans can agree that while the entire defense is playing poorly, Stephon Gilmore wasn’t worth the money. How many times will we as Patriots fans say that we should have listened to the Bills fans? I hope this is the only time. Scoring 30 points at home and losing isn’t who we are as a team. This isn’t the Patriots I have been watching the past ten years. It is disappointing, and I can’t help but look at our schedule and grimace a little bit. The Bills beating the Falcons has me worried. The Falcons were the last undefeated team going into this week and were playing as they did in the Superbowl. We have to play the Falcons, and the Bills are in our division, so we have to play them twice. The Patriots also have to play the Broncos, Raiders, Steelers, Ravens, and other good teams. We just won the Superbowl so a schedule that hard is what should be expected. The poor playing of our defense should not be expected. Is it possible for them to get it together? Yes. It is. People said our defense was terrible for most of the last season, although we were never this bad. We’ll see what happens. Last time we were 2-2 after week 4 was 2014, and we won the Superbowl that year. No one would have predicted that. So while it is looking highly unlikely that we will win this year, we still have Bill Belichick and Matt Patrica. I have to believe that it will get better but for now, we are on to Tampa Bay.