The New England Patriots lost a tough game to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. It was a winnable one for Mike Vrabel and his Pats, but some mistakes were too big to come back from, and the final score read 21-14. Most glaring was the number of times they turned the ball over: Five, including four fumbles.
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Perhaps the most difficult thing for Patriots fans to digest is that they clearly outplayed the Steelers, who held them to just 203 yards of offense while putting up over 350 yards themselves. But a stretch of four turnovers in the span of five drives kept Pittsburgh in it long enough to steal the game with a late fourth-quarter touchdown.
Vrabel must be fuming over the result, something NFL analyst Chris Simms couldn’t help but remark while analyzing the game with Mike Florio on ProFootballTalk. Florio began the conversation by praising the Steelers’ opportunism despite being outplayed.
“The Patriots outplayed the Steelers, but the Steelers were opportunistic. Five turnovers. Cam Heyward told me afterwards that they were very aware of the career fumbles on that side of the ball,” Florio said.
The player in question, who was prone to fumbling, was none other than Rhamondre Stevenson. The Patriots’ running back went into Sunday with 14 career fumbles. He came out of it with 16.
That’s right, Stevenson fumbled twice. One led directly to a touchdown, and the other came on the Steelers’ 2-yard line. Florio’s co-host, Simms, echoed the same sentiments.
“They clearly outplayed the Steelers. I mean, the Patriots, Mike Vrabel, he must’ve had his head in the toilet bowl last night and this morning. How could he not? You gotta be sick after that one,” Simms said
It’s not just about how Vrabel probably feels at the moment, though. When you lay it all out, it was a game that they should have been winning nine times out of 10. But because of their youth and inexperience, they lacked the composure to navigate the turnovers.
Simms then went in-depth after that, pointing out the specific moments when Vrabel’s Patriots could’ve maintained control. “There were so many opportunities. They controlled the football game,” he began.
“They gave the Steelers a short field with the early Rhamondre Stevenson fumble. Then, we had one good drive by the Pittsburgh Steelers. I’m telling you, after that, 13:49 left in the second quarter, they couldn’t do anything on the offensive side of the ball… But the Patriots kept messing it up,” Simms elaborated.
These takes are hard to disagree with. Vrabel and his defense looked up to snuff it when it came to stopping Aaron Rodgers. On the offensive side of the ball, they were moving the chains, but they just couldn’t find a way to punch it in for touchdowns, and turned the ball over twice near the goal line.
Because of this, they didn’t win the football game. And quite frankly, they didn’t deserve to.
We’ll see if Vrabel can correct these inadequacies in Week 4 against the Carolina Panthers. But being a defensive-minded coach, he probably doesn’t have all the answers when it comes to fixing the issues. He needs to rely on his offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels, to iron out any kinks in the system.
