Through the first three weeks of the NFL season, it looked like the New England Patriots may just go through the entire year without yielding.
But in their first contest against some stauncher competition (defensively, at least), we saw signs of a chink in the armor. New England ultimately clawed out a 16-10 win in a battle of 3-0 teams against the Buffalo Bills. But the Pats certainly had a head-scratching afternoon on the offensive side of the ball.
That much led FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd to move the Pats down to the No. 2 spot in his weekly “Herd Hierarchy,” despite raining loads of praise on New England’s defense.
Here’s his explanation:
“Now, the reason I don’t have them at No. 1 is cause I think right they got a lot of wide receiver issues,” Cowherd said. “(Rob Gronkowski) retired. Chris Hogan left. The rookie N’Keal Harry is on IR. Edelman is bumped around a little bit, he’s bruised. Josh Gordon is terrific but I have questions. I mean thank God for Phillip Dorsett who can play several different — he can go slot and he can go perimeter. I just don’t think offensively they are dynamic enough to put at No. 1.”
Cowherd instead chose to rank the Kansas City Chiefs in the top spot.
Cowherd is far from the only one to raise questions about the depth of New England’s offense, with Patriots fans trying to will trades into existence on Twitter.
But it’s safe to say this is not the first time that the Pats have been faced with a shortage of offensive weapons. And it’s been quite some time since the Pats have enjoyed this kind of success on defense. So yeah, no. 2 through four weeks? It could be a lot worse.
