New England Patriots: 5 observations from tough loss to Chiefs
The New England Patriots had a 21-game home winning streak snapped against Patrick Mahomes II and the Kansas City Chiefs in a Week 14 showdown.
It is two straight consecutive losses now for the New England Patriots, who fell to the Kansas City Chiefs 23-16 in an AFC Championship game rematch at Gillette Stadium.
It started good for the Patriots who came out and scored on their opening drive and then intercepted Patrick Mahomes II with a chance to go up two scores early. As has been the case much of this season, the offense wasted an opportunity and the game turned with Tom Brady threw his own interception.
The Chiefs then went to score 23 unanswered points to go up in the game 23-7 early in the third quarter.
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The Patriots did show some fight by climbing back into the game with a chance to tie it in the last minutes of the game.
Overall, in this game it was the offense that let the team down again. The defense did give up 20 first-half points, but in holding Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs to just 3 points in that second half to give Tom Brady the chance to will the team back was a minor victory for the team.
It was a tough loss and a loss that now has the team a game behind the Baltimore Ravens for the No. 1 seed and just a game ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs for the No. 2 seed.
They are also just a game ahead of the Buffalo Bills for the AFC East title. Still a lot of work to do for the defending Super Bowl champions just to get a good seeding in the playoffs for a chance to defend their title.
It’s now on to Cincinnati and again, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick like the way his team competed in the loss:
"“Those guys went and battled for 60 minutes. It wasn’t always perfect, there were certainly things we could have done better, but we were competitive right down to the final play and that’ll serve us well going forward,” Belichick said following the game, via Patriots.com. “Obviously, we’ve got to do some things better than we did them tonight. It just wasn’t quite good enough under the circumstances in the game. There’s no point in talking about those, but hopefully we’ve got a lot of football left and see if we can get back on track next week, and that’s really all there is to it.”"