Patriots Talk: We’re On To Cincinnati

Bad Night = Bad Calls

The Patriots had their 21 consecutive home-game winning streak broken last night in their loss against the Kansas City Chiefs 23-16. But people aren’t just blaming the Patriots offense for failing to capitalize on turnovers, or being able to maintain drives or even doing proper pass protection. No, everybody is talking about a constant issue that has been a part of the NFL: The referees.

Specifically, it was on the ref crew led by Jerome Boger, who was the head ref for the game. He ultimately was the person who needed to have his crew be held accountable for the blown call on N’Keal Harry’ s TD being ruled short of the goal line. Regardless if the view was obstructed, we live in the digital age. We have cameras that are able to catch everything on the field. Yet this continues to be an on-going issue without a proper solution in place.

To summarize the conscious from NFL fans and Pats nation: The NFL review system needs to change. Actually scratch that, it needs to be scrapped and replaced because it’s obvious just adding more rules is not the solution any longer. It seems like fans who want to enjoy football can’t do so without a potential call changing the entire game. Even the players are clearly getting sick of losing because of bad calls.

Everybody Wants Answers

The night was just all around bad for fans and the Pats. But the players have to remain calm even in times like this. Even when clearly they played their hearts out, bad calls can and will happen. But this was so bad even special teams captain Matthew Slater had a hard time controlling himself and requested to not be asked on the officiating as he didn’t want to get fined by the NFL. That is when you know it’s bad.

As of now, the Patriots are now 10-3, still in the running for 2nd seed in the AFC Conference. But with Buffalo losing to Baltimore, this means the Ravens could potentially lock down the 1st seed with only 3 weeks left of the regular season. Given the current schedule the main obstacle will be the Buffalo Bills, who are only trailing by loss with the Patriots and are in the wildcard as of now.

It will be tough but the Pats as they are now, aren’t winning a Super Bowl. Especially if they have to travel through Baltimore, with a team that has their hot shot QB Lamar Jackson with the #1 offense in the league and in the running for the NFL MVP…is what I should be saying. But this already happened last year when the Patriots traveled to Kansas City and beat the Chiefs. Different team, same situation. No excuses for next Sunday. We’re on to Cincinnati.