New England’s struggles

The drama has helped to overshadow the fact the Patriots continue to struggle. They’ve lost two in a row to sit at 10-3 and a sense of desperation seems to be settling into place. Three losses isn’t a big deal — but they’ve come against Baltimore, Kansas City and Houston, three AFC playoff heavyweights. We’ll see if the sense of desperation helps at all, but the Patriots haven’t scored more than 22 points in each of their three losses. Tom Brady has hardly completed 60 percent of his passes this season and hasn’t hit the 20-touchdown mark yet.