FOXBOROUGH — The bar is always set high for the Patriots. They jumped into the 2017 season and landed with a thud in Thursday night’s season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs, a Foxborough Flop. They didn’t look like defending Super Bowl champions or themselves in a stunning 42-27 defeat.
Who were those imposters in Patriots uniforms at Gillette Stadium? They resembled the football version of the seat fillers they employ at the Oscars, instead of the team we’ve come to assume will outplay, outwit, and unnerve the opposition. Give Andy Reid and the Chiefs credit. They out-Patrioted the Patriots and turned a celebratory evening into a humbling Super Bowl hangover. Fans should have used those mocking towels that depicted commissioner Roger Goodell as a clown to cover their eyes, as the Patriots lost at home when leading at halftime for the first time since Dec. 24, 2000.
The bad news is that the Patriots won’t get a do-over on the first game of the season. The good news is that Patriots coach Bill Belichick is the best football team repairman around. He’ll fix the parts and plans that failed for the Patriots in this game, and they’ll be on to . . . the rest of the season. Belichick has to do his (patch) job.
But we now understand that the 2017 Patriots aren’t a new and improved version of the 2016 club, despite their offseason acquisition offensive. They should have a “pardon our appearance’’ sign up for the first few weeks of the season as Belichick tinkers with the team and tries to minimize some very real roster holes created by injuries and a paucity of personnel at important positions (wide receiver, linebacker, and pass rusher).
Lost in the Goodell visits the lion’s den bloodlust was the reality that the farther away we’ve gotten from an active offseason and the closer we’ve gotten to real games the 2017 Patriots have looked less formidable and foolproof by the week. They’ve looked more imperfect and incomplete.
Offseason moves such as trading for defense end Kony Ealy fizzled. New England neophytes such as Dwayne Allen are still finding their footing in Foxborough. Injuries — particularly the loss of Tom Brady’s football soulmate, Julian Edelman, for the season — have stripped some of the finish off their roster.
The loss to Kansas City represented a worst-case scenario for the Patriots. Their issues on both sides of the ball were laid bare for the league to see. An attitude adjustment and some schematic and personnel adjustments are required after Week 1’s debacle.
“What’s going to define this team is how we react to this loss,’’ said Patriots left tackle Nate Solder. “We all know that’s not how we want to play. We’ve got to improve, and it’s all up to us.’’
With plenty of time to prepare for New Orleans on Sept. 17, Belichick and his erudite coaching staff need to go back to the basics.
Creative wrinkles such as playing Jordan Richards as a linebacker need to shelved. Assuming the knee sprain Dont’a Hightower suffered in the opener allows him to play in Week 2, Hightower should return to primarily playing middle linebacker. He should assume the defensive play-calling duties from Kyle Van Noy, who is in his first full season as a Patriot.
The offense is going to have to be simplified and adapted with Edelman absent, fellow wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell on injured reserve, and Danny Amendola dealing with a head injury that knocked him out of the opener. In the fourth quarter, the Patriots’ three-wide-receiver formations featured two players in their first games as Patriots, Brandin Cooks and Phillip Dorsett. The latter had been a Patriot for all of five days. He doesn’t even know all his teammates’ names, never mind the entire playbook.
Brady and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels are going to have to pare down the team’s “War and Peace’’-sized playbook.
Brady and the Patriots’ passing attack struggled to establish consistency against the Chiefs. They were 1 of 8 on third down and gained only 149 yards in the second half. No. 12 finished 16 of 36 for 267 yards and no touchdowns. You have to go back to the 2011 season’s AFC Championship game against the Baltimore Ravens to find the last time Brady threw that many passes in a home game without a touchdown pass.
The Patriots love to play running back roulette, but it wouldn’t hurt to go with a familiar hand in Dion Lewis until everyone settles in and settles down.
The biggest question for the Patriots in 2017 was the defense. It still is. It’s not a good sign when you’re pining for the return of injured linebacker Shea McClellin, who was basically benched in Super Bowl LI.
It was a sign of the Patriots’ predicament at that position and defensive uncertainty that Richards was their answer to match KC’s speed. No matter how good a team is, its fourth safety is not worthy of playing 42 of 69 snaps.
“We did what we thought was best for the game,’’ said Belichick. “Obviously, things didn’t work out good. They gave us a lot of receivers on the field, different combinations of them, so we played more defensive backs or those type of players.
“That’s part of the matchup. But we didn’t do nearly as good a job of it as we need to do. We’ve just got to do a better job. It’s no one guy, it’s no one play, it’s no one thing.’’
It’s not just one thing when your defense surrenders the most points (42) and yards (537) ever allowed by a Belichick Patriots team. The exigent fix for Belichick is to restore the first tenet of his defensive dogma. Thou shall not surrender big plays. Plays such as the 75-yard touchdown pass to speedster Tyreek Hill, the 78-yard touchdown pass to Kareem Hunt, and Hunt’s 58-yard run on a sweep are anathema.
“We play tough, smart football, and we didn’t do any of that,’’ said safety Duron Harmon.
Belichick will mold them back to that. He’ll get the most out of this team.
But we were fooled by the Patriots being Super Bowl champions and then offseason champions. We believed the hype and the NFL Films Hoodie hagiopics.
The 2017 Patriots are a work in progress.
Christopher L. Gasper can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.
