The New England Patriots' fourth consecutive defeat may have been their most frustrating yet.
Jerod Mayo's group was flagged a whopping 12 times in Sunday's loss to the Miami Dolphins after committing only 16 total penalties through the first four games of the season. Miami took advantage of New England's miscues, turning a seven-point deficit into a 15-10 victory.
The game came down to the final two minutes with the Patriots appearing to pull back ahead on a Jacoby Brissett touchdown pass to Ja'Lynn Polk. However, the TD was overturned as upon further review Polk's heel was out of bounds. You can watch the controversial play here.
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The Patriots came up just short on their final drive to fall to 1-4 on the season. Our Patriots insider Tom E. Curran shared his instant reaction to the "maddening" performance on Patriots Postgame Live.
"You do, to a degree, applaud the effort of a team that was down so many players. You applaud the effort of Jacoby Brissett, but you also lacerate them for the number of penalties, the number of dumb mistakes, the number of physical mistakes, from some of their better players," Curran said. "Whether it's Keion White with penalties, DeMario Douglas had a drop, Hunter Henry (had a penalty), Ja'Lynn Polk had a number of drops. And all of this is mitigated somewhat by the plays at the end that nearly extracted the win.
"This game is a little bit more maddening than Seattle to me, where they played really clean except for two mistakes. This was littered with mistakes and was very winnable, so this is one of those games where I look at it like, don't get used to losing. Don't be a loser team that beats itself with stupid 15-yard penalties that end up in field goal drives or stupid plays along the sideline or flipping out after a play goes against you and then not being ready for the next play."
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The Dolphins had 24 first downs to the Patriots' 15. They dominated the time of possession, keeping the ball for almost nine more minutes (34:20) than New England (25:40).
To former Pats linebacker Ted Johnson, the way in which New England lost to Miami speaks volumes about the state of the team.
"I just think this is a brutal loss," Johnson said. "If you're gonna lose, you can't lose like this. You can't lose looking like this. The Patriots' defense, it was a paper mache defense. They couldn't stop the pass last week, this week they couldn't stop the run. They got dominated in time of possession. Miami had almost 10 more first downs than the Patriots had.
"The thing is, the Patriots won the turnover battle and still lost this game. That shows you how bad the operation was for the New England Patriots. So I'm just kind of discouraged by the effort and the execution by this team today when you consider how bad Miami is. That kind of puts into perspective how the Patriots are."
Yet again, the Patriots couldn't get anything going on offense. Brissett finished 18 of 34 for 160 passing yards and no touchdowns. He didn't turn the ball over, but his inability to push the ball downfield remained a glaring issue.
New England will have to play a much cleaner game if it hopes to have any shot next Sunday against the 4-1 Houston Texans. Kickoff for the Week 6 matchup is set for 1 p.m. ET at Gillette Stadium.