By: SportsDirect

AP PHOTO
Patriots wide receiver Tiquan Underwood speaks to reporters at the team’s facility in Foxboro Wednesday.

FOXBORO — The wins keep coming for the New England Patriots. Yet each one seems to spark doubts about whether they’re as good as their 11-3 record suggests.

There is concern, from former Patriots Tedy Bruschi and Rodney Harrison to some of their current players to nervous fans who have watched opponents shred their defense.

How can a team that’s on track to allow the second-most yards in NFL history have a six-game winning streak and the best record in the AFC? Is it superior coaching, a star quarterback, or just a remarkable run of good fortune?

“Maybe one or two games we can say, ‘Man, that was a pretty good game,’ ” wide receiver Deion Branch said. “The rest of them you can just pinpoint a lot of mistakes. But we were lucky enough to come out with a victory.”

Last Sunday, the Patriots beat the Denver Broncos 41-23 but allowed 252 yards rushing, 167 in the first quarter alone. One week earlier, they beat the Washington Redskins, 34-27, a victory secured only by Jerod Mayo’s interception at the Patriots 5-yard line with 20 seconds left.

And the week before, they watched a 31-3 lead shrink in the last 11 minutes before they held on to beat the then-winless Indianapolis Colts 31-24.

The Patriots figure to win their remaining regular-season games against the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills, both currently 5-9. If they do, they’ll have home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs.

But then what? The Patriots lost their opening

playoff game in each of the last two years, games in which their best antidote to poor defense, Tom Brady, struggled.

“This Patriot team is a proven regular-season team, but they have a lot to prove in the playoffs, where they have failed miserably the last two years,” Bruschi, a linebacker on the Patriots’ three Super Bowl championship teams, said Monday during an online chat on ESPNBoston.com. “All teams that make the playoffs should be feared by the Patriots, because what I fear the most for the Patriots is them playing the way they’ve played the last two years in the postseason. So it’s not about who they play, it’s about them showing up.”

Right now, it’s about ignoring the critics and just working to get better.

“I don’t really care what everyone else says,” linebacker Rob Ninkovich said. “I’m just trying to focus on each week and playing good football. We have a good record, yes, but we have to continue to play hard until the season (ends) and when the playoffs start we need to continue to improve. So I really don’t listen to anything out there, just shut it all out.”

To be fair, the starting defense has been battered by injuries. Safety Patrick Chung and linebacker Brandon Spikes missed the last six games. Cornerback Devin McCourty sat out two. Safety James Ihedigbo has missed parts of several games. And now Andre Carter, New England’s best pass rusher with a team-high 10 sacks, is out for the season after hurting his left quadriceps against the Broncos.

While they’ve allowed the most yards in the NFL, only 13 teams have given up fewer points. They’ve let teams score from inside the 20-yard line just 80 percent of the time, seventh in the league. They lead the AFC with a plus-12 turnover differential. And of their three losses, one came on a last-play field goal, another on a touchdown with 15 seconds left and a third by eight points.

“Our team has played well enough to win 11 games, so that’s good,” coach Bill Belichick said. “We still feel like our best football is in front of us and we keep working hard to try to perform at that level.”

But so far the Patriots have allowed 76 plays of at least 20 yards, more than five per game and 20 more than the single-season franchise high. Overall, they’ve given up an average of 414.4 yards. At that rate, they’d finish with 6,630 total yards, second in NFL history to the Baltimore Colts, who gave up 6,793 yards in 1981 when they went 2-14.

Because of injury or inconsistency, the Patriots have used 16 players in the secondary, including wide receivers Matthew Slater and Julian Edelman. On Wednesday they added a new one, signing seven-year veteran safety Vincent Fuller, who already had been cut this season by Tennessee and Detroit.

“They’ve had a lot of injuries, but (Belichick’s) moved guys around and they’re filling in and getting the job done,” said Redskins receiver Jabar Gaffney, a member of the Patriots team that went 18-0 in the 2007 season before losing the Super Bowl to the New York Giants. “It may not look as pretty, but they still find a way to win.”

It looked downright ugly to Harrison, a hard-hitting safety on the Patriots’ last two championship teams in the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

“They should be concerned because that secondary is probably the worst secondary I’ve seen in the last decade,” Harrison, an analyst on NBC’s “Football Night in America,” said after the Redskins completed passes of 51 and 49 yards against it two weeks ago. “It’s been proven the last two years in the playoffs. If Brady’s off just a little bit, they’re vulnerable to lose.”

But the Patriots try to block out the doubters. No one has to tell them what their weaknesses are.

“You listen to other people if you want to, but (we) know what’s going on inside,” said running back Kevin Faulk, a Patriot since 1999. “There’s always room for improvement and if you are to reach what you want to reach, you always want to improve your team, no matter what it is, in every aspect of it.”

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AP Sports Writer Joseph White in Washington, D.C., and freelancer Matthew Carroll in Foxborough contributed to this story.

The Philadelphia Eagles aren’t being given much of a chance against the New England Patriots on Nov. 27. Eagles fans like myself might have felt better if the Patriots visited two weeks ago, when they were struggling and looked to be in danger. But after two straight dominating wins and with an easy schedule coming up, New England is being touted as the class of the AFC again.

The Patriots could easily go 13-3, win the division and the AFC top seed and become favorites for a fourth Super Bowl all over again. However, Philadelphia knows full well how high expectations and false hope can crumble fast, and it is starting to look familiar in New England as well.

Despite having the dynasty of the previous decade, the Patriots have started this one with two straight home playoff losses and have lost their invincible image. Just two weeks ago, there were worries that Tom Brady(notes) was no longer enough to win another ring after tough losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants. All it took was two blowout victories over the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs to change all that.

Now everything seems to be opening up for the Patriots to make another Super Bowl run, as they face no more winning teams and are pulling away fast in the AFC East. Given that New England’s visit to Philadelphia looks a lot easier than it did two months ago, signs point to an easy Patriots victory and an easy path to the playoffs. But all signs pointed to a Super Bowl last season before the Jets knocked them out in Foxboro.

The Patriots’ issues did not magically go away in the last few weeks, as the defense got lucky to face struggling offenses like the Jets and Chiefs. It could benefit from facing a less than healthy Philadelphia offense if Michael Vick(notes) and Jeremy Maclin(notes) don’t return – and the Patriots know that no deficit is too large with the Eagles and Brady involved.

When New England has to face tougher teams like Pittsburgh and the Baltimore Ravens to win the AFC, how will it turn out? That used to be a simple answer when the Patriots ran up historic winning streaks, yet it isn’t such a guarantee now. As such, the simple schedule of the second half might be a curse in disguise, since it won’t reveal anything real about the Patriots until January.

They can’t prove themselves by beating inferior opponents like they are supposed to, but they can devalue themselves by losing to some of those inferior opponents. The Eagles weren’t supposed to look inferior, yet they are in many ways – so the Patriots may not get brought down to earth this week.

But even if a fall isn’t due yet, the threat of one is still there for New England even if it runs the table until January. Yet it would be nice and more revealing if the Eagles speed it along in late November.

Robert Dougherty is a life-long Philadelphia resident who has followed the Eagles since he was eight years old.

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Last season the New England Patriots defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in a game that ended with a score of 39-26 but didn’t seem like it was even that close. The Steelers were down 23-3 at the end of the third quarter and the Steelers only scored 23 points in the 4^th quarter because Ben Roethlisberger(notes) started chucking the ball down the field. The Steelers have looked mediocre at times this season but there are three reasons that this year’s Patriots game could have a different result.

The first reason the Steelers could beat the Patriots is because New England’s defense has been lousy. The New England passing defense is 31^st in the league. The Steelers have sputtered at times this year but the majority of the struggles have been in the running game. Roethlisberger has actually led the Steelers to 5^th in offensive passing behind only teams led by Drew Breese, Aaron Rodgers(notes), Tom Brady(notes) and Cam Newton(notes). Out of those four quarterbacks only Rodgers has thrown less interceptions than Roethlisberger. Last season Roethlisberger threw a season high of 386 yards against the Patriots. This year the Patriots pass defense is worse and the Steelers pass offense is better.

The second reason for Steelers fans to have hope against the Patriots is the complete opposite of the first reason, Pittsburgh’s pass defense vs. New England’s pass offense. Obviously the Patriots’ pass offense is still great-third in the league to be exact-but Brady has come down from his 517 yard game and his 423 yard game. Brady is now back to averaging around 300 yards. Here’s something that may have gone unnoticed during the Steelers so-so seven weeks though. The pass defense is pretty good.

For the past several seasons the Steelers have possessed a dominant rush defense but had a horrible pass defense. Look no further than the playoffs last season. The Steelers beat Baltimore and New York-teams that rely on defense and running the ball-but lose to the passing attack of Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. Last season the Steelers pass defense finished middle of the road at 12^th in the league. This season the Pittsburgh pass defense is 5^th in the league in total yards and tied for first in yards per game. Is the Steelers defense going to shutdown Tom Brady? Of course not, but it’s just one more area where Pittsburgh has closed the gap from last year’s match up.

The Steelers will also be playing at home in front of a rowdy Pittsburgh crowd and their terrible towels. I realize that the Patriots defeated Pittsburgh at home last season but the Steelers have only lost once at home since then. Granted this year’s home opponents are not an impressive bunch-Seattle, Tennessee and Jacksonville-but last season’s home wins include victories over Baltimore and New York, probably the only two AFC teams on the level of these two teams.

The Patriots game will be very important to Pittsburgh. The Steelers received a gift on Monday night when the Ravens fell to the Jaguars. Pittsburgh and Baltimore now have the same record-but the Ravens still have the tiebreaker-so it is important for the Steelers to not go out and lose immediately after receiving this gift. Also, next week the Ravens and Steelers clash again. If the Steelers win this week they have a great opportunity to take control of the AFC North and the overall AFC.

Sources:

Pittsburgh Steelers 2011 schedule and 2010 results were found at Yahoo! Sports

The last several generations of Lee Andrew Henderson’s family were Pittsburgh born and even though he was born in Alabama he has been a long time fan of the Pirates, Steelers and Panthers. Lee Andrew Henderson can be found on Twitter @LeeAHenderson

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