Missing out

Patriots acknowledge missed opportunities

Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier probably didn’t know jack about football, but when he wrote, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been,” he could have been referring to the 2008 Patriots.

It’s been a phrase that’s told the tale of Bill Belichick and his team: in their last three games, the Patriots have two losses by a combined six points, a 34-31 overtime defeat to the Jets last Thursday and an 18-15 loss to the Colts earlier this month. Unlike their two previous defeats — blowouts at the hands of the Dolphins and Chargers — these were narrow losses that were caused by late breakdowns in coaching as well as execution.

“[When] you go through a game like that, you look back at 20, 25, 30 plays, I don’t know. Any one of them could have made a little bit of a difference or maybe a big difference,” Belichick said Friday in the wake of the Jets’ loss. “I think everybody feels probably about the same way this morning as they did last night, that ‘If I could have just done one thing differently or done one thing better or not done one thing.’”

New England has always taken pride in being the team that, when the game is on the line, seizes control and plays flawlessly in the clutch while the other team makes the fatal mistake. That’s why veteran defensive lineman Richard Seymour appeared vexed when asked to explain why the Patriots have struggled down the stretch in their last two losses.

“Obviously, over the past several years — other than the Super Bowl — we usually win those type of games,” Seymour said after the loss to the Jets.

That’s why the series of “What ifs?” that have haunted New England over the last month are so startling: What if Belichick doesn’t call time out just before his team goes for it on fourth down against the Colts? What if Jabar Gaffney catches that touchdown? And what if Dave Thomas doesn’t draw an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty? In the wake of the Jets loss, there were more questions: What if Ben Watson doesn’t fumble? What if Matt Cassel finds a wide-open Randy Moss in the end zone? And what if Brandon Meriweather brings down Dustin Keller before the first down marker?

“We still missed some opportunities,” Belichick said of the Thursday night defeat. “There were still some things that we would have liked to have done out there that we didn’t do. … I just wish we had a little more to show for it, that’s all.”

Those late breakdowns could mark a two-game swing for New England. If the Patriots committed half as many errors in their losses to New York and Indianapolis, they’d be looking at an 8-2 record and first place in the AFC East. Instead, they’re 6-4, and locked in a struggle for their playoff survival with the Ravens, Colts, Broncos and Dolphins, who will host New England Sunday afternoon.

“We just have to get over that and put this game behind us and move on and start getting ready for Miami,” Belichick said. “We’ve lost two real competitive games here in the last three weeks. We just need to do a little bit more to put those on our side of the ledger.”