What's alarming about the Patriots' Halt?

It's time to reflect on a regular season winning streak that will go down as one of the most impressive feats in NFL history.

The last time the Patriots suffered a regular season loss was December 10, 2006 when they were shutout by the Miami Dolphins, 21-0.

In those 21 games that passed since then, they were simply amazing. They scored over 30 points in 15 of those 21 games. They won 14 of those 21 games by more than 10 points.

It would have been interesting to see how long the streak could have lasted had Tom Brady not been injured. The Patriots offense has scored only 49 points, which is 25th in the NFL. They scored only 13 points against the Dolphins. They had five touchdowns in their first five possessions against the Dolphins last year.

The troubling part of Sunday's loss was not the offense. They were bad, and deserve their share of blame for this loss.
The troubling part was their defense. They gave up 38 points in that defeat.

When you combine that with only 13 points scored it was the Patriots worst loss since they were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 41-10 on Nov. 8, 1998, at New England. The Atlanta Falcons went on to lose to John Elway's Broncos in the Super Bowl that season.

What I couldn't believe is that one formation could give the Patriots that much grief. I understand that Ronnie Brown under center in the shotgun is surprising, but it shouldn't result in four touchdown runs and a touchdown pass.

The last time the Patriots lost two games in a row was Week 9 and 10 of the 2006 season when they lost to playoff teams Indianapolis and the New York Jets. Next week they play the San Francisco 49ers in San Francisco.

Hopefully, Frank Gore doesn't line up in the shotgun; otherwise things might get pretty ugly.