Cue the laugh track

By Michael Parente

The 2013 season is starting to look an old sitcom re-run for the New England Patriots, and that's not necessarily a good thing. 

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They may not be your grandfather’s Patriots from the era in which they were the laughing stock of the NFL playing in an antiquated stadium with faulty plumbing and awkward metal bleachers, but they might be your kid’s Patriots, assuming your kid is about to hit puberty.

The 2013 season is beginning to look a lot like every other season we’ve watched since 2009, which means the Patriots are a one-dimensional, pass-happy team with a porous defense good enough to slip past the NFL’s bottom-feeders, but not nearly strong enough to absorb getting punched in the mouth when the you-know-what hits the fan.

Rest assured, it’s about to hit the fan, if not now, then definitely a month from now when the postseason begins. We already know the Patriots are good enough to get through the regular season and win the AFC East, which is the equivalent of earning your GED, otherwise known as the “Good Enough Diploma,” or, in this case, “Good Enough to win this crappy Division.”

We saw another example of it Sunday when the Patriots erased a 10-point halftime deficit against the lowly Houston Texans and overcame two more lead changes in the second half to escape with a 34-31 win, courtesy of two 53-yard field goals in the fourth quarter by Stephen Gostkowski. The game was never in doubt. Admit it – not once did you get that, “Oh crap!” feeling at any point during the second half, even as the Texans continued to score at will.

The win was great because every win counts when you’re chasing home-field advantage in the playoffs, but it a.) didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know about this team or b.) provide some sort of assurance that everything will be okay against the Broncos, Chiefs and Bengals of the world once the playoffs begin. After watching another ghastly performance by the run defense for the second consecutive week, it’s going to be hard sleeping through those nightmares from 2009 when Baltimore’s Ray Rice burst through the middle on the first snap of New England’s playoff opener and raced 83 yards for a touchdown in an eventual 33-14 win for the Ravens.

The Patriots have won 10 or more games for 10 consecutive seasons, and they’ll make it 11 in a row with another win this year, but we know all too well that regular-season success in recent years has done little to prepare this team for the harsh realities of postseason football. It’s not as if it’s been a complete failure – the Patriots went to the Super Bowl two years ago and advanced to the conference championship game last year – but it’s easy to spot deficiencies that don’t translate to playoff success and this year’s team has a few of those noticeable blemishes.

The inability to stop the run is the biggest concern. Injuries have obviously played a factor with the Patriots losing Vince Wilfork, Jerod Mayo and Steven Gregory to season-ending injuries, which, in many ways, is the equivalent of losing your battery in baseball, but it’s not as if there’s help on the way or some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. The lineup on the field now is the same lineup that’ll be on the field when the playoffs start.

The holes on defense somewhat temper the excitement of the offensive resurgence we’ve seen in recent weeks. Rob Gronkowski is back in the lineup, which has made a tremendous impact. The Patriots scored 68 points in their last two games – or 143 in four weeks if you go back even further – but during that same stretch they allowed 31 apiece against Denver and Houston, the latter being even more disconcerting given the Texans’ struggles offensively. Against the Broncos, the Patriots allowed a whopping 224 yards to Knowshon Moreno. On Sunday, backup Ben Tate – now starting in place of the injured Arian Foster – scored three rushing touchdowns, which is almost unheard of considering the Texans had only rushed for two touchdowns all season entering this past weekend.

We know the Patriots can score in bunches. In the modern-day NFL that might be good enough to win if you’re the Packers or Saints. We assume the Patriots can win a title this way – or at least we’ve been saying that every year for the last five or six seasons – but they haven’t done it yet. Not even the 2007 team with all of its weapons and record-setting performances could withstand the swift kick to the groin delivered by the Giants in the Super Bowl – same for the slightly-modified 2011 version. The Ravens have out-muscled this team twice in the playoffs in the past four years. Even the Jets won a playoff game on Bill Belichick’s turf. In each of those years the Patriots were ranked among the top 10 teams in the league offensively. During that same stretch, they finished in the bottom third of the league in total defense three times. For reference, this year’s team currently ranks 20th defensively and seventh in total offense. Sound familiar?

Not all re-runs are must-see TV. No one sets their DVR for old episodes of Veronica’s Closet and you can be certain no one in New England wants to relive the agony from 2009, 2010 or every season after that, even if most of the ride was fun to watch. Unless something changes between now and January, this 2013 season will end like that “very special” episode of Growing Pains – the one where Carol Seaver’s boyfriend dies in a drunk-driving accident. These are definitely little Johnny’s Patriots and that’s not necessarily a re-run worth watching.