Six games into the 2005 season, the New England Patriots are a .500 team.
Against the Broncos on Sunday, they were half Duane Starks, half Tom Brady.
It’s probably too early in the season for panic in the streets of Boston, but the three-time Super Bowl champions suffered their third loss of the season Sunday at Invesco Field at Mile High, mostly because Brady was unable to undo in the second half what Starks did in the first.
Filling in at right cornerback in the injury-riddled secondary, Starks was beaten on two deep passes by two Broncos receivers, Rod Smith (72 yards) and Ashley Lelie (55 yards), and lost Smith on a 6-yard fade route to the right corner of the end zone as the Broncos racked up 21 rapid-fire points in the second quarter.
Down 21-3, Brady was left with a second-half task too demanding, even for a quarterback who has 19 fourth-quarter comebacks in his six-year career.
“We didn’t play good enough in the first half and we got down too far to come back,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said.
Starks, acquired from Baltimore in a draft-day trade in the hope of shoring up the Pats’ secondary, probably didn’t deserve all the blame, but he was willing to take a good share of it.
“I never felt so good and played so bad,” Starks said. “I wouldn’t say I was off my game; they just made great plays at the right time. No blown plays, they just made the plays.
“I don’t feel like my whole game was bad. I think those plays that I gave up, those two deep balls – they weren’t touchdowns, but at the same time, they were big plays and the momentum switched. My body felt good, everything felt good. They just made plays.”
After the Broncos took a 28-3 lead on their first possession of the second half, New England’s defense tightened up. Brady got the Pats within striking distance, leading them to 17 unanswered points. But with Denver’s game-long pass rush in his face and a couple of untimely drops by his receivers, he just couldn’t make that last strike.
“We executed so much better in the second half,” said Brady. “We threw the ball better, we caught the ball better, we ran the ball better. We had a chance to make some plays. We had the ball with three minutes left and just didn’t do it.
“We just didn’t make enough plays early in the game, and when you’re down 28-3 to a good team … we shouldn’t have been in that position.”
Joseph Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-5458 or jsanchez@denverpost.com.
