IF YOU WANT to feel old, the last time the New England Patriots lost back-to-back games by double digits was in December 2002.

At that time of high culture, Tom Brady — the director, not the quarterback — was inflicting The Hot Chick with Rob Schneider upon cinema goers while Eminem was top of the charts with Lose Yourself.

Interestingly, the lyrics “his palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy” could perfectly describe the average Patriots fan following Sunday’s abject 26-10 loss to the Lions.

New England’s one touchdown in that game came off great field position following a turnover, while 52 of their measly 209 total yards of offence were the result of a garbage-time drive.

It was easily the worst performance we’ve seen from Tom Brady — the quarterback, not the director — in a couple of seasons.

Indeed, according to ESPN, it was just the third time in his 17-year career that Brady was held without a first down on any of his team’s first three drives, so we’re talking about a historically bad day at the office for the five-time Super Bowl winner.

On defence, I guess Patriots fans can technically still blame ex-defensive coordinator and current Detroit head coach Matt Patricia for their team becoming the first in five seasons to allow a Lions running back rush for over 100 yards.

But some New England fans don’t seem too worried. Like the weather getting better because high pressure fronts happen to know the kids have gone back to school, they’ll tell you September always brings about questions over whether or not the Patriots are good anymore.

For example, a lot of fans pointed to the fact their team had a record of 2-2 or worse in three of their five Super Bowl-winning seasons when they got off to a historically bad defensive start to the 2017 season.

And, to be fair, they were a Philly Special away from making that four in six.

But the fact is that New England’s so-called slow starts have as much in common with reality as the real-time information at a Dublin Bus stop. Indeed, it’s quite the opposite, as they have 11 starts of 3-1 or better since the beginning of the aforementioned 2002 season.

Paul Sancya Paul Sancya

Only Denver, with the benefit of Mile High and their opponents’ lack of conditioning in the early season, have a better record with 12.

Even without Brady the Patriots tend to be hot starters, going 3-1 with Matt Cassel in 2008, while a combination of Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett managed the same record during their last Super Bowl-winning season in 2016.

Of course, there’s every possibility this column comes back to bite me in the arse if the Patriots go on to actually win the Super Bowl this year, but there are too many warning signs to mark this down as something we’ve seen before.

For example, the last time New England started a season 1-2 — 2012 — they lost those two games by a combined three points. This year has seen them lose their last two fixtures by a combined 27.

While a loss against the devastating Jacksonville defence is no shame, their own defence made Blake Bortles — 29 of 45 for 376 yards and four touchdowns — look like Dan Marino. Bortles followed that up by throwing for just 155 yards and no scores in Sunday’s 9-6 defeat to the Titans.

In week three, New England were beaten by the Lions who, of course, were blown out by the Jets in week one. The Jets went on to lose to the Browns last Thursday meaning that Cleveland — because of its tie with Pittsburgh — sits at 1-1-1 and so has a better record than New England.

As a serendipitous aside, 2002 was the last season the Browns made the postseason.

Less easy to quantify but no less obvious is the fact that, Rob Gronkowski aside, the Patriots have no discernible playmakers to help Brady. With Josh Gordon not ready yet and Julian Edelman seeing out his four-game PED suspension, Brady was passing to the likes of Phillip Dorsett and Cordarrelle Patterson on Sunday night.

That’s a long way from Wes Welker and Randy Moss.

Finally, much was made of the fact New England only forced the Eagles to punt once in their Super Bowl loss last February. Despite an entire offseason to get that side of the ball fixed, the Patriots have forced just five punts in their past two games.

Sure, the offence might not be great, but New England certainly can’t win if they can’t get Brady on the field.

Can the Patriots turn it around? Of course they can. I mean, in an NFL world where the Kansas City Chiefs can remain undefeated despite having a defence giving up more than 30 points per game, anything is possible.

But don’t kid yourself if you’re a New England fan that you’ve been through this before. The start of the 2018 Patriots’ season is different to anything we’ve seen in a long time.

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