Well, hopefully you're right and I'm wrong. I don't think there's a consensus on what actually causes home field advantage generally, so it's difficult to pinpoint ways that this particular Patriots team might be especially disadvantaged by playing on the road (or maybe it's advantaged by playing at home, or maybe both). That doesn't mean they aren't though, and there are certainly plenty of changes from 2017 to 2018 that could cause the interaction of road-suckitude factors to be different with this Pats team than in years past. There are a lot of unknowns here.That's definitely true but that affects every road team in the NFL, including the Patriots' road teams in 2016-17 when they went 15-1.
If the claim is that the 2018 Patriots are particularly bad on the road in a way that is predictive for this game - such that the standard 3 points or so that Vegas assigns to HFA doesn't capture the full extent of their disadvantage - then logically the theory must revolve around some factor that is particular to the 2018 Patriots, not just to football teams on the road in general and not to the 2016-17 Patriots either.
I don't think we'll resolve this, but "shit happens/bad luck/who-the-fuck-knows-but-don't-lose-sleep-over-it" still seems a lot more compelling to me.
What I will say is I don't see a pattern of stuff that I easily explain away with "stuff happens": turnovers, ST meltdowns, fluky big plays (other than the one against Miami), close losses, tough slate of opponents. I see blowout losses to bad teams, random big plays actually working in NE's favor (their three longest TDs of the year were all in road games), a positive turnover differential, etc.
Also, while you're right to note that this road ineptitude would be a change from 2016/2017, I would argue that clearly something did change from 2016/2017. Even if it's not road woes, they lost two games by multiple scores in those two seasons (and one of those was the "Jacoby Brissett with a broken thumb" game), and three this year. Those kind of non-competitive performances are uncharacteristic; they've lost to bad teams in the past, but it's usually been more the kinds of reasons good teams lose to bad teams: turnovers, ST hiccups, injuries, etc. If you want to say it's just variance and the home / road split is coincidence, the wild inconsistency in defensive and offensive performance is uncharacteristic, especially when you consider how poorly they played on a snap-to-snap basis against teams that aren't very good.
I agree there's more reason to be optimistic about the road offense than the road defense. You can kind of explain away the Jax and Detroit's offensive ineptitude with no Edelman, Gordon and Michel not factors yet, etc. Even the Pittsburgh wasn't the same kind of totally futile performance they had at Detroit or Tennessee; they moved the ball against the Steelers, they just fizzled out and shot themselves in the foot with penalties.Its like a self fulfilling prophecy. Maybe Matty P, or not have Jules for 2 of those losses would have also happened had they played at home.
Also If I was going to bet on a portion of this team improving as the season went on and proving out to be dependable it would be the Offense.
Is it really fair to say we couldnt score on the road when in Miami we scored 33 and Chicago 38 (granted with some special teams help).
I don't know why you're giving the defense a pass on the Jacksonville, Detroit, or Tennessee games. The Jaguars, who finished the year with the league's 31st-ranked scoring offense, put up 24 points in their first five drives. The Lions, who had the 25th-ranked scoring offense, put up 13 on their first 3 drives and had their first 100-yard rusher in ages. The Titans, who had the 27th-ranked scoring offense, put up 17 in their first three drives en route to their season-high in points. Three terrible offenses, three even worse defensive performances. That the offense also played terrible in these three games (and thus they weren't "shootouts") does not mean the defense played well. Then you've also got 31 points to the Bears (who had a decent O) and 34 to the Dolphins (who were the 26th-scoring O).So scoring only 10 pts in 3 of the 5 losses could almost be looked at as aberrations whether home or road.
Had those losses been "on the defense" (Lets say 38-30 losses or 41-34 etc etc) then that would make me worry more that we would lose even if its a shootout with KC.