NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Patriots have had some unusual losses during the Bill Belichick era, but not like Sunday’s, not with a team as talented as this, and certainly not at this point in the season.

What happened on Sunday, a 34-10 loss to Tennessee in Week 10 was odd by Patriots standards.

Teams led by Tom Brady and Belichick have often struggled in the first four weeks. That’s not unheard of.

There have been bad early-season losses, such as the 33-20 defeat at Miami in 2014 and the 41-14 blowout on Monday night football to Kansas City that same year, when the team looked lost.

This year, we saw poor efforts in early losses in Jacksonville and Detroit.

But a Week 10 loss in which the Patriots look completely incompetent on offense and defense? That doesn’t happen. Players inside the locker room at Nissan Stadium – the ones who actually talked after Sunday’s loss – weren’t sounding alarms but they agreed that improvements need to be made soon.

“We’ve still got ways to go – six games left. I wouldn’t say it’s in a panic mode,” Duron Harmon said. “You never want to play like this. All our losses have looked like this. Kind of one-sided. We just got to fix that because this is not the time to be losing games.”

Sure, the Patriots have lost games in the second half of a season and sometimes they leave you wondering why.

In Week 15 last year, the Patriots were upset at Miami, 27-20. Not many people expected that, but Miami has historically been a tough place to play for the Patriots. In 2016, New England looked out of sorts in its 31-24 Week 9 loss to Seattle, but the poor defensive performance came on the heels of the players’ being shocked that the Patriots had traded Jamie Collins to the Browns.

In 2015, problems arose in Week 17 when the Patriots lost 20-10 to Miami in a game in which they failed to get a running game going. In 2014, the Patriots’ only second-half loss came in Green Bay, where the Packers won 26-21 on Nov. 30. But no one was panicking.

Sunday’s 34-10 defeat was concerning on many levels. The Patriots offense, which hasn’t looked right all season, couldn’t get the running game going. Brady looked uncomfortable in the pocket and his decision-making was questionable. Perhaps the reason for this was the number of injuries on the offensive line – Shaq Mason did not play and Trent Brown left in the second half. Perhaps you can point to Rob Gronkowski’s absence.

But the truth is that the Patriots offense hasn’t put together a complete game this season. Brady admits as much every single week. In truth, Brady has looked different in 2018 than in 2017 when he was MVP. Is age a factor? Is this a sign of the offense’s losing too many players (Brandin Cooks, Danny Amendola and Dion Lewis) from last season’s team? Whatever the cause, it’s rare to see a performance like this so late in the season.

To find a second-half loss worse than Sunday’s game, you have to go back to 2000 when New England fell to Detroit, 34-9, in Week 13.

Other losses nearly as bad came in 2008, when the Patriots lost to Pittsburgh, 33-10, in Week 13 with Matt Cassel at quarterback, and in 2006, when the Brady-led Patriots fell 21-0 to the Dolphins in Week 14.

Can these Patriots turn things around?

“Anytime you lose like that, it’s always concerning, but we’ve got a resilient bunch of guys,” Julian Edelman said. “We’ve got to go back to work, take advantage of this (bye) week. That’s what we’ll do.”

You would think the problems this team faces – on offense and defense – are correctable. It’s what we’ve come to expect from Patriots teams. You expect them to turn it around because that’s what Brady and Belichick typically do. Of course, they don’t typically get blown out in Week 10.

There’s enough time to change course. Brady knows that. As do the players in that locker room, but improvements need to be made.

“Hopefully, there’s more urgency as we go forward,” Brady said. “Our whole season is ahead of us. We’ll see what we do with it.”

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