A look at Sunday's biggest storylines.
FOXBOROUGH -- Stephen Gostkowski didn't sit at his locker, moping, with a towel over his head or his hands buried in his face.
By the time the Patriots locker room opened to media following Sunday's 20-18 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, Gostkowski was standing tall at his locker, the stink of his missed last-second field goal washed away in the shower, ready to take responsibility for his shortcoming.
"I'm not scared to fail. It stinks when you do, but I wouldn't go out there every day if I was scared to screw up," Gostkowski said. "I'll feel bad about this for a few days, and I'm sure I'll get ripped for it by the fans. It's well deserved."
Gostkowski shouldn't have anything to feel bad about. In a game where the offense failed to build any momentum until it was too late, he hit four field goals and put the team in a position to compete at the end.
Because of that, his teammates patted him on the back instead of casting scorn his direction and were willing to stand up for him and accept responsibility for the loss.
"We didn't play very good," guard Logan Mankins said. "Not scoring a touchdown until the fourth quarter, kicking field goals, penalties, pressures, negative runs -- the offense, we didn't bring our best game and it really showed."
We'll never know if it would have made a difference, but the offense never had a chance to get into sync after tight end Aaron Hernandez suffered an ankle injury during the second series of the game.After he went down, the offense had no identity and ran around lost like Matt Damon in the Bourne movies, minus the direction and an a executable plan.
It was somewhat stunning to see one man have such an impact on how the offense runs -- outside of Tom Brady, of course -- but it wasn't completely unexpected.
The offense, in a lot of ways, is centered on Hernandez's position flexibility. They can go into multiple looks in no-huddle sets and create mismatches by splitting him out wide or moving him in against a linebacker.
Once that was taken away, the Patriots were forced to go vanilla.
"Yeah, absolutely (the game plan changed)," wide receiver Wes Welker said. "Aaron is in there almost every play, so it changes quite a bit."
In the past, the Patriots have been able to operate without Hernandez, but they had time to find ways to fill his various roles in those instances. That task is a lot harder when it's happening on the fly.
In an unexpected twist, Welker may be the man taxed with filling some of the void since it appears that Julian Edelman has jumped over him on the depth chart.
Last week we considered it an aberration when Welker played 43 snaps against Tennessee, but there's no denying that Edelman was the top choice to play opposite Brandon Lloyd in two-receiver sets Sunday. He finished (unofficially) with 75 snaps to Welker's 63.
Those figures could have been even more lopsided if not for Hernandez's injury.
There's an outside chance that could change, though. Once re-established as a viable option, Welker caught five passes for 95 yards while Edelman checked in five for 50.
Maybe Welker is battling an unknown injury or something else that we are yet to find out. But even if he is, he proved that he's still the top slot receiver on the roster.
Why the Patriots choose to drive a Honda when they have an Acura sitting beside it baffles the mind.
They have to come to their senses eventually, right?