And that, as they say, is a wrap. Any confusion about the state of the Patriots' dynasty was officially put to rest Monday night in Kansas City as the Chiefs demolished a Pats team that was helpless to do anything about it.

When it was over, New England was on the wrong side of a humiliating 41-14 defeat and looked outmatched in every phase -- offense, defense and special teams. Most troubling, perhaps, is that Tom Brady, who has struggled this season, had one of his worst performances in recent memory; he finished 14 of 23 for 159 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions, including a pick-six.

Things were so out of hand that Brady was taken out in the fourth quarter and replaced by rookie Jimmy Garrapolo. Coach Bill Belichick needed only seven words to explain what the Patriots need to fix before their next game.

“We need to do everything better offensively,” he said. “We had like five first downs in the first half or something like that. We did a lot of things wrong and we turned the ball over in the second half. So pretty much, we need to do everything better.”

No one disputes that assessment; the Patriots were outclassed from start to finish, something we've rarely seen during the Belichick-Brady era. It doesn't help that the offensive line is in shambles and Brady, again, doesn't have an established wide receiver outside of the diminutive Julian Edelman. But no one's going to feel sorry for the Patriots, a team that regularly ran up the score on opponents during their heyday earlier this century.

In the meantime, Brady is focused on one thing: fixing this mess.

"It was a bad performance by everybody and just want to make sure we never have this feeling again," Brady said after the game, via ESPNBoston.com. "I think there's not much we are doing well enough on a consistent basis -- run game, pass game, consistently when we have to throw it, have to run it, convert on third down, red area. It's all a problem. ...

"There's going to be a lot of negativities," Brady continued. "Everyone is going to tell us how terrible we are. That's just the way it goes in the NFL. But we have a lot of character in our locker room.

"If there's one thing, I can assure you of that. There's not a guy in that locker room that's going to quit. We stick together. We work on the things that we need to work on. We all feel we have a good football team. We just didn't play like a good football team tonight. We will see what we are made of this week."