They’d love to close the door on the opener.

But the New England Patriots won’t be able to, not until they — as countless players said — look at the film. The film of Sunday’s second half stinker of a 20-13 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.

While opposing coach and old friends Pete Carroll is pumped and jacked about his team’s performance, Mike Vrabel had to be disappointed about his. The Patriots were up 10-7 at the half, but could only manage a meaningless field goal with 19 seconds left in the game.

Vrabel called it when he said during the couple of weeks leading up to the game that the second half was where things would be won or lost. And the Patriots, especially their quarterback, did nothing in that stretch to give you hope. It didn’t happen.

“No it sure didn’t,” Vrabel said. “Again,it’s frustrating. We have to understand how sometimes these games are going to go. We just didnt do enough in the second half.”

Here’s how it went: Vegas QB Geno Smith was 24 of 34 for 362 yards,, one TD- INT and a QB rating of 102.8 but 13 of 15 in the second half for 222 yards. His Patriot counterpart. Drake Maye, was 30 of 46 for 287 yards and the same but a rating of 80.6. If the second year pro could have taken the second quarter and bottled it up perhaps things would be different. But its clear he’s not there yet, and neither are his receivers.

Smith had 11 completions of 19 yards or more. How? He had a Brock Bowers and Maye didn’t. Bowers had only five catches but for 103 yards, averaging 20.6 per catch. It still,though,boggles the mind how Smith has improved with great coaching once he left the inept clutches of both the Jets and the Giants.

Maye’s got great, or at the least very good coaching now. But, as he said, he’s got to be better than he was on Sunday.

“Part of being a quarterback in this league — you’ve got to step into the throw, make plays and be accurate,” he said.

Smith left the game’s first drive with a TD, Maye left it looking like a rookie,which he isn’t any more. Now it didnt stay that way, but you get the picture.

Vrabel knows the Patriots cant put everything on Maye’s shoulders.

“We’ve got to help him out,” he said, referring to getting a better run game. “We have to be more balanced. We have to use our run actions and be able to run the football (just 60 yards). It’s hard to turn it into a drop-back passing game in this league. Those are just the facts. When they’re up two scores and they’re in their third downs package, we just don’t ever want to live in that world.”

The Patriots’ world may improve next Sunday at Miami. First, the weather will be better — it rained all game– and second, the Dolphins are going to finish last in the AFC East. They made Colts QB Daniel Jones look like Peyton Manning yesterday,so expect Maye’s numbers to improve and the Patriots to have a tape they’ll enjoy watching.

Things certainly need to change at Gillette — winning a home opener for a change wouldve helped — and they likely will. One game,certainly the first one, does not define a season.

“We’ve got to embrace moving on,”Vrabel said. “I

think that’s what we’re going to try to do.”