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FOXBORO - If this was the dress rehearsal, then you can rest assured that the play in question isn't "Cats."

These New England Patriots won't have a very long run in the race for Super Bowl XLIII if they continue to play the way the first-stringers did Friday night at Gillette Stadium against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Trailing 24-3 at halftime while the first-stringers were in the game, the Patriots eventually knocked a few points off the deficit during garbage time and ended up losing 27-17, falling to 0-3 in the preseason.

"I've been here two games and it hasn't been real good," said veteran safety John Lynch, who saw plenty of snaps in the first half. "We certainly have to improve, and that's the important thing. We've got about a week and a half or two weeks to do it."

Lynch, a veteran of 16 pro seasons, knows as well as anything that preseason results don't mean anything in the big picture. "I don't know if you put so much stock into results, but you put stock into how we're playing," he said. "I've been on teams that were 0-4 in preseason and started off 5-0. Conversely, I've been on teams that were 4-0 in preseason and you don't start off pretty well."

"We definitely need to tighten down on a lot of the issues we have out there right now, and they're basically fundamental things," cornerback Ellis Hobbs said. "It's not about the score. That's what the preseason is not about. It's about the effort, guys having the desire to basically make the team - everybody.

"No spots are written in stone, especially with the New England Patriots," he added. "When this preseason begins, all this time, everybody's written in pencil."

Preseason or not, the first half was an embarrassment for a team that considers itself a logical heir to a dynasty.

Donovan McNabb completed 13 of 17 passes for 180 yards and one touchdown, for a passer rating of 129.5. His only sack, a loss of 6 yards credited to Tedy Bruschi, was actually the result of a slip and a fall in his own backfield. Otherwise, the Eagles' veteran quarterback had no trouble whatsoever finding his receivers and completing passes ahead of Patriot defenders who looked a step slow and a dollar short in practically every aspect of their coverage.

What Patriots' fans should be most concerned about is the amount of time McNabb and his mates were able to keep the New England defense on the field, and the relative ease with which the Eagles were able to keep the stakes moving.

On top of that, the Patriots' special teams gave up a 101-yard kickoff return by Quintin Demps and a 76-yard punt return to DeSean Jackson, both in the last 1:35 of the first half, which is the sort of performance that can get a special-teams coach demoted to head ticket-taker at the Showcase Cinema de Lux.

Normally, it takes a little longer for the special teams to be prepared for the regular season because, with 80 players still in camp, the coverage units still have personnel filtering in and out of them until the roster is pared down. However, Patriots' coach Bill Belichick refused to make any excuses for what had to be the worst special-teams play anyone has seen from a Patriot team in quite some time.

"Basically, giving up 14 points on returns there in the first half put us pretty deep into a hole," he said. "We've still got a lot of work to do ... there are a lot of things we could have done better out there tonight. You work on (special teams) right along with everything else."

During the time the No. 1 units were in, about the only bright spot was Stephen Gostkowski's fifth field goal without a miss in the preseason. He connected on a 35-yarder with 1:52 left in the half, but within the blink of an eye, the Eagles added 14 more points on the far-too-easy returns. McNabb established the Eagles' dominance in the early minutes, completing a 12-yard pass to Jason Avant and a 19-yarder to Brian Westbrook to get into the Patriots' red zone. Westbrook also ripped off an 11-yard run against an easily scattered Patriots' run defense.

But the Patriots seemed to stiffen once the Eagles made it inside the 10. Rodney Harrison made two good stops and tipped away a possible TD pass to L.J. Smith, and Bruschi followed with a deflecting on a pass heading for Smith on a crossing pattern in the end zone. The Eagles had to settle for a 24-yard field goal by David Akers and a 3-0 lead with 8:17 left in the opening quarter.

That score held for the rest of the quarter, but McNabb was marching the Eagles downfield again at quarter's end. He topped an 11-play, 73-yard drive with a 7-yard touchdown pass to Avant, who escaped a hold by Antwain Spann and made the diving catch in the back of the end zone with 9:36 left in the half.

"I felt great," said McNabb, for good reason. "The thing about it is that we're progressing week in and week out. Coming out here, we were able to put some things together consistently. We sustained some drives and came out with points, which was big for us."

Matt Cassel again drew the start at quarterback for the Patriots with Tom Brady being hidden in bubble wrap to prevent further harm to his supposedly injured foot - and with Matt Light, Stephen Neal and several other offensive linemen still out of action.

Cassel was predictably nondescript in his performance, completing eight of 14 passes for 60 yards and running once for 22 yards, and engineering one scoring drive with considerable help from the Eagles - a 47-yard interference penalty by safety Sean Considine on a long bomb to Randy Moss, moving the Patriots to the Philadelphia 33 on the first play of the possession that started with 4:19 left in the half.

Cassel also threw for 20 yards to Dave Thomas, but when Moss was called for illegal motion on a third-and-5 pass from the Eagles' 12, that stalled the march and forced Gostkowski to tee it up and end the shutout.

The two returns that followed had a "parting of the Red Sea" quality about them, to the point where Belichick was seen vigorously chastising punter Chris Hanson for kicking the ball to Jackson, the speedy rookie from California.

As expected, when the junior varsity portion of the evening began in the second half, things perked up a little.

"I thought we played a little more competitively there in the second half," Belichick said. "Philadelphia is a good football team and it was good for us to get that exposure to another good football team."

Matt Gutierrez finished the job, completing 14 of 20 passes for 217 yards and two touchdowns, for a passer rating of 139.0. But his leading receivers were Ray Ventrone (4-49), the converted safety, and C.J. Jones (3-70), whose chances of making the team aren't particularly good, and some of his success might be more attributable to breakdowns by the Eagles' reserves, who posted about half of the team's 121 yards in penalties.

Kevin Kolb (9-14, 106 yards) engineered a 12-play, 90-yard scoring drive in the third quarter, ending in Akers' 24-yard field goal for a 27-3 lead with 4:09 left in the period. But Gutierrez posted 14 points in the fourth quarter, the first touchdown coming on a 1-yard jump-ball pass to a double-covered Chad Jackson in the right corner of the end zone with 13:49 left, and the second on a 99-yard march starting with 3:01 left.

BenJarvus Green-Ellis caught an 18-yarder, Jones a 37-yarder and Ventrone a 9-yarder before Gutierrez went over the middle to Jones from 9 yards out with 41 seconds left, providing a little consolation for the smattering of fans who had not retired to either Davio's or U.S. 1.

"We strung some plays together," the second-year signal-caller said, "but we still came up short. So it wasn't good enough."

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.