The New England Patriots are all out of excuses.
That’s the feeling after watching them get shut out at home by the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. And to think, the mighty Gillette Stadium was once considered one of the most difficult places to play at for opposing teams.
Buy Patriots TicketsNow, it’s like taking a trip to the carnival for underperforming teams to flex their muscles and boost their morale. The Patriots have gone from gatekeepers to doormats, and nothing appears to be changing anytime soon. So buckle up and settle in, Patriots fans.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride from here on out.
Two straight weeks of losing by a combined 72-3 scoring margin shockingly has me nostalgic about the 2022 Patriots. That’s how low the bar has fallen for a Patriots team that now sits dead last in the AFC East behind the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and New York Jets.
Yes, the 2022 Patriots were a bad football team as well, but they at least teased at the possibility of being decent. They were one game away from making the playoffs.
That isn’t the case in 2023.
The current iteration of Bill Belichick’s mess is on the path of being eliminated before the Week 11 bye week. Hope is a luxury the team doesn’t have right now, either.
Quarterback Mac Jones looks shaken and completed sapped of all confidence, which has him playing hot potato with the football. He has turned the ball over five times in two weeks with zero touchdowns, and three of those turnovers ended in defensive touchdowns.
The sky is no longer falling down around him. It has already fallen, and he’s sifting through the wreckage of the poor offensive unit built around him.
Make no mistake, Jones is a problem in New England—a big one. But he isn’t the only one. The offensive line has been a nightmare from the start. Forget about haunted houses. If you want a real Halloween scare, try playing under center in New England, where seeing ghosts is a weekly occurrence.
This is the new reality for Jones and the Patriots, and quite frankly, it’s nauseating.
The offensive talent clearly isn’t there with Belichick consistently mismanaging the roster. Imagine passing on paying for wide receivers DeAndre Hopkins and Jakobi Meyers to be stuck with DeVante Parker and JuJu Smith-Schuster.
What about taking kicker Chad Ryland in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL draft, even with all of the other needs on offense?
The Patriots could have taken a shot on another offensive lineman or potentially even went out and drafted Los Angeles Rams star rookie receiver Puka Nacua, who was still on the board when Ryland was selected.
This is rock bottom. Now what?
The Patriots defense has been hampered by injuries, but they’re still good enough to keep the team in games they have no business competing in.
As satisfying as it would be to watch them tank and draft Caleb Williams out of USC, that isn’t a likely scenario, either. They are still a good enough team to win too many games to qualify for that level of bad, but at the same time, they aren’t as far off as some might think, especially considering their ridiculous strength of schedule.
The first thing that needs to happen is Belichick admitting his wrongs and showing a willingness for a shift in philosophy. That could start with something as simple as going out and signing free agent offensive tackle La’el Collins or pulling off a big trade for a true No. 1 receiving target for his quarterback.
If Belichick isn’t willing to make the shift to prioritizing offense, then it’s time for owner Robert Kraft to either make the decision to anoint a new general manager, keep Belichick as head coach or part ways with him entirely.
The same old broken record of needing to execute better, doing your job and moving on to the next opponent isn’t going to cut it anymore. Belichick has suffered historically bad losses in back-to-back games. It’s time to look in the mirror and make a change, or get out of the way and let someone else take the reins.
Let’s hope Joe Judge was wrong when his new team hoodies coined the phrase, “No one is coming; it’s up to us.” That’s about as depressing of a spoiler as it gets for the 2023 Patriots.
