This really has just been a disaster of a season. The Patriots just got dunked on by the Buffalo Bills after going 29-3 against them between 2001-2019 with Tom Brady under center. It was a blowout, it was a changing of the guard, but to say it was embarrassing would imply that the end result was surprising. It was not. In the infamous words of Trent Dilfer, the Patriots aren’t good anymore. It’s the first time the Patriots have been swept in a season by a divisional opponent in 20 years, they are dead last in the NFL in passing TDs with 8 (one of which came from WR Jakobi Meyers), and the team is uncharacteristically undisciplined, which was only exacerbated by that head scratching challenge flag Belichick threw on what was clearly a catch directlyin front of him and his son.
Someone clearly told Bill to throw the red flag though so Ernie must be going blind up in that fucking lighthouse.
There is a lot of grave dancing, which is to be expected after the run the Patriots just went on over the last 20 years. But for people to already be comparing the Patriots to the Jets is hyperbole of the highest order. Lets just let this marinate for a little more than 15 weeks before locking the Pats in the NFL basement with the likes of the Jets. I fully expect Bill is going to Execute Order 66 this offseason and just start taking people out left and right because you can tell this season has stung, which can only be worsened seeing Tom Brady’s march to the playoffs down in Tampa. The Pats will have some of, if not the most, cap room in the league this offseason and a Top 15 draft pick so there are some assets there to work with. Whether that means trading up to snag a top tier QB, trading down and rebuilding with even more picks, or hoping another QB shakes loose in free agency, there are plenty of routes back to respectability. I will settle for respectability and then we can discuss returning to championship contender status at a later date.
The best the Patriots can hope for right now is a 2012 Seahawks scenario where they overpay for a backup QB free agent and then hit on a QB with a pick later in the draft. Best case scenario is the Pats sign Marcus Mariota, then draft a QB in the 3rd Round, and Mariota never takes a snap for the team. Similar to how the Seahawks and Pete Carroll gave career backup Matt Flynn a monster 3-year deal before realizing a few weeks later that they had hit the jackpot with Russell Wilson. But stumbling onto another Hall of Fame QB with a late round draft pick isn’t exactlyy probable so I can’t say I am expecting that.
What about former Washington QB Dwayne Haskins? The fastest a 1st Round QB has been outright cut by a team in the last 20 years. Nope. Moving on.
The Patriots unfortunately do not have a lot of elite talent and just about all of their best players are on the wrong side of 30. All of their best offensive players under 30 are linemen and runningbacks, which is why the running game is the only thing thats looked impressive at times. Tight ends we’ll get to in a minute, but the receiving corps is nothing I would bet money on. N’Keal Harry is looking like a gigantic bust and Damiere Byrd and Jakobi Meyers are nice 3rd or 4th receivers, but they are not true No. 1 guys. Things aren’t much better on the defensive side of the ball with their best players under 30 including guys like JC Jackson (who got robbed of a Pro Bowl this year), Chase Winovich, Deatrich Wise, and the book is still out but early signs have looked good on Josh Uche and Kyle Dugger. You can debate anyone I may have left out, but there’s not a lot of young elite talent on the roster except for Jackson (who sneaky got torched last night).
Cam Newton is a great dude, a seemingly beloved teammate, and he has been a model Patriot, but unfortunately he just looks cooked. I don’t know if it’s his shoulder or what, but he just cannot deliver the ball. It’s not all his fault though as the weapons around him have been more like Dollar Store Super Soakers. Even when he does deliver a good pass, he has bum receivers dropping balls like Byrd letting a would be TD bounce off his face mask.
Or rookie (3rd Round pick) TE Devin Asiasi dropping a key first down and adding to his grand total of Zero receptions on the season. Fellow 3rd Round TE Dalton Keene has a measly Two receptions on the year too so Tight End, a historically important position for young/new/mobile QBs, has been BARREN in New England.
Newton can still takeoff for an electric TD run though, which he did Monday night for his 12th of the year. However even that came after what realistically should have been another sack as Newton’s pocket presence and awareness has seemed non-existent this season. But even with the 2nd Most Rushing TDs by a QB in a season (trailing only himself in 2011 with 14), passing for just 5 touchdowns over 14 games simply isn’t going to cut it. I wish it had worked out better, I was really excited to see Cam as a Patriot, but it just hasn’t materialized. It’s not for a lack of effort or attitude, which has been admirable, but even the ever positive Newton sounded dejected after last night’s effort (5/10 for 34 yards, 47.6 QBR).
On Monday he looked exhausted and sounded frustrated. He has been away from his children for months, and not even an admirable work ethic and a team-first attitude has produced much.
“It’s extremely frustrating knowing what you’re capable of but it’s just not showing when it counts the most,” Newton said. “… I’ve sacrificed so much this year and it hurts when you have the outing that you had tonight …
“I’m more or less venting,” he acknowledged.
Jarrett Stidham: Alright down 20+ points, time for me to get in there and start slinging it!
To be fair, Jarrett Stidham, who it looked like might not even see the field, was also terrible, completing 4 of 11 passes for 44 yards with a QBR of 3.7. Again, this team is devoid of elite talent at Wide Receiver (Julian Edelman is still out with a knee injury) and Tight End so it’s hard to evaluate anybody under center, but lets just say Stidham does not appear to be like a young Aaron Rodgers with his path to playing time merely blocked by a former MVP veteran QB.
To make matters even worse, the commentators were borderline depressing too. They will usually try to carry a game broadcast during a blowout, but they were talking about Newton and the Patriots like a “too old to be in the ring” heavyweight boxer that they were legitimately concerned for. And this was with 10 minutes left to go in the 4th quarter. Quite a lot of time to fill as the broadcasters pondered the precarious future of the Patriots.
So we’ll see what the Patriots do and whether they attack the offseason like they did after 2006 when they spent big in free agency and made splashy trades for studs like Randy Moss and Wes Welker, but even then that team had elite building blocks already in place.
All we know is this: Bill has the cap space, an unusually high draft pick, and all the motivation in the world to turn this thing around. Now let’s just hope this is a rebuild and not a tear down.
There are times when I’m OK with being wrong. Last Sunday was one of those times, as the Pats absolutely spanked Ryan Tannehill and the Dolphins at home in a 31-point win. Does this mean they should be considered a juggernaut once again? Or was it just an easy fluke win against a team that always soils their jock straps every time they’re in Foxborough?
I’d say the answer probably lies somewhere in between. Next up is Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts on a short week for some Thursday Night Football action. As always, here’s a quick look at where, when, and how to watch the game along with the latest lines:
The Colts are a team that LOVES to chuck the ball. Most of this probably has to do with their 29th-ranked running game, which is basically a three-headed “attack” – soon to be four-headed with the return of Robert Turbin off suspension this week – that is averaging a collective 3.6 yards per carry. While Turbin could theoretically come back and take over the reigns right away, I don’t expect a guy who’s played in 21 games over the past three seasons, while averaging a measly 3.1 yards a tote, to come in and go gangbusters.
For the most part, it’s been two rookies, Jordan Wilkins and Nyheim Hines, who have led the way for Indy, with Wilkins being more of the ball-carrier and Hines being the do-it-all, Swiss army knife out of the backfield. Wilkins, who leads the team in carries, has produced an unspectacular 136 yards on 38 attempts this year. Hines, though, leads the team in receptions with 22, with nine of them coming against the Houston Texans two days ago (on top of two touchdowns). He was an electric collegiate player at North Carolina State as well, and there’s no doubt the Colts believe in his talent.
Only a rookie, Hines is already a pretty fun little player to watch.
(The Colts also have second-year man Marlon Mack, who flashed at times as a rookie last season and was expected to lead the pack in 2018. However, he’s played in one game this year due to a nagging hamstring, and we’re not sure yet if he’ll play on Thursday night.)
Rather than continue to try and decipher the jumbled mess that is the Colts backfield, let’s take a look at what to expect from Andrew Luck. The former No. 1 overall pick, who smashed all sorts of NFL records over his first three years in the league, is finally healthy again after his career was looking like it was in serious jeopardy. (For those who aren’t up to speed, here’s a pretty detailed timeline of Luck’s injury saga from The Score.)
While Luck has been a bit up and down this year, he is coming off a 464-yard, four touchdown performance. He’s also tied for second in the league with 186 passing attempts on the year. So for all of those who have been saying that he just hasn’t looked the same and he just doesn’t have that same zip on his passes anymore:
T.Y. Hilton is happy to have Luck back, too, as he is averaging an impressive 14 yards a catch with two scores on the year. Other guys like Ryan Grant, Chester Rogers, and the two-headed tight-end attack of Eric Ebron and Jack Doyle – and, of course, Hines – give Luck a solid group of guys to throw the ball to.
(WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: Both Doyle and Hilton are officially listed as OUT for tomorrow night’s contest. Therefore, the Colts receiving options will actually be looking pretty thin this week, which is obviously great news for the Pats D.)
Surprisingly, the Colts defense has been in the middle of the pack this year against both the run and the pass, and they haven’t been the terrible piece of swiss cheese I expected them to be in 2018. Their 17 sacks are also tied for second in the league, but after playing 80-plus snaps in each of the past two games, hopefully the D is a bit tired and won’t completely feast on Brady.
Storylines to Watch For
(Welcome Back, Jules!): After 24 games without his top target, Tom Brady finally gets his biffle Julian Edelman back on the field once again. HALLELUJAH. Sure, Edelman is 32 years old and coming off a pretty serious knee injury, but hopefully those extra four games off this season just gave him more time to heal. Above all, even with Josh Gordon now in the fold, Edelman is the team’s most important receiving option. While Gordon and Gronk can come through with the big play down the field, Edelman gives Brady that reliable, chain-moving option he’s so desperately missed. I think you’re also going to see a much more chipper TB12 from here on out. Welcome back, No. 11.
Jules is back to silence the haters after an all-too-long absence.
(Where’s the Pass-Rush?): The Pats defense got a huge boost last week with the return of both Trey Flowers and Patrick Chung. Newly signed John Simon also had a nice debut with three tackles and a sack on Sunday. However, the much-improved pass-rush everyone was expecting to see this year has been M.I.A. so far. Outside of Flowers, Simon, Adam Butler, and my boy Deatrich Wise (who leads the team with 2.5 sacks), not ONE other Pats player has been able to take down the quarterback through four games. This should be a game where we start to see some improvement, though, against a suspect Colts offensive line that could still be missing incumbent left tackle Anthony Castonzo, who has yet to see a snap this year. The Texans had a field day against the Colts this past weekend with four sacks and 11 quarterback hits. If the Pats can’t get the pass-rush going on Thursday night, color me concerned.
After completely whiffing on my Burkhead for offensive MVP pick, at least my pick for the team’s defensive MVP this season has given me some vindication.
Prediction
Feeling good off a nice win and boosted by the return of Edelman, the Pats will come out hot at home, going up by a couple scores in quick fashion. The Colts, who are still tired and reeling from a devastating OT defeat just four days prior, will be sluggish and their mediocre defense will crumble in front of the crowd at Gillette. Their offense may also struggle mightily with Luck’s two favorite targets – Doyle and Hilton – both definitely sitting out. By the middle of the third quarter, the game will be all but over. The Pats take it 34-13.
Sunday was an ugly day for the New England Patriots. I was feeling pretty confident heading in and since I was in the great state of New Jersey I even placed a legal wager on my boys to pull it out. Welp, midway through the first quarter I knew I wasn’t getting that money back ever again. What seemed like a steamrolling by the Jaguars was a game that actually pivoted on just a handful of plays and missed opportunities, which I have painstakingly compiled below. Andddd go!
-Gostkowski missed another bunny in a key moment. Yuck, this guy is basically Tuukka Rask to me these days. He’s not as bad as sports talk radio says, but he’s definitely not as great as the team would have you believe. I know it’s only a handful of kicks he’s missed over the years, but they all seem to stick out in my memory because they all came in key situations. Regardless of his FG percentage, I do not want this guy anywhere near a game tying or game winning kick anymore.
-Refs missed a holding call against Gronk (and a potential roughing the passer) and the Pats were forced to kick on 4th down on their first drive, which as we mentioned above Gostkowski shanked with an absolute duck of a kick.
Gostkowski sends it OB right as Patriots end first drive pointless. Either the Telvin Smith jersey tug or Ngakoue “weight drop” should have been drive-extenders.
-A Jacksonville receiver fumbled a ball that jumped like a magic fucking bean right into another Jacksonville receiver’s hands for the luckiest of recoveries.
-This defense looked like swiss cheese all day, which is alarming, but it would be out of character for any Patriots fan to completely overreact. We’ve seen these early season losses when the team is still trying to figure it out. Whether it was the offensive line or the right linebacker rotation, we’ve seen it before and this year is probably no different especially when it comes to the wide receivers. Hell the Pats are like the high school jock who got a little too high on himself and dumped a perfectly nice girl (Kenny Britt), only to try and get her back after he’s put on the freshman 15 at college.
-Eric Rowe got roasted all day long. One of the plays against him was impossible to stop:
But he then immediately got beat for a TD he should have been able to defend.
-The defense got burned on 3rd down all game long as Bortles scrambled and found an open man or ran for first downs himself. Hell he’s got the third highest Avg Yards per Rush for a QB in the history of the league, just a tick behind Michael Vick.
-The defense was bad yes, but lets remember that it took a career day from Blake Bortles (29 of 45 for 377 yards, 4 touchdowns, 1 interception). Literally the best game of his career to topple the Patriots, which kind of stung after I clowned Bortles all week long and lost a little coin in the process, but hey thems the breaks.
Thats the most concerning visual from the entire game. It kind of felt like Brady and McDaniels were starting to worry that this team might not be able to get them where they want to go. Hopefully it’s just the two of them blowing off some steam on the new guys making mental errors.
-Breathe and say it with me….Julian Edelman will be back in 3 weeks.
-I’m pretty sure Mattes and I have stumbled onto some black magic as the two guys we picked for team MVPs on The 300s Podcast, Rex Burkhead and Trey Flowers, have each gotten concussions in the first two weeks. Another guy Mattes picked as a DPOY was Deatrich Wise, who left the game late with what the announcers speculated as some jumbled finger digits. I’m not comfortable with this type of power.
-At one point midway through the second half the broadcast team pointed out that it had been a full 45 minutes since Tom Brady had thrown the ball. That cannot help gameflow and momentum.
-The non-call of the Jags jumping offsides on 4th down late in the game as the Pats tried to draw the penalty before punting. As the broadcast team, and TV shots of a fuming Belichick pointed out, the offensive lineman needs to touch the the defender if he jumps onside otherwise he can reset and the refs won’t call it. Romo even pointed out in the replay you can see the official reach for his flag before deciding against it. That one hurt.
-Before the season I predicted the Pats would split with the Jags and the Texans and be 3-1 after the first month. After Week 2, we’re exactly where I expected so unless they drop a game to the Lions and old friend Matt Patricia
or the Dolphins, who tried their very best to give away a W to the Jets on Sunday, then we’re fine.
-Don’t get it twisted, this defense is somewhere between hot garbage and a cold lunch, BUT its probably a little bit better than the defense that was one stop away from winning back to back Super Bowls last year. So it may not always be pretty, it will probably be infuriatingly bad at times, but at the end of the day it should be good enough to keep the team alive as long as TB12 is under center…..and not a second longer.
-After predicting the Pats would do their best to eviscerate Jalen Ramsey for trash talking Gronk (I may have said something about making his children orphans, but I forget) and they did nothing of the sort. The offense could not get into a rhythm and anytime they did, their momentum was killed by turnovers and missed kicks.
-Cordarrelle Patterson killed a drive when he tripped over the Ghost of Christmas Past on a key third down. After the Pats defense came up huge and forced a quick 3 and out, the offense came out onto the field and these next two tweets came over the span of 6 minutes.
A short series and a terrible punt. The #Patriots have to smell blood here. #Jags
Patterson caught a screen out of the backfield and looked like he had room to run, but his feet would not cooperate as he tripped over nothing and fell down to end the drive in its tracks.
Anddd 5 minutes after that Bortles threw a pick to try and let the Patriots back into the game. Anddd then 3 minutes after that Brady was strip sacked and that was the game.
So I just have to tip my cap to the Jaguars. It’s only Week 2 so I hope they aren’t riding too high….
“It kind of felt like we won a Super Bowl, man,” safety Tashaun Gipson said. “I won’t even kid you. It was that type of atmosphere and environment.
….because we’ve seen this story before (see: Chiefs 2014), but alas I tip my cap.
-Josh Gordon?? I say yes because of the pure ability coupled with the age; 27 whereas Dez Bryant will be 30 soon.
But obviously the guy has been dealing with issues for years. The last, and only, good season Gordon had came back in 2013. Back when Shane Victorino played for the Red Sox. Tom E. Curran makes a pretty compelling argument against the receiver as well:
He’s played in 11 of a possible 65 games since his absurd 2013 season (86 catches, 1,646 yards). He needs full-time supervision, it seems. Permissiveness, understanding and contorting for Gordon’s needs all offseason got the Browns . . . a game. One catch. A touchdown. And then they threw up their hands.
How’s that return on emotional investment and time spent? Not real good. It’s not inhumane to tell a troubled person he is unemployable, which Gordon has been and seemingly still is.
Besides, the Patriots were already down the road with one wide receiver project, Cordarelle Patterson. Then they added Corey Coleman this week.
If feels like they are at capacity when it comes to getting talented but hard-to-reach downfield receivers assimilated. This isn’t July when there’s nothing to do but conditioning, working on timing and getting on the same page. There are games every seven days now, game plans to install, fine-tune and execute.
The reality is, nobody’s got time for Josh Gordon right now.
Despite all that, the Patriots are at least doing their due diligence on Gordon according to Bert Breer.
So that may have been more than just a few pivot points, but I think its just an early season misstep for the Pats (one that I expected) as they build for the longterm and assess what their strengths and weaknesses are. Plus I feel much more confident going against the Jags in the playoffs going for the split, rather than trying to beat Sacksonville twice in one season.
Up next is old friend Matt Patricia and my worst fantasy draft pick in a decade; Matt Stafford.
Photo credit: David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports Images
With the Pats set to square off against Carolina on Friday night in the preseason dress rehearsal, we’re now less than three weeks away from football that actually matters!
There’s still much to be decided for many teams throughout the league before the season starts, the Pats included, and a lot can still change before final cuts are made on September 1. Everyone knows the third week of the preseason is usually when we see the most important action, and things could look a lot more clear after Brady & Co. wrap things up with the Panthers tomorrow night.
In truth, a lot has already changed for the Pats since the start of the summer, for better or worse, but perhaps the most encouraging thing we’ve seen so far is the fact that the overall pass-rush has looked pretty solid.
Even though the Pats finished tied for seventh in the league last year with 42 sacks, there might not be a more misleading statistic from 2017.
There were times last season when the team’s pass-rush looked downright awful, and it was one of the main reasons why they allowed the third-most passing yards in the league. In fact, Pro Football Focus ranked the group as one of the very worst in the NFL at the end of 2017, before ranking them slightly higher at just 27 in this year’s preseason rankings.
It did start to improve a bit toward the end of the season, giving fans some hope – until the Super Bowl, that is. Never in my life have I seen such a pathetic output from a defensive front, which not only failed to put a lick of pressure on Nick Foles all night (0 sacks; 5 QB hits) but also allowed both LeGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi to EACH average over six yards per carry throughout the game. For as much as people want to get on the secondary and Bill’s decision not to play Butler, the lack of any impact up front was probably the main reason why Brady doesn’t have a sixth ring.
Fortunately, Bill made a conscious decision to try and improve the pass-rush this offseason by signing Adrian Clayborn just three days after free agency began. Clayborn, who had 9.5 sacks for Atlanta last season, looked great against the Eagles in the team’s preseason game last Thursday night. He finished with one sack but was one of the main reasons why the team was able to produce eight sacks in total by “dominating” the Eagles offensive line, as ESPN Boston’s Mike Reiss put it, and creating opportunities for his fellow teammates on multiple plays.
The team also went out and acquired defensive tackle Danny Shelton to pair up with Malcolm Brown on the inside, and both are capable of creating some pressure from the middle of the line.
Trey Flowers also returns. After contributing 2.5 sacks as a rookie in the Super Bowl against Atlanta in 2016, Flowers was able to lock down one of the starting defensive end roles as a second-year player last year, finishing with seven sacks and a very impressive overall rating from Pro Football Focus:
He was easily the best guy the team had in the defensive front last season, and Belichick wasn’t too shy about his feelings for Flowers when speaking with the media on Monday, discussing specifically the positive influence he’s already had on some of the younger players at the position (h/t Patriots Wire):
“Yeah Trey’s great… he does an outstanding job with his teammates at that position. He hasn’t had a lot of practice time this year but when he does, and the opportunities he has in meetings and things like that, he’s a great example for them. If they just watch what he does and do what he does, you couldn’t do much better than that.”
(Here’s to hoping the team actually re-signs Flowers, who is set to become a free agent after this season, rather than trading him away for pennies like they did with Chandler Jones, who only LED THE LEAGUE IN SACKS LAST SEASON. But I digress…)
There are also three second-year guys who should make a significant impact in 2018, two of whom will be seeing their first action on the field after missing their respective rookie seasons due to injury.
First, there’s Deatrich Wise, who last year was one of my favorite Pats rookies that I’d seen in a while. Every time he was on the field, he always seemed to be involved in the play. Even when he didn’t get an actual sack – of which he still finished with a solid five – he was always in the opposing quarterback’s face, and he plays with the unabashed confidence of an experienced vet. This kid’s a gamer, and I expect a HUGE leap from him in Year 2.
(HOT TAKE ALERT: Wise is my sneaky pick for this year’s Patriots defensive MVP.)
The two other sophomores I alluded to above are Derek Rivers and Keionta Davis.
Rivers was a highly-touted third-round pick in 2017 before tearing an ACL last summer, which forced him to miss his entire rookie season. After setting the Youngstown State sack record, though, the talent is definitely there and the team is reasonably excited about what he can bring to the table in 2018.
Davis is another former FCS standout that fell victim to a tough injury at a very inopportune time. Unlike Rivers, however, he was diagnosed with a bulging disk just before the 2017 draft, and he went undrafted altogether. Two weeks into training camp last summer, he was signed by the Pats, who stashed him away on the reserve list, allowing him time to heal before unleashing him this summer. The long wait paid off, as he has looked fantastic through two preseason games and has been one of the team’s best pass-rushers so far with 1.5 total sacks. He still needs to officially make the roster, but at this point it looks like a foregone conclusion.
Other players like Lawrence Guy and the group of linebackers we touched upon last week will be asked to chip in as well, but it’s going to need to be the guys mentioned above who get it done this year.
Regardless of just how much the pash-rush will improve in 2018, all I know is it sure as hell can’t get any worse.
(Like what you just read? Be sure to check out the previous four parts of “The 300s Previews the Patriots” series here.)
The 300s 