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Here’s how bad it is: New England will go to Las Vegas next week having yielded 69 unanswered points, having been outscored in each of nine consecutive quarters and having been held out of the end zone in 10 consecutive quarters.
This, folks, is a bad football team.
The natural question to follow would be how, exactly, this happened to perhaps the greatest dynasty in NFL history. The answer is twofold. First, and most obviously, Tom Brady no longer plays for a Patriots franchise that’s gone 26–30 since he left, and got routed in its only playoff game over that span. The second reason, really, is just as straightforward.
“Quite simply, they have no talent,” says one AFC executive. “And it doesn’t help that that’s at the quarterback spot as well.”
It sounds harsh, of course, but it’s hard to argue—particularly when evaluator after evaluator whom I reached out to Sunday, as the Saints were completing their 34–0 beatdown of the Patriots in Foxborough, echoed the sentiment.
“The offensive line is bad, they can’t protect Mac [Jones], and Mac can’t move,” says an NFC executive. “They have no speed on offense at the skill positions. They used to have guys that could win one-on-one matchups; they don’t have any of those guys anymore. And defensively, they’re banged up. Losing [Matthew] Judon hurts. Losing the rookie corner [Christian Gonzalez] hurts, too, along with Marcus Jones.”
“They look extremely low on talent, to be honest,” says an NFC coach. “They have a pretty vanilla plan from what I can tell. An average-at-best QB only exacerbates those issues. They aren’t exactly world-beaters on defense now either—and losing Judon really hurt, and the two feed off each other. Defense gets a stop, offense goes three-and-out, defense back out there, basically no rest. … None of their skill players scare me. Hunter Henry is solid, not close to elite. OL looks sh–ty. Backs are slow. Receivers are overpaid free agents.”
Another executive raised other issues, such as the loss of coaches and staff, the loss of player leadership from the glory years, and how other teams have studied them for so long that most of the edges Bill Belichick seized upon for years are now gone. But in the end, he came back to where everyone else was. “Brady enabled the coaching style,” that exec says, “and covered up the personnel shortcomings.”
The result is those shortcomings are on display for everyone to see.
Now, this isn’t the first time a Belichick-led Patriots team has had an embarrassing day at the office. New England lost its 2003 opener in Buffalo 31–0 days after Belichick cut Lawyer Milloy. The ’14 Patriots got beat so badly on a Monday night in Kansas City, the final was 41–14, that Brady was actually benched with 10 minutes to go.
The difference with one is, well, it was supposed to be the bounceback game—like a 31–10 win over the Eagles was in ’03, and a 43–17 blowout over the Bengals was in ’14—not the one to bounce back from. Because these Patriots were actually coming off one of these, that being the 38–3 shiner they took last week in Dallas. Maybe most discouraging isn’t that they took the second haymaker, it’s that they looked powerless to stop it.
The roster simply isn’t good enough, after years of draft misses,and half-measures via trade and free agency. Brady isn’t around to make up the difference anymore. And if you want to fully understand how deep the wound is, try to find a player on the Patriots that you’d be sure will remain in Foxborough four years from now. There’s probably one, and that’s Gonzalez, who’s hurt.
Which is just another reason why Sunday’s game was every bit as bad as it looked and, right now, the Patriots are every bit as bad as they look.
