Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 17: Patriots vs. Bills

Things to consider while giving 2023 the elbow to the face it deserves:

--We're way past Moral Victories talk. That ship sailed double digit losses ago. And even then it was semi-demeaning to a once-proud franchise with standards as high as this one has had. But by now we've run out of clever and creative ways to describe how utterly shambolic this year has been. So all I'm left with is to look for whatever positives I can find lying around while I sift through the smouldering wreckage of the worst Patriots season in a generation. In the possibly futile hopes we can salvage the good parts and use them to rebuild.

--This team lost in Buffalo for the same reason they've lost the other 11. Not from poor effort, inadequate coaching, moral failures, lack of character, bad officiating, the alignment of the planets, or a tear in the fabric of spacetime. They lost because they lack talent. Pure and simple, they're facing mismatches on both sides of the ball, from one sideline to the other. Without a doubt, injuries have been a factor. But my null hypothesis states that they're not enough to explain this cataclysmic Won-Loss record. Even with Christian Gonzalez, Matt Judon or Rhamondre Stevenson, we'd still be in this mess. They lost the turnover battle 4-to-1 yesterday for the same reason they're -10 on the season. Because they don't have targets athletic enough to run themselves open consistently, quarterbacks with the skills to deliver them the ball when they do, or defenders gifted enough to force interceptions and fumbles on a regular basis. 

--But I think they're not that far off. I truly believe that. Look at the two games against Buffalo, a Super Bowl contender with Pro Bowlers all over the roster that's been nuking the Patriots from orbit the last four or five years. But the two have split the season series, home and home, with both games close. Which is what divisional rivals tend to do. For the first time in a long time, the Pats are able to competitively defend against Josh Allen and the Bills attack instead of just playing "Murder Victim 1" in Buffalo's version of Criminal Minds. Hell, the defense forced six punts yesterday, which might be more than they did in all of 2021, when they played them three times. Again, I'm not moral victorizing here. I'm saying there is a talent gap, but it's not an athletic Grand Canyon. It can be bridged with a good draft and a great free agency period. 

--I'm going to stay with the defense for a while because what they're doing is remarkable. On the road, facing a balanced attack led by an MVP candidate, a 1,000-yard running back and a 1,000 yard receiver, they held the Bills to just 20 points, 281 total yards and 154 passing yards. If Bailey Zappe's favorite target was someone other than Rasul Douglas, it would've been enough to come out of Buffalo with a 21-20 win and a sweep of the season series. And when Buffalo started drives at the New England 21, 14, and 30, they gave up just 13 points. That alone deserves a nomination for the Nobel Prize in Defense.

--The fact they've given up the sixth fewest yards and are middle-of-the-NFL-pack in points while spending the year fettered to the corpse of Bill O'Brien's offense as impressive as it is tragic. I mean, look at this guy:

That's the look of a man who's lost all the nutrients in his body from the exhaustion of having to drag half a roster around for four months. I hope they put Tavai on an IV drip and put a medal on his chest.

--If they were partnered with an even average offense - one that wasn't last in the league in points, first in 3 & outs, and so boring they're America's leading cause of feminine dryness - they'd not only be in the playoffs, they'd be one of those units good teams worry about facing in January. As it is, their performances are being wasted by the offense. It's the football equivalent of one of those celebrity couples that make no sense. Like the late, great Norm MacDonald's favorite joke, because the set up was the same as the punchline. "Julia Roberts announced she's divorcing husband Lyle Lovett. The reason, is that she's Julia Roberts. And he's Lyle Lovett." Come to think of it, can we skip the rest of this and just do Norm MacDonald bits? No? Fine. Let's get through this.

--I honestly never noticed Alex Austin landing on the roster. He was just one of those hundred or so guys whose name appears as a transaction on the team's press releases over the course of the season and it doesn't move the needle for you. It's like Belichick has scouts constantly out combing the streets for them like the Church of Scientology (which is a legitimate religion and very deserving of its tax exempt status; so please don't move next door and ruin my life). And once in a while one of these roster bubble guys gets into the lineup and makes an impact. Austin took 74% of the defensive snaps yesterday and made the play that could've changed the tide. He basically set a stick-and-box trap for Allen, hanging in the post safety spot and using single coverage by Marte Mapu as bait:

Austin was one of five guys in the secondary who took more than 50 snaps, as Belichick & Son threw a base nickel with a few dime subpackages at Buffalo. They effectively took Stefon Diggs (4 catches on 7 targets and 26 yards) out of the game and made Allen beat them lefthanded. It's just a damned pity they couldn't have had the benefit of a few more long fields to work with. Or an offense that could sustain drives. Because this was their finest performance against the Bills besides that one that was played in one of those wind tunnels where they test jet engines, which doesn't count.

--I say again that the best player on the Patriots is Christian Barmore, and it's not even close. But gaining on him out of the middle of the pack is Keion White, who keeps seeing his playing time increase. And with good reason. This rip move he put on Conor McGovern was exceeded only by the burst he showed to finish Allen off and kill a drive:

--And no one has improved year-to-year the way Anfernee Jennings has. He didn't show up a ton on the stat sheet apart from this, where he jab-stepped Dion Dawkins outside before diving inside for the TFL:

But he was constantly standing his ground on the edge and not letting the Bills bounce their running game outside and has proven himself to be a versatile, reliable, every down DE/OLB. 

--I've put this off as long as I can. But I can't go all of 2024 without discussing the Bailey Zappe problem. We can forgive him the Pick-6, I suppose. As long as one of the great pass catching backs in franchise history thinks it was Jalen Reagor's fault, who are any of us to argue?

And assuming James White is correct (which is my default setting), I suppose we should more put the blame on the coaching/personnel, who put their quarterback in the position of having to get results with on-the-job trainees. But the first two were on the first plays of drives. Where presumably everyone came onto the field with time to think and plan and know what they were hoping to execute. And each was a force job. The worst being the one intended for DeVante Parker that Douglas was sitting on like it was a Lay-Z-Boy:

--Zappe was not without his good throws. This precision drone strike to Reagor was perfect. Almost 40 yards in the air but in a place where it was either going to be a reception or safely out of bounds:

And admittedly that's more that we saw out of Mac Jones. As was his touchdown run. He tunneled his way of the pocket, saw the whole wide side of the field had been cleared out by slants and took immediate action:

But it's hard to watch him force balls into tight coverage and not say what Dennis Miller once did about another quarterback during his short stint on MNF. Bailey Zappe throws a beautiful interception.

--It might not have looked it since Buffalo was throwing so many blitzes at them, but the offensive line had one of its better games, at least in pass protection. Against 4-man rushes they held up well, despite being undermanned with Vederian Lowe filling in while Trent Brown is in the Time Out Chair. The screen game was extremely effective thanks to the middle of the line, David Andrews and rookies Sidy Sow and Antoni Mafi, and their ability to both sell the play action and block upfield:

And credit where it's due to all five of them for not drawing the obligatory hold as Demario Douglas changed direction like a Roomba:

--They couldn't get the run game going to save their lives. And this team is very much in need of a franchise LT who can anchor them for the next 10 years. But after an entire year of trying, they at least slightly resemble a professional O-line. Albeit one with the serial number filed off.

--I can deal with reboots of Hawaii 5-0, Frasier, MacGyver and whatever else. Because we all realized a long time ago the world is out of new ideas. But what I can't tolerate is Andy Reid doing the "Who are the 'Chefs'?" bit. That commercial was a national treasure 25 years ago. And he's just doing the same exact thing, right down to the "Googily moogily." It's an outrage. It's not an homage. It's pure joke thievery. He's the Amy Schumer of the NFL and if we were a proper country it wouldn't be tolerated.

--This Week's Applicable Movie Quote:

Crowd: "Happy New Year!!!"

Michael: "You broke my heart. You broke my heart." 

-Godfather, Part II

--I've already gone on way longer than I intended. But since 2023 sucked so much, why not kick off the New Year wrong? Anyway … Happy New Year, I guess?: