Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 9: Patriots vs Packers
Things to consider while realizing that a ship that was the pride of the American side, that the searchers all say would have made Whitefish Bay if they'd put fifteen more miles behind her, but might have split up or might have capsized, that may have broke deep and took water, might not actually be the worst thing to come out of Wisconsin when the gales of November come early:
--I don't mind this happening in front of the rest of the country, but you simply do not perform like this in front of Gronk, Brady, and the 2016 champions. Poor James White - a U of Wisconsin Badger, no less - didn't score 20 points in the Super Bowl just to watch the Patriots destroy the legacy he helped build.
--In fact, this game was so bad there was only one way to save it. We were all thinking it:
--By way of full disclosure, I was at the game, so I missed all of the Fox broadcast. And I was so thoroughly disgusted by my team's complete No Show, that for the first time in the 22 or so years I've been posting KJRs, I genuinely considered leaving early. But I ultimately decided to stay til the end and suffer for my art. Now it's your turn.
--This wasn't a bad loss. It was the kind of thing that made you wonder why you would ever want to buy tickets to a game. To subject yourself, friends and family to this experience. Sometimes waiting years for a quality matchup like Green Bay. To surround yourself with Packers fans from out of town who still have Miller High Life breath from the Brewers championship. It was one of those games where afterwards, you don't even want to look other Pats fans in the eye. It's how it must feel after a Key Party of suburban swinger couples goes horribly wrong. But in this case, it turned out to be a blood-soaked, vampiric orgy. The Fall of the House of Usher with TV timeouts and an even grimmer ending.
--So much for the old Belichick philosophy that you spent the first third of the season figuring out what your team is. We're more than halfway through 2026 and haven't the first clue who these Patriots are. It's wrong to say they fatten up on bad teams and get exposed by the good ones. The went to Buffalo and took care of business, fought the Bears to the bell on the road on a short week, then needed a half to get it in gear at Miami. Then this. They're not any one thing yet. They're a Changeling. A different team each week. They're Two Face, the girl Seinfeld dated who was hot or hideous, depending on the lighting. And you can't always get them to the back booth at Monk's where she looks good. There are legends about certain musicians in concert - Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, to name two - that say it all depended which night you caught them. That they'd either be fully engaged, rocking your nips off, or they'd be totally introverted, mumbling to themselves and even sing with their backs to the audience. And there were no refunds. That's pretty much what this year's team is. We never know which version is going to come out of the tunnel.
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--And what we got Sunday at 4:25 was the best player on both sides of the ball choosing to have their worst career games on the same night. Like two roomies from Alpha Gamma Theta getting their cycles in sync, Christian Gonzalez and Drake Maye were in no condition for this mixer. And it was obvious right from the first snap for each. It's not like they got back-footed; there was never any footing. For each, it was one of those dreams that start in the middle, you find yourself naked in a public place, and have no idea how you got there.
--We'll get to Maye, but start with Gonzalez, because what happened to him defies explanation. The highest paid cornerback in league history doesn't have an interception on the season. Which usually means that opposing teams have learned not to throw it an elite defenders way. Like the secondary is an old map, and his side of the field reads "There Be Monsters Here." That was most definitely not the case with Green Bay:
Watson and Golden combined for 17 catches, 335 yards, two touchdowns, and an astonishing ONE incompletion. It wasn't all Gonzalez, but it mostly was. It was obvious from the Packers second possession that Jordan Love wasn't avoiding Gonzo, he was targeting him. Whichever receiver the Pats generational CB1 was assigned to became his first read. And the Pats had no answer. Statistically speaking, their coverage would've been just as effective if they left Watson and Golden uncovered. Or played with 10 guys. Or put Caleb Lomu at corner. Or laid out a box and stick trap in front of them.
--Going into this game, the Patriots were playing man coverage the second most in the league. And were most effective at it. Matt LaFleur saw that as a weakness and exploited it to perfection. Just before the season, one NFL site ranked the Patriots secondary as the best in the league. LaFleur look at it and only saw favorable mismatched across the board. And he was right. He was playing Stratego and all his pieces were Marshals and Generals, and all Mike Vrabel had were Scouts and Spies. And Gonalez's uniform number reflected his piece's value in the game:
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And there was no window dressing on these routes. I did note a 33-yarder to Watson on the field goal drive that made it a 34-14 game where he came out of a 3-man bunch, and Gonzalez lost a step getting caught in the wash. But aside from that, they attacked him early with out-breaking routes where he was consistently 4-5 yards behind his assignment. Then just switched to verts against the Pats single high safety looks. And wisely stuck with it. I mean, look at these completions:
--And this is the least surprising part of all:
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Next year I'm going to check the calendar before I bet against this guy. I wish the presence of a team that overcame a 28-3 deficit in a Super Bowl could have the same effect on my team that a car promotion does to their quarterback.
--After a performance like this, I find the only way I can process it is by looking for historic comparisons:
1. This was like the perfect passer rating game Drew Brees had against them in 2009, when Belichick was mic'd up and told Brady on the sidelines, "I just can’t get this team to play the way we need to play. I just can’t do it."
2. When I was a kid, some of my best friends went to BC High, who faced Cambridge Rindge and Latin in the state basketball final. All I remember was that every time R&L put the ball in play, it was a lob to Patrick Ewing under the basket for the easy lay up, because there was no answer for it.
3. Gonzalez played like Kyle Arrington did in the Super Bowl against Seattle in 2014. Or Jordan Richards and Johnson Bademosi against Philly in 2017. The difference being those guys weren't making $135 million and got themselves pulled from the games.
4. I'm not comparing Gonzo to Larry Bird by any stretch. But there was one game where Bird played 36 minutes, went 0-9 from the floor and took zero free throws. The only game of his career where he didn't score. And afterwards Bill Fitch said, "I've always said nothing Larry Bird does could ever surprise me. I stand corrected."
That's it. That's all I got. Comparisons to some bad Patriots football and ancient basketball references. You use your coping mechanism, I'll stick with what works for me.
--Before we get off Gonzalez and move onto someone else who's performance made want to go down to the stands and crush Miller High Lifes with the Midwestern tourists, let's acknowledge that he was arguably as bad in the run game as he was in coverage. Losing the edge early:
…and often. And if I'm his agent, I'm grateful this block Savion Williams threw on him wasn't part of the contract talks:
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--Which still begs the question why the corners (Carlton Davis, Marcus Jones and Karon Prunty weren't wearing golden halos either) were continually left alone outside the numbers with a post safety. Why did Vrabel and Zak Kuhr never seem to switch it up to a split safety look, or even the Cover-3 they played so much early on this season, and defy the Packers to beat them on the ground?
--Bear in mind that the Packers weren't just worst in the league at running the ball, they were historically bad. Averaging less than three yards a carry behind an offensive line that had lost both staring guards. And the Pats were the "Get Right" team they needed at exactly the Get Right time. Before they just started running dives at the end to kill the clock, they were averaging 5.0 YPA on the ground and finished with 129 yards and six 1st downs. But if I have to pick my poison, it's going to be making them beat me with a ground offensive than just conceding Air Supremacy to them.
--OK, moving onto Maye now. Because why not lance that boil? The Packers defense is what the Patriots has not been for the first two months-plus: A swarming, ballhawkish wolfpack who will jump routes and force turnovers. They love to sit back in zone, especially split safeties and quarters, read the QB and break on the ball once it's in the air. And Maye played right into them. Like the team he quarterbacks, Maye is in that phase of his development where he can completely take over a game or be completely taken over. Yesterday was a mixed bag of both. His game is not to take checkdowns all day. And it's yet to be determined if the Patriots can win a game where he does. But his strength (taking deep shots) fits perfectly into what Green Bay does (taking away deep shots). And as a result, you end up with a stat line of almost 300 yards, 3 TDs but 3 INTs.
--All three of those picks came on downfield throws. The first of which was entirely Maye's fault. He went full playground on the throw. Which works extremely well for him, but this time he got nothing on it and it sailed:
Worse, that came on a play in which Green Bay showed blitz with a loaded box, Maye checked to a 6-man protection scheme, but only three rushers came. Even with that numbers advantage, he had to step up into the pocket and attempt a jump pass into 8-man coverage. Which not only set up Love's TD run, it set the tone for the entire fiasco.
--The next was him forcing the ball to a covered receiver, plus a great piece athleticism by an elite defensive back who did, in fact, show up to play:
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--The last was a prime example of playing to Green Bay's strength. Xavier McKinney again, with Eli Raridon running a backside crosser behind the linebackers, his eyes in the backfield, anticipating the exact throw he knew was coming and breaking on it:
--Maye was by no means alone on these failures. The interior Crush Rush was in his face constantly. Green Bay blitzes at a slightly above average rate. But in this one, sent an extra body pretty much half the time. And against a depleted line that saw Ben Brown leave halfway through, replaced by Walter Rouse, we saw more unblocked rushers than we have since the Super Bowl in February. Karl Brooks was particularly effective at finding lanes to penetrate through, particularly the A-gap between Matt Pryor and Jared Wilson as the O-line was being shuffled, lacking cohesion, and getting their assignment rules jumbled up in the chaos. No wonder Wilson was so curt with everyone:
--The damn thing of it is, as bad as Gonzo and Maye were playing, this was still a game deep into the 2nd quarter. The were only down 10. Vrabel had weirdly squandered a time out challenging yet another deep ball reception, even though there was a DPI called on the play anyway. Still, the Pats made a stop after the 2:00 warning. They had the ball at midfield with 1:48 left and two timeouts. Score there and you get a reset on the entire course of the game going into the half. They picked up 11 yards on five plays and gave the ball back to Green Bay. After the half, the Packers go on a methodical, 7-play, 70 yard TD drive. The Pats follow with a 3 & out. Ball game.
--Then at some point, it just became a humiliation ritual. When LaFleur decided to go for 2 after Watson again beat Gonzalez (a 1-play drive) to make it 40-14, I wanted them to score. By then it was like being at a Roast, where you just want Jeff Ross or Nikki Glazer or Tony Hinchcliffe to shame you in front of the whole crowd. There was no chance at dignity, so we might as well get a laugh out of it.
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--I'm in no frame of mind for looking for bright spots. But I suppose my soul could use a few. Pop Douglas has shown once again that while he can definitely get lost in the shuffle of a deep WR corps, when it's depleted by injuries and you need him to elevate his game, he can be a WR1:
--I'll also credit Craig Woodson for seeming to constantly coming up in run force to blow up outside toss plays and screens. And Milton Williams remains as steady and consistent as he's been since they signed him. But there aren't many other diamonds to be found in this dog pile.
--This Week's Applicable Movie Quote:
John Winger: "We're not going to Moscow. It's Czechoslovakia. It's like going into Wisconsin."
Russell Ziskey: "Well I got the shit kicked out of me in Wisconsin once. Forget it!"
- Stripes
--This game ended with Brown, Rhamondre Stevenson and Will Campbell all injured. Meaning there's a very good chance that next Sunday morning against the Lions might be the worst thing that's ever happened to American Patriots in Germany.