Progress is all we can hope for
A serious yet lighthearted, nostalgiatinted look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup . . .
I know, this bummer of a Patriots season — which somehow has seven games remaining, beginning with Sunday’s matchup with the similarly struggling Giants — has been plagued by a whole lot of questions and not many affirming answers.
Every Patriots fan would like solutions to the assorted problems that have resulted in Bill Belichick’s team winning two of its first 10 games, most obviously at quarterback, where it appears Mac Jones will get the start coming off the bye week despite being pulled after a brutal glitch of an interception late in the Week 10 loss to the Colts.
But most of this team’s issues — including its need for an influx of both young and established talent — cannot begin to be solved until the season is complete. (And who knows then what Belichick’s status will be. I hope he sticks around. The island for those of us with that opinion is getting overwhelmed by the tide.)
So instead, allow me to ask one more question: What’s your realistic best-case scenario for how the rest of this season plays out?
The key word there, of course, is realistic. The Patriots aren’t capable of making a playoff push. I’d like to suggest something that involves Jones finding his rookie season form, but that does not seem plausible. He’s broken, and while he may be repairable, the fixes to his physical and mental quarterbacking abilities are probably going to have to come elsewhere.
I think the best-case scenario is this: Young players — Demario Douglas, Sidy Sow, perhaps Kayshon Boutte — get plenty of reps in games and show genuine progress. Potential cornerstones such as Christian Barmore and Rhamondre Stevenson stay healthy and continue making plays the rest of the way.
And beginning Sunday against upstart quarterback Tommy DeVito and the Giants, the Patriots’ best outcome is to play with intensity and pride every week . . . and play just well enough to lose, because a highfirst-round draft pick must be this team’s No. 1 priority.
Can the Patriots do what’s necessary, and lose now to win in the long run? That’s one question that will get answered before the season is done.
Kick it off, Ryland, and let’s get this one started . . .
Three players to watch
Kayvon Thibodeaux: The Giants’ second-year edge rusher and No. 5 overall pick in the 2022 draft is the most annoying kind of opponent — a tireless trashtalker who backs up every syllable.
In the win over the Commanders last Sunday, Thibodeaux thanked Commanders tackle Charles Leno for his role in helping him reach double-digit sacks on the season. Thibodeaux had 9.5 at the time and he knew it, but he got his milestone against Leno in the fourth quarter, his second sack of the game and fifth in his last three games. He ranks fifth in the NFL in sacks, tied with the Raiders’ Maxx Crosby at 10.5, 2.5 behind league leader Myles Garrett of the Browns.
Thibodeaux, who has 14.5 sacks in 25 career games, is sure to be a handful for the Patriots, particularly if Conor McDermott has to fill in for left tackle Trent Brown, who has missed the last two games.
The Patriots linemen were complicit in the offense going haywire in the first half against the Colts, who racked up five sacks before halftime. They will have their hands full again Sunday, particularly if talented defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, who has never missed a game because of injury, can play through a hamstring strain.
Saquon Barkley: It was a welcome, if somewhat surprising, development to watch Barkley return to excellent form last season after a severe knee injury cost him all but two games in 2020. Upon returning in 2021 from an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction and meniscus repair, he wasn’t the same dynamic runner, averaging just 3.7 yards per carry after averaging 4.8 and racking up 2,310 rushing yards over his first two seasons.
He found that old form last year, running for a career-high 1,312 yards and 10 touchdowns while averaging 4.4 yards per attempt. Though he’s worn a bigger bull’s-eye than ever this year because of the Giants’ disarray elsewhere on offense — they rank 31st in points per game at 14.1, ahead of only the Patriots (13.5) — he remains highly effective in both the running and passing games. He has run for 651 yards — with a high of 128 in a Week 8 overtime loss to the
Jets — while four of his five touchdowns have come as a receiver.
Barkley has never played against the Patriots, but his accomplishments and status as the Giants’ lone dangerous skill player guarantee he will be no secret to a stout Patriots run defense that allows just 97.7 yards per game, ninth best in the NFL.
Rhamondre Stevenson: Sticking with the running back theme — hey, what do you expect with these two quarterbacks? — one of the few positive developments for the Patriots in recent weeks has been Stevenson’s resurgence after a puzzlingly slow start.
He ran for 88 of the Patriots’ 167 rushing yards against the Colts, on a season-high 20 carries. That followed a nine-carry, 87-yard effort in the loss to the Commanders in which he broke off a 64-yard touchdown run, the Patriots’ longest offensive play of the season.
The bye week came just as Stevenson was rolling, but he should be able to pick up right where he left off against a porous Giants rush defense (135.1 yards per game, 29th in the NFL), which gave up 467 yards on the ground over the past three games.
There won’t be many consolations to be found in this Patriots season. But if Stevenson, who has 482 rushing yards, can get to 1,000 for the second straight season, that would count as one.
Grievance of the week
It’s actually hard to decide what to be more aggrieved about: That Brown thinks he’s the best player on the Patriots’ offense. Or that he might have a case.
In a conversation this past week with MassLive’s Mark Daniels, Brown spilled his anger regarding a comment by Albert Breer on NBC Sports Boston.
Breer, after mentioning that Brown has a legitimate injury, noted that he has had a habit of being late throughout his career and it hasn’t stopped this season.
“That’s [expletive]. It’s a bunch of [expletive],” said Brown. “I’m never late. Honestly. I’m one of the first ones in and one of the last ones out of the building.”
Later in his rant — and it should be noted that Breer stood by his reporting — Brown told Daniels, “I’m sure you’re not really used to reporting about losing seasons around here, but that’s the type of [expletive] rhetoric that comes to play. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all season I’ve been the best player on offense and then when I’m not playing, that [expletive] starts happening.”
His comments seemed absurd upon first read. The best player? Who is he kidding? The offensive line has been a mess among the messes. But . . . he might actually have a case. While he has missed three games, he’s allowed just two sacks in the seven games he has played, protecting Mac Jones’s blind side well.
This much I do know: That Brown can make a legitimate argument that he is the Patriots’ best player on that side of the ball is a damning indictment of every offensive skill player on the roster.
The flashback
Don’t fret, we’re not going to rehash the gut-punch Super Bowl losses in this space. Instead, let’s remember a Patriots victory that sparked a run to the Super Bowl nearly a decade before the dynasty was fully established.
The Patriots’ 23-22 victory over the Giants at the Meadowlands in Week 17 of the 1996 season gave them their 11th victory of the season and clinched a first-round playoff bye back when no one would have taken such a thing for granted.
It was an incredibly satisfying victory — coach Bill Parcells choked up afterward while talking about his team’s win at his old stomping grounds — not just because they won but how they won.
The Patriots trailed, 22-0, at halftime, with Drew Bledsoe throwing for just 64 yards. (Say, is he available to start on Sunday?)
But Bledsoe got hot — he went 19 of 27 for 237 yards after the break — and the Patriots ripped off 23 unanswered points in the second half, including overcoming a 22-3 deficit to start the fourth quarter.
On the winning drive, Troy Brown made one of the best catches a Patriot has ever made, going full Matrix to convert on third and 13, reaching back almost parallel with the ground to catch a Bledsoe dart.
The Patriots took the lead on a 13-yard TD reception by Ben Coates, who overpowered three defenders — standard operating procedure for him — to reach the end zone.
(Say, are Brown and Coates available to play on Sunday?)
Prediction
Confession: There have been multiple times this season — including in the immediate aftermath of the loss to the Colts — when I swore I wouldn’t pick the Patriots to win another game.
So here I am, right here, picking the Patriots to win another game.
Why? They’re coming off the bye week, and I suspect they’ll heed Belichick’s recurring “Be ready to go” message. They’re playing a quarterback in DeVito who looked like the second coming of Craig Whelihan while throwing for 86 yards on 27 attempts in Week 10 against the Cowboys. I suspect the Patriots defense will bewilder him in a way Ron Rivera’s Commanders could not. They should be able to run the ball. And cynically, they’ll do it because Belichick is on the very short list of people who aren’t rooting for them to lose to land a higher draft pick.
It’ll feel good to see them win again, right up until we remember a split-second later that it’s the worst thing for them.
Patriots 19, Giants 17.