Brain fog, heartburn, headaches, achy joints and sensitivity to incompetence. No, this isn’t a recap of my annual physical, these are the symptoms I experience before, during and after Patriots games this season. I really don’t know what we’re doing anymore. It’s like I’m watching a real-life game of Madden where the Patriots difficulty is up all the way, and their opponents are rocking rookie mode.
Sure, we can play the race for the number one pick game for the next two months, but as a diehard fan, I’m not confident it will result in a player that will help us be competitive for the foreseeable future.
It’s so infuriating that we can look around the league and see a rookie quarterback with no name receivers in Houston set passing records, watch another rookie takeover in Las Vegas with a new coach this week and not have a turnover or get sacked and a witness a trade deadline acquisition come into a game in Minnesota not knowing his offensive linemen or receivers’ names and executive a comeback. That’s just this week. I can go back this year and point out other teams, with less, providing excitement and the ability to get into the redzone.
For you know what and giggles, I went back to look at the Detroit Lions 2008 winless season and they did not get shutout once and scored at least seven points in each game. While we won’t go winless, I do think we may be in the running for the worst team of all time. There’s no heart, terrible mistake, yet we keep rolling out the same vanilla team with the same vanilla playbook week after week.
Serious question – are we the only team that can’t execute a screen pass? We either lose yardage or gain less than five yards 90 percent of the time. We also LOVE to throw a quick pass to the receiver at the line of scrimmage because apparently Bill O’Brien thinks we have Tyreek Hill or A.J. Brown sitting there waiting for the ball. Oh, and don’t get me started with our special teams. If I have to see Joe Judge yelling at a referee from behind Belichick or Cam Achord get screen time looking as if he’s wondering if he left the iron on at home, I may need to do the “one chip challenge” and suffer the consequences. It can’t be any worse than what we, as Patriots fans, have had to endure this season.
I really don’t know what can be done to bring hope, other than completely clearing house. From the head coach, coordinators, players. Time for a whole new philosophy. This is a PASSING league where quarterbacks need fast receivers who can get open, create space and catch the ball. We don’t have that. If you aren’t pushing 200 passing yards by halftime it’s over. We’re barely getting 200 yards for the whole game…
We’re in for some dark times coming out of Foxboro unless something changes quickly. It’s going to be even more nauseating when we get a top-10 pick and either trade down, draft a receiver that should go undrafted, or a lineman that will be a reach pick in the first round.
Alright, enough woe is me for this week. I’m going to get back to listening to Boyz II Men because with this team, it’s the ‘End of the Road.’
