What problems the patriots have to fix heading into a crucial week 5 matchup
After the worst loss in Bill Belichick’s historic career and one of the worst in franchise history, New England face’s a critical point in their season. The Patriots are currently 1–3 and will be trying to do what only 21 teams in their position that have done since 1990, make a run for the playoffs.
The very small margin is an indication of how hard it is for teams to come back for a 1–3 start, but if Patriots fans are looking for any good sign’s, the only one of those teams to go on and win a super bowl was of course, the 2001 Patriots.
Many problems need to be addressed and fixed if New England wants any real chance of competing for a playoff spot, and it starts with the offense.
Throughout the first 4 weeks, the Patriots have virtually never held a lead during any portion of their games. In the 240 total minutes of play, they have only held a lead for 55 of those minutes, which were all against the Jets in week 3.
The huge disparity has shown to cause headache’s for the Patriots offense that is not built to be playing from behind for that long of a period. They simply don’t have the receiving weapons or offensive line to be able to compete in games when their trailing for that amount of time. This has left their offense to have to play mistake-free during games, which has not been the case through 4 games.
The Patriots have given up a total of 7 turnovers and rank 26th in turnover differential at -5. This has been one of the overwhelming issues on the offensive side of the ball for New England. They also ranks in the bottom three in the league in points per game with an average of 13.8. New England can’t afford to turn the ball over with an offense that has only produces an average of 2 touchdowns a game. Opposing teams have taken full advantage of their turnovers. Dallas alone scored 14 of their 38 point off careless offensive turnovers in week 4.
Both turnovers came from Mac Jones.
The production on offense ultimately come down to the play of Mac Jones. Through the first three games, we saw a quarterback that was struggling to ignite an offense. Last Sunday against the Cowboys, we saw the a Mac Jones that was out of sync and rattled.
You can’t make up excuses for this low level of play. I can’t recall seeing a quarterback throwing across the other side of the field once in my time ever watching football. It’s a play coaches preach to their quarterback’s not to do at all level’s.
The Mac Jones strip fumble is an inexcusable play as well. Juju was wide open coming out of the motion into the side of field Mac rolled out too. Mac has to feel that pressure behind him and get rid of the ball.
Those two Mac Jones turnover’s aren’t the only plays of the game that stand out. He nearly threw two more interceptions that could have been taken back to the endzone.
The Patriots need a better level of play from Mac Jones plain and simple. You can make the excuse that he hasn’t had a true WR1 or the coaching put’s him in bad situations, but playing this poorly is just going to give away games.
On the defensive side of the ball, New England saw Matthew Judon and Christian Gonzalez exit the game with what we learned are each season ending injuries. Losing both key players is such a blow for this Patriots defense and especially the rookie Gonzalez, who boasted good performances matching up against some of the best receiver’s in the league like AJ Brown and Tyreek Hill. He was likely on his way to a defensive rookie of the year award.
The Patriots will have to turn to the rookie defensive end Keion White to help replace Judon’s effect in the pass rush for the remainder of the season. New England also made a splash and traded for the former Patriots cornerback J.C. Jackson this week. J.C. was successful with New England and cashed out to go play for the Chargers where he has seemed to lose a step.
The Patriots also have some good news with Jonathan Jones reported nearing a return back to playing, a much needed boost to the backfield.
The Patriots have no time to spare to turn things around. Another loss in the next two or three weeks will most likely put them in there grave for the season. Better play by Mac Jones and the defense stepping up after key injuries are needed for this team to show any sign’s of life. New England matches up against the Saints (2–2) in a must win game for them.
