Bedard: Patriots coaches, players let down by GM Bill Belichick as season slips away

They still almost pulled it off.

Despite not having a single receiver, tight end, edge player or linebacker who would start on any decent NFL team, the New England Patriots were 14 yards and 31 seconds away from, once again, ripping the still-beating heart out of the chest of the #BillsMafia and coach Sean McDermott, and staying alive in the AFC East race.

For about an hour there in the second half, it was (mostly) fun to watch the Patriots play football again.

There was an honest-to-goodness three-and-out forced by the defense, and a field-goal hold with the season on the line (hard to believe we're at the point that a return of the Bend-But-Don't-Break Belichick defense would be welcomed with open arms).

Cam Newton actually completed passes without surveying the field for seven seconds and getting hit from behind. Jakobi Meyers, who may have 25 percent of the athletic ability of N'Keal Harry but 195 percent of the heart and competitiveness, ran precise routes and fought for extra yards. Damien Harris just made plays every time he touched the ball.

The juices were flowing. The Patriots had life. A run to another AFC East title over the obvious pretenders from Buffalo was there to be had.

Then we were all shocked backed into reality.

Newton fumbled, failing to come through with the ball in his hand on the final drive for the third time this season.

And now the Patriots' season is on life support.

"I am still jeopardizing this team's success because of my lackluster performance of protecting the football," Newton said. "Coach trusts me with the ball in my hands and I wouldn't want it any other way. I just have to do a better job protecting it. ... It's extremely frustrating, but this league is not what have you done for us, but what have you done lately? I understand this is a production-based league."

To twist the knife a little bit more, McDermott treated his first HC victory over Belichick and his Less-Than-Patriots like he just scaled the coaching Mount Everest.

“It gets me emotional,” McDermott said. “I try to go through it one day a time, process, process, process, but we know what this game means to our fanbase. ... This is an emotional win for our entire city. A lot has gone into this to get us where we are. ... I’m going to go home tonight and take an hour or two to enjoy this with my family.”

Oh, for crying out loud. Somebody give McDermott — a coach I used to respect as someone who got it but now clearly now does not — a hug, some tissues and a dose of reality. These Patriots aren't Everest; they're Mount Monadnock.

(I think even Bills fans were like, "Chill out dude. We barely beat the Jets last week, played a bad Patriots team to a statistical draw and needed a lucky punchout by a practice squad DT just to survive. Get back to work, Little Rex.")

And that's what the issue was in this game, and this flailing 2-5 season: the talent drain for the Patriots, which has little do with the Salary Cap Boogie Man Belichick was telling ghost stories about with Charlie Weis just before All Hallows' Eve.

The coaching acumen is still there — and a huge advantage over those Bills — obviously. There will be much complaining and bemoaning at Dunks on Monday morning about the coaching — Why didn't Josh McDaniels do this? Scar would have done bettah! The brain drain out the door-ah is too much! Why would you onsides kick?! — but the fact of the matter is that besides some stellar gut-check play by several gamers (yes Newton for stretches, Jakobi Meyers, Damien Harris, Rex Burkhead, JC Jackson, to name a few) the Patriots shouldn't have even been in that game if they weren't coaching circles around McDermott and Co.

Don't you realize this? A lot of you have watched football for many years. Surely you have some idea what a good NFL starter looks like.

How many do the Patriots have? Not nearly enough.

No? Well, let's go through it.

QB: Cam Newton, under normal circumstances ... YES, but zero QBs for future.
RB: As long as you have a functional one ... YES.
TE: Ryan Izzo, who personally blew up about 6-8 plays on Sunday with terrible blocking ... NO.
WR1: Damiere Byrd ... NO.
WR2: Jakobi Meyers ... NO.
WR3: Gunner Olszewski ... NO.
OL (5): All of them, YES.

DE: Deatrich Wise ... NO. Role player.
DT: Lawrence Guy ... YES.
DT: Byron Cowart ... NO. Backup.
DE: John Simon ... NO. Role player.
MLB: Ja'Whaun Bentley ... NO. Backup.
SLB: Oh, that's right, they don't have another linebacker ... NO.
Secondary (5): All of them, YES.

So out of 21 positions (RBs don't count), they field nine players — or 42.3 percent of the starting lineup — who have no business playing major roles let alone starting for an NFL team.

Yet there they were for the Patriots ...

... getting shoved out of their gaps;
... failing to set the edge;
... getting run over by offensive linemen;
... missing tackles;
... missing blocks;
... committing dumb penalties.

Geez, I wonder how that happened? The Belichick groupies will have you believe it was Covid, opt-outs and just general circumstances conspiring against The Hoodie to unfairly punish him in his first season without Tom Brady.

They'll believe, hook, line and sinker, what Belichick bloviated the other day.

“A combination of reasons," he said. "We were pretty heavily invested in our team in the past few years. From a salary-cap standpoint, we didn’t have much flexibility at all. ... Then we had some opt-outs, so we lost some players there that would normally have been giving us significant amount of play time. And then like every year, a couple guys are banged up and we’ve missed some guys here and there in certain games.

"Again, because of our cap situation in this particular year, this is kind of the year that we’ve taken to, I would say, adjust our cap from the spending that we’ve had in accumulation of prior years. We just haven’t been able to have the kind of depth on our roster that we’ve had in some other years."

He left out that the Patriots are seventh in the league in dead money ($29.5 million), and are fourth-lowest in cap spending this season in the same neighborhood as the rebuilding Jaguars, Jets and Panthers ($159 million).

You get what you pay for. And you reap what you sow.

And the Patriots' players and coaches are having to overcome Belichick's failed personnel moves and cap management the past few seasons. The team that used to have a great balance of young and old talent, and financial flexibility to do anything the way wanted are now just like all those other downtrodden teams.

But the Patriots can coach. So they get very close.

The Patriots coaches and players deserved better on Sunday.

Newton played much better outside of the game-losing fumble, and he now has eight turnovers in six games. Meyers, Harris and Burkhead played their butts off behind a physical line. The defense played well on the rare occasions when they could compel the Bills to throw the ball.

Man, that was fun to watch for a while.

But because of the talent drain, every single mistake was magnified. The margin for error was razor-thin and then the Patriots broke.

“I think we did a lot of things well enough to win, but not quite well enough to win,” Belichick said. “So you’re in the position, we had an opportunity, certainly could’ve done things better along the way. So obviously disappointed to work hard and not have the results that you’re looking for.”

If only they had anyone ...

... who could take the ball to the house at any time;
... actually wall up in the running game;
... get off a block and make a tackle before 6 yards down field;
... any capable linebackers to help get the opposing offense into third and long once in a blue moon;
... a franchise QB who can put the team on his back and win a game like that.

Then every coaching call and turnover wouldn't mean the world was crashing down.

"Outside of this last play, I think that is what makes it so frustrating, being that you are trying extremely hard. When you don't get the results you want, then what do you do?" Newton said.

You look to the GM. He put the team in this spot.