FOXBOROUGH - Well, that was borderline disastrous. Some don't want to hear it, but winning football games is the last thing this Patriots organization needs. Had they not been incompetent for a large part of the season, maybe these December games would have mattered. But the baby bird, with all its malformities, fell out of the nest a long time ago, and every attempt to take off since has failed.
Oh, sure, I've heard the talk about maintaining a winning culture. Excuse me? Say what? The Pats have finished with losing records in three of the last four seasons, and though it pains some of you when I point this out, they finished the great Tom Brady's final season 4-5, including a home playoff loss. They haven't been a real team - a feared team - since the first half of that last Brady campaign, although, to their credit, they did manage to fool us for a seven-game stretch during Mac Jones' rookie year. Oh sure, you can fool yourself every week, month, or offseason (and maybe they can, too) that there is enough talent, coaching, and infrastructure for this team to return to prominence. Give up that ghost. This team stinks on wheat, rye, and pumpernickel. It is time to start anew, and one of the most important ways to begin that process is to keep losing.
Now I know the players aren't going to lie down. Sure, a guy here or there will make some business decisions about playing hurt or - like with J.C. Jackson in the playoff game in Buffalo - decide against physical contact at this point in the season, which falls under the category of case-by-case. But generally, there will be effort, there will be fight, and there will be preparation. These guys are prideful. The coaching staff, too, in before dawn, out well after dusk. Hell, I've bumped into coaches in previous years returning to the stadium at 2:30/3 in the morning when I'm just leaving (sometimes this writing stuff is hard), and they're checking back in to dissect tape and game plan. But this organization doesn't need any late-season Hail Marys. They need to bottom out, which is why Sunday's offensive futility against the Chargers was best for business, even as the defense does Yeoman's work. The Pats became the first team since the 1938 Chicago Cardinals to allow 10 points or less in three straight games and lose them all (Chicago lost 4 in a row that way). How do you make sense of that?
"I don't know how to," said safety Jabril Peppers. "We going to figure it out though. We got a job to do. We don't get paid to play football. We get paid to execute and produce, and we're not doing that at a high enough level right now. Our record shows that."
Despite a few cracks in the veneer behind the scenes - the players and some of the coaching staff wanting to move off Mac earlier than today and the selfish behaviors of a select few - this team has managed to stick together, even at their lowest moments. And today was another one.
"We gonna stay together. We got high character guys. We're no strangers to adversity. Everyone here has faced tough times in their lives. This isn't nothing. But we're all competitive. We're all prideful men. What we're putting forth right now is not it."
"You know, at the end of the day, you're playing for the respect of yourself, the respect of your team, this organization, and I think there's a lot of reasons to go out and compete every week," said David Andrews, once again the first at the postgame podium, an hour before Bill Belichick finally arrived. "I think if you're going out there without something to play for, it's probably time to move on to something else."
Of course, the fact that the offense is this inept is mind-boggling. Shutout for the second time at Gillette Stadium this season, despite making the quarterback change from Jones to Bailey Zappe.
This being our first chance to question Belichick about "officially" making the decision - after stonewalling us all week - I asked the 71-year-old head coach a series of questions. He answered as you would expect him to - with brevity.
What went into the decision to go with Zappe over Jones?
"I thought he deserved it," said Belichick.
Was it something Zappe did, or because Jones hasn't delivered?
"I think he deserved it."
Organizationally, do you feel as though you've let Jones down? He was a first-round quarterback less than three years ago and is now stapled to the bench.
"Yeah, just trying to put the best team out there that we can every week."
Later, another reporter circled back, hoping for more.
Why not make the move to Zappe earlier?
"Because we gave Mac his cha... (Bill cut his own words off)…we gave Mac the opportunity, you know, work through his progression with the offense and obviously hadn't had a lot of production. I thought Bailey deserved a chance to play, so he played today."
There were also a series of inquiries about Malik Cunningham, but I believe it would have been criminal to put him in this game in those conditions, knowing that the grouping of plays they had for him would require ball handling and deft touch with the football. I know he's a curiosity, but Belichick and the staff got that decision right. There is no sense in throwing the kid out there when blocking and catching have been challenging tasks for this team all year.
No, the focus should remain where it's been - on the poor construction of this team, poor development of some of its most important players, and a coaching staff that has had very few answers for what ails them. Five more weeks before wholesale changes can and should be made. In the meantime, they'll keep losing because, quite frankly, they aren't good enough to win.