The New England Patriots are 3-11 after a 30-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. This was the Patriots 4th straight loss and their 11th loss in their last 13 games. It may seem like an eternity ago, but this team started 1-0 with a road win over the Cincinnati Bengals, then lost 6 straight, then won two of their next 3 over the Jets and Bears, and have now lost 4 in a row. And I think this is one of the worst situations in the entire NFL. And in today’s video we’re going to break down how the Patriots got here, why I think this is one of the worst situations in the NFL, and what they can realistically do to get out of this situation. The biggest thing to remember for the Patriots as we enter the 2025 offseason is this is not going to be a one year turn around. This team obviously wasn’t going to win 6 rings every 18 years for the rest of time, but they made several mistakes during the final years under Bill Belichick and now they are paying the price. And it’s going to take a couple of years to get this team back to going to the playoffs. They have one playoff appearances in the past 5 years and there’s a reason for that. And there is a lot to dive into in today’s video and without further ado – let’s begin
And we are starting today’s video by discussing what one of the biggest problems with the 2024 Patriots is and it’s an overall lack of talent. Like every NFL roster – the Patriots obviously have some great players on this team and I am very pleased with their first 2 selections in the 2023 draft in corner Christian Gonzalez and defensive lineman Keion White. Keion is having a great second season as he has over 40 pressures and is one of the few bright spots on this roster. He is tied with Deatrich Wise in leading the team in sacks with 5 – and obviously sacks aren’t everything – but leading the team with 5 sacks in the first 14 games is the start to showing how depleted this team is. They can’t get after the quarterback consistently outside of Keion and when opposing offensive lines can focus in one player – it becomes a lot easier to game plan around schematically speaking. Opposing offensive lines aren’t heading into the week stressing about how they’re going to stop a team with a pass rush like a healthy Steelers unit and basically wonder out loud how are we going to stop TJ Watt, Alex Highsmith, Keanu Benton, AND Cam Hayward from our quarterback getting drilled on any given play. It’s really the opposite. It’s more or less hey guys let’s stop number 99 because nobody else can consistently get after the quarterback. And for reference – 3 of Deatrich Wise’s 5 sacks came against the Bears and Titans offensive line whose offensive lines are pretty bad. Caleb Williams has been sacked the most in the league by far and it doesn’t happen by accident. Will Levis is also in the top 5 in the NFL in getting sacked and what’s even worse about that for Levis is – he’s missed a few games. So Deatrich Wise’s sacks were not exactly going against the mid 90’s Cowboys or the 2020 Eagles offensive lines if you get what I’m saying.
The other two were against the 49ers and Jets if you were wondering. The Patriots can’t consistently generate pressure and they’ve also allowed 25 points or more 7 times in 2024 and as you would probably expect – they are 0-7 in those games. I know the obvious thing may be to say well we knew they were going to be bad in 2024 and that’s fine as long as we see some sort of promise from Drake Maye – and we’ll get to Drake Maye in a minute but here’s where a lot of my concerns lie with the Patriots as to why I am extremely concerned about their future and why I think they are in a pretty bad situation. The most worrisome part to me is that the Patriots unofficially knew that Jerod Mayo was going to be the teams head coach in the post Belichick era for a couple of years. This wasn’t a normal head coaching process where they fire a previous guy and conduct 7 or 8 interviews and narrow it down over the course of a week or two. No.
This was pretty open that Jerod was going to be the guy and we haven’t seen anything promising for New England in 2024 outside of a couple of players here and there. This team has only put up 20 points in a game 5 times this year and we knew it was going to be a long year offensively – but they’re 23rd in points allowed defensively and what I think is one of the most concerning parts about the 2024 Patriots is – they’re 28th in turnovers forced. They allow an average of 5.6 yards per play defensively and opposing quarterbacks have thrown for 22 touchdowns to just 6 interceptions against the Patriots in 2024 and you can see when you watch this team play that they are completely outmatched more often than not. One key thing I want to highlight with the 2024 Patriots is what the expectations were heading into the season. Never in a million years would I have expected Drake Maye to come in and lead this specific offense and this specific supporting cast to 10 wins and to have the week 18 home game against Buffalo be for the division – or for a potential playoff spot – but I was hoping maybe they’d win 6 games and maybe we’d see a couple of good games here and there and really the long good game we’ve seen from the defense – two if you want to include the opener against Cincinnati – was the Bears game in what was one of the lowest of lows for another NFL team. I don’t think Jerod Mayo has what it takes to be an NFL coach and I think we see it every single Sunday.
The Patriots have a big problem at head coach and I think change is needed in a big way. We break everything down in the video below and I hope you enjoy!
