Lotta talks Sunday night about fighting until the end. Brave. Gravelly. Never say die.
(raising his hand shyly…)
How to fight at the beginning?
The Patriots are 7-8, losing in four of their last five meetings after their 22-18 Christmas Eve loss to the Bengals. The final score and post-match comments about the draw masked reality. The Patriots were in the game only because of bad luck.
After their most inane 30 minutes of football this season beat them 22-0, 12 of the Patriots’ 18 points came on highly unlikely plays. The first was Marcus Jones’ 69-yard interception return when Joe Burrow threw it directly at him. The other was the 48-yard ricochet touchdown on a third-and-29 that bounced off the hands of a gentleman named Scotty Washington and into the hands of Jakobi Meyers.
I don’t want to be a piece of human coal. There were cases of high competence. The return of Marcus Jones was sublime. Matthew Judon Forced fumble on Ja’Marr Chase was huge play at a critical time. Kendrick Bourne and McJones show — for a chilly afternoon – the kismet we saw in 2021 when Bourne had 55 catches and 925 scrimmage yards.
Perry: Bourne proves what he is capable of a little too late
But the Patriots are now the kind of team the Bengals were, while the Bengals are in the class the Patriots have called home for two decades.
BAfter the game, Urrow was asked if it was the “championship teams should be able to win if you’re going to accomplish what you want to accomplish” kind of game.
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Burrow’s response?
“Yeah, you could say that. I would also say teams that want to win a Super Bowl put them away a little earlier.”
No disrespect intended by Burrow, but he was there. It was there the same way you could hear it when the Patriots were approaching a win like the one Cincy got. A “we should have won by 30 and not sweat against a team like that” vibe.
The 2022 Patriots have earned the disrespect.
Sunday’s departure was inexcusable. And the end was unfortunately predictable. I don’t know the exact moment when the Patriots became a “they’ll probably screw this up in the end” kind of team. But any argument that they wouldn’t would not stand up to the evidence submitted over the past two weeks.
Against Vegas, a historically horrible play sealed the loss. This week was the most recent pedestrian escape by Rammondre Stevenson. In both cases, the explanation was “trying to do too much”.
I can’t question Stevenson’s decision to keep his legs moving. He always does that. And his forward progress was not only stopped, he was pushed back. The problem was the safety of the ball. Perhaps a case of being a bit too frantic.
Why would a guy get frantic and try too hard to make a play? Because he knows opportunities are fleeting. Do you think the Patriots would score a touchdown if Stevenson hadn’t fumbled? After the circus you saw last week when the Patriots scored the opening goal at Raiders 2? Knowing that the Patriots are by far the worst team in the NFL in the red zone and that they are 30th in the league in goals to be reached (57.14%)?
I’m not saying those numbers were dancing like candies in Stevenson’s head. I say that a propensity to melt individually or to “overdo it” arises when a player lacks confidence in himself or in general. That lack of confidence was hard-earned through spring, minicamp, training camp, preseason and 14 games.
The Patriots don’t know what they’re doing on offense. Submitted for evidence? They lost tight end Hunter Henry on their third offensive play when he collided with Jonnu Smith. It wasn’t the call of the game. They later lost Smith when he and Bourne regrouped and Mac Jones fired into the white mass of humanity resulting in Smith being double hit .
As for the defensive attaboys? Go on.
After the second game, the Patriots burned a timeout on defense, apparently because they didn’t have the right people on the field.
Two plays later, Cincinnati was in the end zone. This Was the team’s record level five days after the team’s loss in the most embarrassing way imaginable against the Las Vegas Raiders?
Apparently.
My friend CBS Boston’s Michael Hurley Noted at halftime that the Patriots went 20 plays without kneeling. One went for 29 yards. Went for 11 (before halftime, barely counts). One went for 9. One for 6. Nine had gone for zero or negative yards.
After two drives, Burrow was 9 for 9 for 121 and two touchdowns. The Bengals had 142 yards of offense. The Patriots had six. The Patriots’ response was another three-and-out offensive.
The Patriots weren’t ready at first. They weren’t good enough in the end. A bit like the 2022 season.
The Patriots are now 1-4 since Thanksgiving and the only victory came in Arizona when Kyler Murray tore his anterior cruciate ligament during the Cardinals’ first practice. This Patriots team has — like the 2019, 2020 and 2021 editions — steadily gotten worse over the season and saved its worst football for December.
They have a little Bengali.
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