PostGame Thread 2025 OFFICIAL POSTGAME THREAD: Patriots fall 29-13 to the Seahawks

[fnordcircle]

I’m curious to see how much Seattle blitzed after the first half. It felt like a freebie gamble that they were happy to be up ahead on after not being punished for it once. If we had called a single draw or made a quick completion…

Drake was inaccurate but our receivers dropped a few balls that hit them in the hands and when you have so few chances we need guys like Henry and Boutte to catch everything they can get 10 fingers on.

 

[Vindicate]

If Gonzo was the best thing tonight, then was Woodson the 2nd best? We got a steal with him.

Love Woodson as well, very good player tonight.

 

[PatsfanTN]

There was a one play where Maye had a ton of time and just sort of kept inching up into the blocking until he leaned right into a defender who sacked him. I really don't get stuff like that.

Maye is more talented than Darnold, but we probably have a good shot at winning that game if Maye had the same pocket awareness Darnold showed when he was under pressure

Did Darnold have that pocket presence at 23 and in year 2? He damn sure didn’t.

 

[VrabelJr]

I want to keep the 31st pick. Great spot to get a huge upgrade at TE or OL.

 

[mgteich]

29-13 is a disgrace...not sure how I feel about this disgrace....

It was a disgrace after the 3rd when it was 12-0.

 

[ScottishPatriots]

Christian Gonzalez showed once again he's the guy, can't believe there's people out there who want to trade him.

 

[VrabelJr]

It was a disgrace after the 3rd when it was 12-0.

Games where you can’t get a 1st down and games where you can’t make the other offense punt are the hardest to watch.

 

[FCB02062]

I have a serious question for you. The Patriots competed against 32 teams and came in second. You call them an embarrassment.
Can you please describe all of your successes in life that give you this air of superiority?
I’m guessing from your posts you must be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company who built it from the ground to a multi billion dollar international monolith.

Am I right? Please brag about your accomplishments to us.

It's called being a fan...do you know fan is short for? Fanatic. Why do you care? Why do you get your Pats panties in a bunch when people rip the team. Its what fans do.

 

[Ring 6]

I hate this house money argument. There's no guarantees in this league. Every young team that loses early gets told "oh you overachieved and have a bright future". Rarely the case. Marino never went back after his sophmore year, when we beat the Panthers who came out of nowhere, it wasn't the start of something for them. Same for that Seattle team that the Steelers beat or the young Bears team the Colts beat. The Bengals looked like they were building something and then lost in the Super Bowl and now they just feel like a team that stops and starts a lot.

You have to take advantage of the opportunities given to you. Next year we have a harder schedule, no guarantee we stay as healthy, no guarantee we make big improvements. We have to start paying some guys like Gonzalez, Maye is going to start eating up cap space soon. At some point the Chiefs, Ravens, and Bills are all going to bounce back and be much harder outs in the playoffs than the Chargers/Texans/Broncos

There is no such thing as house money.

Every season is its own. What happens next year has nothing to do with what happened this year.
32 teams will be competing to get better relative to each other by competing for all of the resources.
Where you were this year has nothing to do with whether you improve or decline next year ( nor does the direction you appear to heading in). Thr decisions you make next year will determine if you are one of the 16 improvers or 16 decliners.

The concept of an incremental improvement curve comes from the says before free agency when you added 7 or 8 draft choices and the rest of your team remained the same and young players got better while old players dropped off. The NFL now is nowhere near that. As they said tonight we had 30 new players out of 53.

 

[scott99]

One of those performances that could ruin Maye's career. It was that bad

I worry about that as well. He needed to play a flawless game for the Pats to even have a chance, he wasn’t even close to flawless, he was Bledsoe-esque in his first Super Bowl ever. That can definitely hurt a QB mentally.

 

[Vindicate]

Drake was inaccurate but our receivers dropped a few balls that hit them in the hands and when you have so few chances we need guys like Henry and Boutte to catch everything they can get 10 fingers on.

Henry pissed me off tn with his drop. He's a goddamn TE, man, big ass mf'er with a catcher's mitt for hands.

That's what made the Patriots click this season. Every game has receivers getting only a few targets, but catching all of them.

Couldn't manage it tn :/

 

[lancerman]

Did Darnold have that pocket presence at 23 and in year 2? He damn sure didn’t.

No but Sam Darnold needed a fresh start and to leave the team he was with and it wasn't until he was in Minnesota which was sort of primed for a QB to succeed that he actually got things to click.

Maye this year was in a much better situation

 

[JonBonesJones84]

He had 4, 5 seconds a lot tonight. He rarely did anything with it.

This.

They didn’t even attempt to go for it on 4th and short.

C’mon, man.

Even Darnold scrambled when he had opportunities.

 

[fnordcircle]

Christian Gonzalez showed once again he's the guy, can't believe there's people out there who want to trade him.

************, seriously? I've never read that.

Is it the people who watch the NFL convinced that their Madden GM skills could deliver a trophy every year?!

 

[dliverey44]

Let’s keep in mind that this is and has been year 1 of a rebuild. Will they be back in the Super Bowl next year? Unlikely, but they will keep building towards long term success. It is a great first step.

When Vrable came in we were off back to back 4 wins seasons, so he was pretty much starting an entire new program. Vrable and crew did enough with offseason additions to beat bad teams and our schedule was littered with said teams, but we are still talent deficient in several areas and depth. Our QB is 23 and still learning, hopefully this game did not shatter his confidence (I don't think it did).

Next season we will add more talent and now we have film against very good teams that can be used to tweak things. I am absolutely ecstatic about this season and the future.

 

[NE_Zealot]

If we’re going to keep Josh around I at least want to run the same offense from the 2nd Super Bowl run era. Maye gets the ball out in 2.5 seconds or less to a group of 5’10” shifty WRs with YAC ability. Oh yeah get a dominant TE that can block too.

 

[lancerman]

I worry about that as well. He needed to play a flawless game for the Pats to even have a chance, he wasn’t even close to flawless, he was Bledsoe-esque in his first Super Bowl ever. That can definitely hurt a QB mentally.

Honestly this is why I didn't love the Super Bowl 36 comparisons. Yes Brady was green that year. But Brady from day 1 always had incredible pocket presence and took care of the ball. Maye is a gunslinger, which is a fundamentally different type of QB who you just have to accept is going to make a boneheaded play or two and his pocket presence is nowhere near Brady in his first starting year

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Well, in the pregame poll I voted “probably lose but can win if we’re lucky” and that game sadly went how I expected and feared it would. Once I saw the first three offensive plays I was “oh well. We’re only winning this if they force Darnold into turnovers.”

How the hell did Joshie not have anything available to try to work against that. Yes, they were getting a lot of pressure w/o blitzing but they didn’t even seem to try anything to help Maye out. Where were bubble screens? Where were slants?

Though even when Maye had time he was off, sometimes way off.

That’s why I wonder if we’ll hear about some undisclosed injury.

It’s also disappointing that in 4 postseason games they weren’t able to come up with anything to help with the pressure fronts.

 

[Ras-IR Dowling]

I think it's fair. Typically very few teams come back from such a loss in SB. Remember 2015 Seahawks or falcons.

But again we have a young QB with high potential but too many aged veterans who punched above their weight and a schedule that was super lenient for us in regular season that helped mask these gaps .

We had the same gap in post season but weather and crappier QB play by opponents saved us.

We had a defense that rivalled Seahawks but Maye and the offensive line was too offensive and just handed 17 points on a platter to them.

Maye mental clock has to be reset and we need to get younger in WR, TE and Oline . We managed with a patchwork crew. Next season it will be all new crew . So obviously will go down.

And defenses know how to attack Maye. If Maye does not have check down charlie mode next season , he is dead in water.

Mayes checkdown game is lacking atm. However, the play deep in our endzone where he hit Stevenson to avoid a blitz was encouraging. The ability is there it’s just a work in progress.

 

[lancerman]

There is no such thing as house money.

Every season is its own. What happens next year has nothing to do with what happened this year.
32 teams will be competing to get better relative to each other by competing for all of the resources.
Where you were this year has nothing to do with whether you improve or decline next year ( nor does the direction you appear to heading in). Thr decisions you make next year will determine if you are one of the 16 improvers or 16 decliners.

The concept of an incremental improvement curve comes from the says before free agency when you added 7 or 8 draft choices and the rest of your team remained the same and young players got better while old players dropped off. The NFL now is nowhere near that. As they said tonight we had 30 new players out of 53.

Agreed. Ideally this is a good building point and we improve, but that isn't guaranteed at all and other teams make their own moves.