i am not a big curran fan anymore after his whole brady diatribe vs pats but he is spot on with this
Curran: Boring and undisciplined isn't a great combo, Patriots
It wasn't just that the Patriots lost Thursday night. It was *how* Bill Belichick's club lost -- with more unforced errors and sluggish offensive play -- that has Tom E. Curran wondering when then other shoe will drop.
www.nbcsports.com
Through 12 games, the Patriots have 21 offensive touchdowns. Swear to God, they are going to be worse than the Cam Newton-led 2020 Patriots. No lie.
That team with a quarterback who couldn’t throw anymore had 27 touchdowns at this point and finished the season with 32. In 16 games. With Damiere Byrd, N’Keal Harry and second-year Jakobi Meyers as the main wideouts and 13-catch Ryan Izzo as the lead tight end.
Mark it down: This year’s offense in 17 games won’t find the end zone as much as that one did in 16. With an offense that’s second in positional spending at wide receiver ($35.2M) and first -- FIRST -- at tight end ($23.7M). Just to tie off the comparison, the Patriots' 2020 wideout spending was 27th in the league and tight ends was 32nd.
How in God’s name can you go the WRONG WAY on the first third down of the game and fumble the football? They did. They found a way.
In the next 27 minutes of play they gave up a third-and-11, saw Trent Brown whistled for holding, saw Rhamondre Stevenson fumble (Patriots recovered), got called for DPI on a third-and-9, allowed a 28-yard run, committed a penalty during a kickoff return, lost a yard on first-and-10 from their own 9, followed that by getting called for a hold and an intentional grounding on the same play, took a delay-of-game on a punt, failed to touch a receiver who was on the ground, quit on a third-and-goal play in the end zone allowing a touchdown, went three-and-out, went three-and-out again, allowed a 41-yard touchdown bomb to Stefon Diggs, saw that wiped out by penalty (YAY!), strip-sacked Josh Allen (DOUBLE YAY!!!) then situationally mismanaged -- for the second week in a row -- the end of the first half.
The Patriots are a tentative, situationally dumb team. They don’t have enough offensive coaches. They don’t have enough offensive coaching acumen. A portion of the appeal with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge is that they came cheap (both are still collecting from the teams that fired them), were available and aren’t about to go running off to new jobs.