Patriots Pregame Thread Week 13: Colts @ the home of the 6 time Super Bowl Champs

[1960Pats]

I don't know if I even want to watch anymore?

As bad as the product sucked last year, I never ever felt like I didn't want to watch. The team always felt like they were giving their best effort and I was there to support them even though they weren't good. Never a doubt that I'd want to watch every game.

This year, at this stage, it feels like the only guy out there who gives a **** is Drake Maye and maybe a very small handful of other guys. Everyone else seems to be mailing it in, including the coaches. And if they don't care, why should I care?

Feels bad but hard to find the motivation to invest my weekends in this right now.

This team feels almost identical to last year's team. The only difference is this one is slightly better on offense and slightly worse on defense.

I'm having more trouble watching the other games this season. Pretty soon I may be a Pats fan but not an NYFL fan anymore. The other games are pretty boring to me now.

 

[Brotherblues]

This team feels almost identical to last year's team. The only difference is this one is slightly better on offense and slightly worse on defense.

I'm having more trouble watching the other games this season. Pretty soon I may be a Pats fan but not an NYFL fan anymore. The other games are pretty boring to me now.

This year's is immeasurably better at QB and much worse at everything else. Two different parhs to the same level of suck.

 

[Thelonious]

But they're not on the brink of mutiny.

They may be in the brink of indifference, as many fans at least intermittently are.

 

[Real fan 02]

So Siddy Sow Sow is our new RT now??

The Patriots have a depth problem — and it’s making their mistakes more costly

The Patriots gave up 24 points in the second quarter of a 34-15 loss to the Dolphins Sunday, and Demontrey Jacobs struggled from the outset.

www.boston.com

Poor piddy on siddy.. he got bench for Jordan.. a guy who got released.

 

[sb1]

Alex Van Pelt calls out Patriots’ ‘horse crap’ pre-snap penalties

Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt was not happy with the team's pre-snap penalties during Sunday's loss to Miami.

www.boston.com

If AVP is calling them out like this then maybe guys like Jacobs and Lowe ought to be on the hot seat to follow Jordan out the door.

 

[jdlboot14]

Alex Van Pelt calls out Patriots’ ‘horse crap’ pre-snap penalties

Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt was not happy with the team's pre-snap penalties during Sunday's loss to Miami.

www.boston.com

If AVP is calling them out like this then maybe guys like Jacobs and Lowe ought to be on the hot seat to follow Jordan out the door.

We can blame &/or cut each player that regresses and shows terrible mental toughness... But, if the whole team is showing that, then it has to be more about the coaching - lack of detail, acceptance of mediocrity, inability to diagnose error and teach improvement. Really - a general removal of training fundamentals. There's a lot of talk and 1-liners, but little substance.

 

[Salsalife]

Keep the Kaka players. This season needs bodies to throw against the wall and hopefully someone has enough talent to be serviceable.

 

[Foxypats]

Let's see if they clean up the mental errors this week. AVP has called them out, we will see if it makes any difference. They are at home and the home crowd is pretty quiet!!!! No excuse for pre snap penalties.

 

[TommyD4207]

That's a given Gonzo is only one player: Marcus can't cover for **** he's horrible in coverage.

We all have dumb takes from time-to-time.
This one might be Mt. Rushmore-worthy. Good job.

 

[Thelonious]

It is interesting that first Mayo and now AVP have taken the approach of publicly accosting their players for their failed efforts. Whether this is "hard coaching" or "blaming the players for their own coaching failures" I guess is the question. I believe it is the former in AVP's case, the latter in Mayo's.

Mayo, I have noticed, has in recent weeks tended to blame the journalists for promoting the broad ill-perception of the team, dismissing the implications of their questions as "outside noise." This effectively puts him in in the position of on the one hand telling the players they are "soft" and that the team's failures are attributable to lousy execution rather than to lousy coaching, while at the same time contradictorally telling the players it's "us" - players and coaches - against the "haters" among the press and, by extension, the fans, as whose agents or intermediaries the press serves. He has thus put himself into a position where the press, the fans, and the press all have motivation to conceive a resentment and say, "Screw you, you're the one who is "leading" a crap team without an effective culture."

AVP's public criticism is not part of a general policy of blame-shifting. Mayo's is.

The job was handed to Mayo for reasons which in my mind have nothing whatever to do with his competency for the job. His boss found him a charming travel companion. He's a "nice guy." Thinking of his "career in business," I suspect that Mayo's present position may not be the first time he was handed a job for which he was not qualified. Apparently, he assumed that when he was handed the job he would also be handled success in that job. It can't work that way in a genuinely competitive context such as pro football. His failure is obvious, and I suspect neither fans, nor players, nor press will be willing for very much longer to pretend otherwise.

The Pats, as in my mind the nation must do as well, must return to merit as the sole criterion for building a management team. The "hiring process" by which the entire present leadership team was hired was so slipshod, with predictable results, that this means they must start over. This is, I realize, a painful matter in a number of ways, but these are not the sorts of problems which will be solved by "waiting it out and hoping for the best," as some in the press - Breer certainly and to a degree Curran - are presently asserting. This problem requires an honest if painful evaluation and a solution to match..

 

[jdlboot14]

Looks like it'll be another surprise roulette on the OL this week.
Can't see how that will help - especially with Mayo giving the guys Thurs off.
I think Lowe, Brown, Onwenu stay put
And either Robinson, Cotton, Strange play LG
And Sow likely plays RT

It all sounds horrible. What a complete failure.

 

[archstanton543]

Looks like it'll be another surprise roulette on the OL this week.
Can't see how that will help - especially with Mayo giving the guys Thurs off.
I think Lowe, Brown, Onwenu stay put
And either Robinson, Cotton, Strange play LG
And Sow likely plays RT

It all sounds horrible. What a complete failure.

All the players on every team get Thanksgiving off unless they're playing.

 

[Thelonious]

If losing all the remaining games is the price of ridding ourselves of Mayo, Wolf et al, I am perfectly fine with it.

 

[p8ryts]

If losing all the remaining games is the price of ridding ourselves of Mayo, Wolf et al, I am perfectly fine with it.

Mayo and Wolf are whispering to Kraft that they are developing these young players, and they will be great next year.
Don't worry about the optics, the plan is working. Hah!

 

[jdlboot14]

If losing all the remaining games is the price of ridding ourselves of Mayo, Wolf et al, I am perfectly fine with it.

Won't happen. Prepare to be super disappointed. Kraft falls in love hard. He'll even let Mayo convince him to keep all the useless coordinators and superfluous staff he hired, saying "we have the guys inside the building".

WE DON'T.

 

[Thelonious]

Won't happen. Prepare to be super disappointed. Kraft falls in love hard. He'll even let Mayo convince him to keep all the useless coordinators and superfluous staff he hired, saying "we have the guys inside the building".

WE DON'T.

Yep, I'm well aware that my hopes will not likely be realized, which means we will waste a second year of Drake Maye's being worth far more than we have to pay him. If the Krafts don't stop diddling around, given the trend toward an increased say for upper-level players as to where they will play, I suspect Maye might choose to decline the very dubious honor of playing for what may become a failed franchise. I won't blame him.

I've been following Detroit this year and have been reminded what it is like to watch a team with commitment and focus. The comparison with the crap show we have has been shocking. That team shows that being a successful head coach isn;t necessarily about a lot of pseudo woke corporate crap: it is about being a tough-minded leader of men, a standard Mayo will never meet. He's a"nice guy." So what?

 

[jdlboot14]

Yep, I'm well aware that my hopes will not likely be realized, which means we will waste a second year of Drake Maye's being worth far more than we have to pay him. If the Krafts don't stop diddling around, given the trend toward an increased say for upper-level players as to where they will play, I suspect Maye might choose to decline the very dubious honor of playing for what may become a failed franchise. I won't blame him.

I've been following Detroit this year and have been reminded what it is like to watch a team with commitment and focus. The comparison with the crap show we have has been shocking.

True.
The fact of the matter is - Pats need to overhaul their OL & DL/LB.
If we dump $100M into the trenches, we'll look a lot better immediately.
WR's will suddenly look better, RB's will return to form, secondary will solidify. It's fundamental football.
That's how Detroit turned around.

 

[Thelonious]

True.
The fact of the matter is - Pats need to overhaul their OL & DL/LB.
If we dump $100M into the trenches, we'll look a lot better immediately.
WR's will suddenly look better, RB's will return to form, secondary will solidify. It's fundamental football.
That's how Detroit turned around.

I think so as well. I understand the importance f WR's and that having at least decent WR's will really help Drake, but I think the O-line does ideally come first. I think it more likely a suitable WR can be found in trade/free agent than an O tackle, say, as well. One problem is that this is apparently not a great draft for o-linemen, so it may turn out that WR would be the best option. I hope not. I still think the team would be wise until there is at least a decent o-line in place to wait on the WR. If not they may find themselves with a "proven" - i.e. older WR - who will age out before the team can really make use of him. The bottom line is that the team need all sorts of things. I have no confidence in Wolf to figure it all out. As for Mayo, bad as he is, if I had choice (which I don't, lol) and could fire only one guy immediately, it would be Wolf. There really isn't much of a roster to coach anyway, so maybe another year with a bumbling HC would not really do all that much harm. That doesn't mean I'd rather go for the clean sweep, but as you say, that will not likely come about.

 

[PScottman]

If not they may find themselves with a "proven" - i.e. older WR - who will age out before the team can really make use of him.

If, as is being postulated by many here, this is a significant to complete rebuild across almost 70% of the position groups (OL, DL, WR, LB, S, CB - leaving out basically just QB, RB, TE) - does "aging out" matter? You can't flip 70% of a roster in even TWO seasons.

So getting a skill position stud (whether WR or TE) that's older simply continues Maye's development even if they have to be replaced in two to three years while you try to replace a significant portion of the entire team.


BREAK --
I remain pretty confident that there is middle class talent on the Patriots with a mix of coaching and culture further diminishing their visible capabilities, consistency, and overall development. They wouldn't have even won one game this year if there wasn't. Meaning that if you go after a mix of 2 studs (one offense skill, one defense skill - pass rusher, LB or FS) in free agency plus 2 or more known free agent middle class G or C with a low injury history on the OL, then draft the LT in the first round (rest of draft BPA regardless of position unless significant trade up available to get a blue chip skill player) - are they a playoff team(not likely, less likely with the current coaching staff) - no, but they are significantly improved.

Same logic come off-season 2026 with targets based on how the first year's efforts panned out.

 

[PatsFan2]

Let's see if they clean up the mental errors this week. AVP has called them out, we will see if it makes any difference. They are at home and the home crowd is pretty quiet!!!! No excuse for pre snap penalties.

Wanna bet on it??