Thursday Patriots Notebook 5/16: News and Notes
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Some Patriots news and notes for this morning:
The roadmap for the upcoming regular season was released league-wide on Wednesday night, with the NFL announcing the full slate of games this fall for every team.
When it comes to the Patriots 2024 schedule, it’s certainly going to be a grind given how it shakes out.
While there were some rumors that the team might open the season down in Tennessee, the Patriots are instead kicking things off on the road in Cincinnati. That will set up a tough match-up against the Bengals, and the overall slate certainly doesn’t do them any favors.
They play a Thursday night game early in the season in Week 3, with a trip to MetLife against Aaron Rodgers and the Jets coming off a short week, as it follows their Week 2 home opener against the Seahawks.
The only positive is the fact that game gives them a 10 day break before they have to fly to San Francisco, with a bout against the 49ers finishing off the month of September.
One of the more frustrating aspects of this season comes following their game in England against the Jaguars, with the Patriots not receiving a bye in Week 8. Instead, they’ll have no time to recuperate, immediately having to turn around and prepare for a rematch the next weekend against the Jets at Gillette Stadium.
The month of November is certainly brutal. They play three of those four games on the road, all of which come against some pretty good teams. They play the Titans in Tennessee on 11/3, followed by a trip to Chicago the following Sunday (11/10). After that, they come home for one weekend to take on the Rams, before heading down to South Florida to finish off the month against the Dolphins in Miami.
December is no easy road, either. They play the Colts at home to kick things off in Week 13, and then finally get their bye week in Week 14 (12/8). That certainly comes quite late, which doesn’t really offer up a great time for New England to transition to Drake Maye, should the young quarterback find himself ready to go at some point this season.
The Patriots bye week fell during Week 11 last season (11/19) coming off their loss in Germany against Indianapolis, and in 2022 it came during Week 10 (11/13), which again followed a match-up against the Colts (a 26-3 home win). The last time it fell in Week 14 was in 2021, which finally gave the club a break after the Patriots had won seven-straight.
Unfortunately, it also killed their momentum as they finished things off losing three of their final four games, along with falling to the Bills in the Wild Card round in the postseason.
Meanwhile, coming off the bye, they then head out to Arizona (12/15), and then finally face Buffalo for the first time in 2024. That one comes on the road on 12/22, which should be a tough environment, both with the crowd and potentially the weather at that point of the season. That game could also potentially have some implications for the Bills, who will likely be battling for either the Division or fighting for a top spot in the Conference.
After that they’ll play out the rest of the season at home, with the Chargers coming in to finish off December, with their season finale seeing them battle the Bills one final time at Gillette Stadium. That one might again hold some significance for New England to play spoiler against their Division rivals.
For now, they only play one night game (the Thursday night game in Week 3 against the Jets), with eleven games falling into the 1:00pm slot. They’ll play another nationally-televised game against Jacksonville at Wembley Stadium in Week 7 (9:30am start), but aside from that, they’ll spend the season growing behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.
That could change, as the schedule could certainly be flexed depending on how things play out. But until then, the focus will be on Jerod Mayo’s club trying to battle its way back into contention against what Sharp Football Analysis has ranked as the second-most difficult schedule this season, with Pittsburgh holding the top spot.
The question most people are likely going to be wondering is obviously when Maye might see the field, albeit the schedule certainly doesn’t set up a smooth transition.
One possibility could be following the London game, with a match-up against the Jets at Gillette on October 27th being a possibility. That game in front of the home crowd would be a ramp-up for their November run, with Maye then heading out on the road to battle two-straight young quarterbacks in what’s expected to be Will Levis and Caleb Williams when the club faces Tennessee in Chicago in Weeks 9 and 10.
It’s also possible that Maye instead gets the nod ahead of their trip to England, with the Patriots showcasing their young QB for their European fans against the Jaguars.
But overall, there’s no real great time to really transition him into the line-up, especially given how late in the year their bye week falls.
At the same time, another interesting storyline to follow will be the performance of Jacoby Brissett. It’s entirely possible that given the young group of receivers they have, along with what should again be a solid defense, Brissett may get them into a position where they’re winning games and have them in a spot where they could wait until Week 14 before Maye sees action.
After all, this is a team that – as bad as they were last year – had an opportunity to easily flip several of those games with competent quarterback play, given how well they played defensively. Their 4-13 finish could have easily become 7-10, with their midseason consecutive 10-6 (Colts), 10-7 (Giants), and 6-0 (Chargers) losses being among the three most frustrating in 2023. Add in their 20-17 loss to the Commanders or the ugly finale against the Jets, and things certainly could have ended differently.
Fortunately – which is really the only way you can think about it at this point – things played out the way they did and now the Patriots ended up with a talented young quarterback to build around. Eliot Wolf and the scouting department also appear to have found two pretty solid receivers in Ja’Lynn Polk and Javon Baker to hopefully give the offense the boost it was sorely missing last season.
However, the only question is when those three might finally be on the field together, outside of whatever time they see in preseason. Until then, that will be the thing everyone will be wondering, which will certainly make this upcoming year interesting.
It appears Jerry Jones was fond of Robert Kraft’s The Dynasty documentary and appears ready to make his own. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Netflix is teaming up with Skydance Sports and NFL Films for an upcoming 10-part documentary about Jones and “his journey in transforming the Dallas Cowboys franchise.” Another reminder that Jones is certainly a huge fan of himself, with the number of episodes and the timing certainly being curious. Considering Dallas hasn’t sniffed the big stage in nearly 30 years, it’s just bizarre. … A funny story mentioned by a member on our forum with the username “Stu Pidassle” who pointed out the time where Drew Bledsoe and his brother would call the bank to check his balance after he received his signing bonus. The article he’s citing, which is from 1995 and is still available on the NY Daily News’ website, had the former quarterback recalling having “negative $8” in his account, which is what made the dramatic change so ironic. Bledsoe also had a unique perspective at the time, noting that both his parents were schoolteachers and that given their importance on society, it made little sense. “My parents are both schoolteachers,” said Bledsoe at the time. “There’s no way I can sit here and tell you my job benefits people more than what they do. But yet in my first year playing football, I made 200 years worth of my dad’s salary. My dad and I figured it out one time. It’s unfathomable. It’s really twisted and a reflection of our society and what we view is important. The way I deal with it is I make sure part of what I get goes back to the community one way or the other.” … In case you missed it, the video of a parody the Patriots ran ahead of the schedule release based off the movie Good Will Hunting was pretty hilarious. It saw Julian Edelman star as Matt Damon’s character, while Rob Gronkowski played Ben Affleck and Ernie Adams played Robin Williams’ character. Also making a nice cameo was Evan Lazar, who played the preppy Harvard kid that got embarrassed in the infamous “How do you like them apples?” scene. If you haven’t seen it, you’ll definitely want to check it out. … former NFL wideout Plaxico Burress apparently has his own take on Jerod Mayo’s comment about Maye. After Mayo mentioned last weekend that Maye still “has a lot to work on,” Burress took that as a bad sign. “That doesn’t sound good to me if I’m Jerod Mayo and the fans for the New England Patriots,” Burress said during an appearance on “The Carton Show” earlier this week. “Basically what you’re saying is that, ‘We might have drafted the wrong guy. We are just going to paint this picture right now. He may not be as good as we thought he was coming out.’” That seems a little bit of an extreme take, but take it from where it came from. … Tom Brady’s debut on TV will see him kick off his broadcasting career in the booth for the game between the Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns during the league’s opening weekend. That one is set for Sunday, September 8th at 4:25pm, with Brady joining play-by-play announcer, Kevin Burkhardt.
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Yeah, I’m going to pay attention to the take from the guy who shot himself in the foot.
really sucks that the NFL didn’t string the SF and Arizona games together… would have been good to get the left coast swing done in one fell swoop.