At a recent Super Bowl halftime show, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones told the crowd “We could have played at the first Super Bowl!” He’s right, as the Stones were about four years into their slice of the British Invasion at the time of the inaugural Super Bowl.
Jerod Mayo is now the new head coach of the Patriots. Moving faster than you can say “Rooney Rule”, the Patriots quickly replaced Bill Belichick with their former linebacker and current linebacker coach.
A seismic shift in the Earth occurred on Wednesday with the retirement of Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
Perhaps a bigger one occurred the next day in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
If this is indeed the end of the Bill Belichick Era in Foxborough, it’s possible that Edgar Allan Poe wrote the script.
The Buffalo Bills are nowhere near the championship level team most everyone thought they would be. The biggest telltale factor is that the Bills had four takeaways against the Patriots and won by only six points. In the end, the Bills are clearly better than the Patriots, and held on to win 27-21 on Sunday at Highmark Stadium. The game was not as close as the score would indicate, as the mistake-prone Patriots had their fans yelling in anger for most of the game.
The Patriots were offensively inept for most of the first half, but Denver led only 7-3 at the intermission. Because the Patriots were allowed to hang around, they were eventually able to forge ahead and take a two-score lead into the fourth quarter. The Patriots dropped 20 points on the Broncos in the third quarter alone.
They teased you for a few minutes, but in the end the better team won and the losing team did what they do this year.
New plan. Bailey Zappe starts next year. First draft pick now becomes a tackle.
The Patriots are probably thankful that it was raining all game long. It makes for a better reason for losing than “they were probably tanking”.
What you the Patriot fan should be wondering about right now are basically two things. Did the Patriots subtly play to lose on Sunday? And if they do succeed and draft first next year, who will they take and will it be a quarterback?
The Patriots should be about losing. Play just well enough to compete, but just bad enough to lose.
Despite some good moments from the Patriots in this game, including inducing two turnovers by the Dolphins, the Patriot offense did not make enough plays like they did last week and the Miami offense is way too much for the Patriot defense to handle. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle each caught long touchdown passes as the Dolphins throttled the Patriots 31-17 on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium.
This game had all the familiar story lines of this season, right up until the final drive. And then, all of a sudden, the old winning Patriots came back to Gillette Stadium.
Once again, the Patriots did not have enough material to win a game, and this game was very winnable.
Right now, the Patriots are a bad team. In terms of Patriot history, those of us with long perspectives are starting to get bad flashbacks.