Bob George's Archive:

Mac Jones began his Patriot career with an exceptional, not perfect, performance on Sunday at Gillette Stadium in front of live fans for the first time since January 2020.

Cam Newton took some reps and looked great. Mac Jones took some reps and looked great.

The Patriots have a strong name, and now once again seem to have a strong football team to go along with it.

What actually happened was somewhat comparable to Vince Wilfork falling to 21 in 2004.  Alabama quarterback Mac Jones, who grabbed a ton of national spotlight as he led the Crimson Tide to still another national championship three months ago, somehow was available at 15.  The Patriots wasted very little time in drafting Jones, thereby immediately invigorating all of Patriot Nation. 

It took only 55 years for the NFL to get its first Super Bowl team to be playing in its home stadium.

The Patriots at times looked beaten down and dispirited.  They were mostly in zone defense packages and didn’t show a lot of zeal in playing the Buffalo receivers tight, especially after falling further and further behind. 

The most disappointing element of Sunday’s loss at Miami was that the game was winnable until the very end, and the Patriots didn’t have the material to pull it off.

The Patriots are not eliminated from the playoffs, but their chances certainly don’t look good after Thursday night’s loss.

The 2001 Patriots were 5-5, and came up with a rallying cry:  It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.

A walkoff field goal did happen.  Just not by the Arizona Cardinals.

2020 will play out somehow, leagues will decide their champions, and these teams and schools will get at least some money for their trouble.  But what does football do moving forward?  If this pandemic is still going on in the fall of 2021, what then?

Whomever told you things like the Houston Texans having the worst run defense in the league, see how much holiday punch they were drinking.

Yogi Berra, the baseball equivalent of the recently deceased Boston area comic Norm Crosby, once said this of baseball:  “In baseball, you don’t know nuthin’.”

The Buffalo fans can stop whining now.  You finally beat the Patriots at home.

Brady left the Patriots at the end of the 2019 season, and now those three Super Bowls and four appearances seem more like a bad thing and not a good thing.