FOXBORO — For the following 5 and a half weeks, Bill Belichick will proceed standing for press conferences on Wednesday.
He’ll stand his floor, defiant and dismissive as his program crumbles round him; a Redwood blowing in a hurricane.
Later on Wednesday, the Patriots will observe. Then they’ll observe once more, a minimum of a few times, to shut the week. And quickly sufficient, they’ll shuttle off for game-day journey.
Come Sunday, the gamers will consider, in opposition to all odds, hope and sense of actuality, they need to win. But everyone knows how sufficient of these video games will finish to know the way this season ends.
The Patriots are fated to droop to a 2-15, 3-14 or 4-13 end. Once they’re performed mud-wrestling the Jets in a regular-season finale solely a coach’s mom might love, it’s on to 2024.
Until then, what are they taking part in for?
Unofficially, the Pats’ postseason probabilities have been pronounced lifeless final month. Those odds will obtain their final rites Sunday if the Pats lose, and the Steelers, Colts and Browns all win.
That’s proper. In Week 13, the Patriots are already on the doorstep of postseason elimination.
Beyond that, it appears to be delight and paychecks; the names on the again of the jerseys, not the entrance. There isn’t any collective purpose anymore, no dream, nor tradition, powering this workforce.
Players acknowledge their particular person tape from these upcoming video games will act as an interview for his or her subsequent roster spot. Assistant coaches will quickly have their brokers inquiring and angling for different jobs subsequent season, in the event that they haven’t already. Even front-office members should start forecasting their very own futures, as they undertaking participant efficiency throughout the league and within the faculty ranks.
Earlier this month, Robert Kraft believed it may not come to this. He thought the Patriots might reset their season in Germany, dealing with an impotent Colts workforce per week after Mac Jones threw for 220 yards in a close to loss to Washington that got here two weeks after an upset of the Bills. Kraft was incorrect.
And but, it wasn’t loopy to then anticipate the bye may present that reset. Not for a playoff run, however to recharge a shell-shocked 2-8 workforce. After an additional week of relaxation and restoration, the Patriots ought to beat the worst workforce within the league, proper? Right?!
That workforce, in fact, was the Giants, who as a substitute pulled a house upset final Sunday. That day revealed for all to see that Jones’ confidence was shot. The locker room’s perception in him can be gone, as reported right here weeks in the past.
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Allow Belichick, taking part in armchair psychologist Wednesday, to not directly clarify how that is the case with a solution he supplied in regards to the workforce’s kicking state of affairs.
“Confidence is something that comes internally, and it comes when you have success. So, you can talk about it all you want, and there’s maybe some merit to that, but, in the end, you get confidence when you do something successfully, and then you’re confident you can repeat that success,” he stated.
“Whether that’s in games, that’s in practice, there are ways to try to construct that. But in the end, execution is the only way you have any genuine confidence.”
As the NFL’s quarterback chief in turnover-worthy performs, interception price and benchings, Jones has no success to maintain his confidence. He has undermined himself, his offense and workforce. The identical goes for Belichick, and his capability to construct a winner.
The Patriots have now suffered three shedding seasons in 4 years, throughout which era their roster slowly hollowed out beneath his watch. There are two, possibly three, tentpole gamers presently on the roster to hold the Pats into the long run; a future possible with out Belichick.
Rumors and hypothesis about the place Belichick will coach in 2024 reached the locker room way back. Of course change is coming from up high, the place Kraft is enduring the one 2-9 begin of his tenure in a season that guarantees extra ache.
If the top coach and every little thing about his program feels unsafe, why should not everybody else within the constructing defend themselves by keeping track of the long run?
Until the offseason, it is all hurry up and wait.
See you again on Wednesday.
Source: www.bostonherald.com