EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Bill Belichick spent all week dodging questions concerning the identification of his beginning quarterback as a result of that was the one sport he may win.
Football?
Forget it.
After dropping Sunday’s 10-7 stinker in New York, Belichick is now the face and architect of the NFL’s worst staff. The Patriots are 2-9, a byproduct of 4 years of roster rot and mismanagement; a group of ill-coached misfits, the very best of whom have regressed beneath Belichick’s watch.
How else do you clarify the Patriots dropping to the staff with the NFL’s worst level differential? Or falling to the one franchise with a bottom-six offense, protection and particular groups by DVOA? Or succumbing to an undrafted rookie quarterback who couldn’t win a beginning job at Syracuse, lives at residence and doesn’t fold his personal laundry or prepare dinner his personal meals?
And but that rookie quarterback, Tommy DeVito, was unquestionably the very best passer on the sphere Sunday.
Mac Jones couldn’t even make it to the third quarter, getting benched for a fourth time in 11 video games. Bailey Zappe was no swaggering, six-foot savior off the bench. Just an overconfident peashooter with a penchant for staring his receivers down like each cross play is love at first learn.
Sure, superior Giants weapons and training buoyed DeVito. But the child didn’t screw it up. And that was the sport plan each groups labored from Sunday: suck rather less and survive.
To wit: Belichick punted from the Giants’ 37-yard line within the first quarter as a substitute of risking a turnover on downs which may give New York middling discipline place. He hoped DeVito and Co. would as a substitute crumble backed towards their very own purpose line. They didn’t.
The Giants did, nonetheless, nail their gimme fourth-quarter discipline purpose try, whereas Pats rookie kicker Chad Ryland whiffed from 35 yards to choke the sport away within the closing seconds. The Patriots additionally fumbled 3 times, identical to the Giants. But their quarterbacks fired three interceptions to DeVito’s zero.
Just spectacular self-destruction.
In truth, the very best factor Jones did Sunday was take a delay of sport penalty that preceded a botched snap on the Patriots’ opening drive. After that?
He missed his first six downfield throws exterior the numbers. His final misfire discovered Giants rookie nook Deonte Banks, certainly one of three defenders in an space Jones hurled a panicky cross as a result of — you guessed it — he sniffed a touch of stress. Jones threw one other interception contained in the pink zone at linebacker Bobby Okereke, which Okereke returned again to the Patriots’ 26-yard line.
Wouldn’t , the Giants scored their solely landing off that mistake.
Bill Belichick’s solutions about Patriots’ QB scenario solely create extra questions
At the top of the primary half, the Patriots let Jones open a 2-minute drill by skying a bomb down the sideline that hung excessive sufficient a roaming security almost snatched it for the Giants’ third decide. Then, offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien known as a run to play it secure. The Giants stuffed it, and known as a timeout.
Yet that additional time wasn’t sufficient for Jones and the Patriots to align correctly on the subsequent play, in order that they known as timeout to keep away from a penalty. Then Jones absorbed a strip sack in what could also be his closing snap for the franchise.
Zappe’s scoring drive to begin the second half wasn’t even idiot’s gold. He simply held the wheel of an offense O’Brien had put into cruise management, alternating between display passes and hand-offs all collection. Even that wasn’t sufficient to maintain him on the highway.
Zappe crashed with a fourth-quarter interception that he may as effectively have hand-delivered. But all of us knew who Zappe was. We all knew what this sport was.
In the primary six minutes alone, these bumbling basement-dwellers mixed for a fumble, two drops, one muffed punt, a delay of sport penalty and a botched snap. Pathetic.
Searching for solutions, Belichick mumbled about turnovers within the opening assertion of his press convention. He stated the identical factor two months in the past.
Patriots rookie receiver Demario Douglas dominated out with head damage
“Can’t turn the ball over,” Belichick stated after the Week 2 loss to Miami, explaining the Patriots’ sluggish begins.
“Poor ball security on offense, turned the ball over too many times,” he supplied Sunday.
Belichick will not be reaching his gamers. There is not any resolution besides hurry up and wait till the offseason. The teaching is the teaching, and the expertise is the expertise.
One-quarter of the Patriots’ lively roster is comprised of the next gamers: Alex Austin, Jake Andrews, Chris Board, Pharaoh Brown, Cody Davis, JaMychal Hasty, Vederian Lowe, Conor McDermott, Ty Montgomery, Jeremiah Pharms Jr., Sam Roberts, Jalen Reagor and Shaun Wade.
How a lot of these gamers would earn a roster spot on a mean staff? Four? Two? One? Maybe none?
If your reply is none, meaning one out of each 4 Patriots would in any other case be on a apply squad or the road have been it not for Belichick. If you imagine in a different way, ask what number of different NFL groups would swap rosters with the Patriots proper now. That reply is zero.
What is their energy? How do they win? It’s not protection, and even gamers comprehend it.
“We gave up 10 points, and lost the game two weeks in a row,” Pats security Adrian Phillips informed the Herald. “So now, we’ve gotta give up zero.”
So this week, ignore any beginning quarterback storylines weighing Jones versus Zappe. Belichick’s guessing sport distracted us from the very fact his solely choices lie within the NFL’s worst quarterbacks room. There wasn’t, and not is, any materials distinction between Jones or Zappe, as we noticed on Sunday.
That loss additionally pressured us to face a good harsher fact: the Patriots are actually the NFL’s worst staff.
And no quantity of ducking, dodging or deflecting ought to distract us from that.
Source: www.bostonherald.com