No need to watch any more football until February; we know all we need to know already. The Chiefs are cooked. The Ravens will never beat the Bills when it matters. And the Patriots haven\u2019t got a chance of winning another game this season.<\/p>\n
Starting 0-1 is never great, and there\u2019s no denying that New England underwhelmed yesterday. But that\u2019s alright. Plenty of season left, and maybe things aren\u2019t as bleak as they seem.<\/p>\n
1. I would imagine that this loss isn\u2019t what\u2019s bothering folks this morning. Depending on who you talk to, this is a 6-9 win team any way you slice it. But what is probably bothering folks, though, is the way they lost. The Patriots never came out of the locker room at halftime and there were a few questionable coaching decisions that is giving people strong 2024 vibes already.<\/p>\n
2. And seeing as how Week 1 of the 2024 season represented the highlight of the whole year, it\u2019s easy to feel a little down today.<\/p>\n
3. I\u2019ll start with the good, because it\u2019s a relatively short list.<\/p>\n
4. I was actually happy with the pass rush overall. There needs to be more consistency there, but their four sacks on the day would have been enough for the 2nd most in a game all last season. Harold Landry seems to fit it well in the scheme, and the team dialed up a fair number of strong blitzes. Now that pass rush needs to show up all game and not disappear for such long stretches.<\/p>\n
5. Morgan Moses had himself an introduction by lining up across from Maxx Crosby, and considering the caliber of player, I was impressed by Moses\u2019s footwork and lateral mobility.<\/p>\n
6. Kayshon Boutte was the best LSU receiver in the NFL yesterday. A single game does not a season make, but getting a 100-yard day out of a Patriots receiver is more rare than a news story that starts with \u201cFlorida Man\u201d that you\u2019d feel comfortable reading out loud to your kids.<\/p>\n
7. A lot of the stats on how many yards the defense gave up are misleading, as there were a number of chunk plays that came on broken coverage and bad reads. Surrendering chunk plays consistently, especially on 3rd and freaking 20 with time running out to more or less ice the game, is a horrible look, but those are the kind of things that are a lot more forgivable this early in the season. If you see me writing something similar in October, come at me all you want.<\/p>\n
8. The offensive line was much better in pass protection than run blocking, as can be expected. The unit is still new and needs to continue to gel.<\/p>\n
9. We saw RPOs, naked bootlegs, motions to diagnose coverage, and ajustments based on previous mistakes. The Josh McDaniels offense is in there, Peter Banning just waiting to find his inner Bangarang. Hopefully we see those training wheels continue to come off.<\/p>\n
10. I always thought that the word \u201cbangarang\u201d deserved a stronger cultural foothold. Hook is an all-time great movie. But while the movie holds up to this day, I guess the kids were too busy imitating Bart Simpson in 199X to bangarang it up.<\/p>\n
11. Now, on to the bad\u2026<\/p>\n
12. I don\u2019t think that the Raiders are an overly talented team, but they were the best team on the field today by a not-insignificant margin. They made plays when they needed to, picked up yards, and embraced the wildly controversial but obviously effective strategy of playing two halves of football. That\u2019s not what you want to see out of a Patriots team you were hoping to play better than last year.<\/p>\n
13. I don\u2019t want to get too nuts on the lack of discipline that shone through at times, but that was one area of this 2025 unit that I likely had the most unrealistic expectations for. Everything about this offseason, from team building to draft to practices to press conferences, all seemed drastically different from the Jerod Mayo era, and the one area that I was really, really hoping wasn\u2019t going to cost the Patriots games was sloppy penalties and undisciplined play. It\u2019s too early to go too nuts, but I can\u2019t say I\u2019m happy about it.<\/p>\n
14. I think that Will Campbell played fine. He wasn\u2019t awful and he wasn\u2019t spectacular. He had a fine day. Nothing wrong with that.<\/p>\n
15. In what is probably my Overreaction Mondayest overreaction of the year \u2013 Drake Maye is frustrating. When he\u2019s good, he\u2019s great. He extends plays, throws lasers, sees the full field, and commands the offense. But he has also picked up right where he left off last year on poor reads, bad overthrows, missing open guys, and holding the ball too long. That\u2019s something you want to see steadily improve from the first start of your career to the first start of your second season, and it was a lot of the same yesterday.<\/p>\n
16. I also wonder if Josh McDaniels will find a way to cater his offense to Maye\u2019s skillset. Maye seems to be at his best in a moving pocket where he can take some risks and throw it down the field. The death by a thousand cuts offense is an incredible way to control the clock, tire out the defense, put points on the board, and limit scoring opportunities for your opponent, but it also requires a certain kind of QB. I don\u2019t know; I\u2019m overthinking this. Again, it\u2019s Overreaction Monday.<\/p>\n
17. You don\u2019t want to see your rookie kicker shank a 40-yarder to start off his career.<\/p>\n
18. The unit everyone was the most excited about \u2013 the running backs \u2013 did a whole lotta nuthin\u2019 yesterday. And a big part of that was because of fairly atrocious run blocking. That\u2019s one area of the offense that I know is going to improve, but I was just so excited for a grind-em-out opening day win led by a strong rushing attack and an efficient passing game, that maybe I\u2019m feeling a little bitter today.<\/p>\n
19. Note to Coach Vrabel: when you\u2019re doing nothing on offense and you\u2019re down 10 with less than five minutes to play and your defense has been blowing coverages and you aren\u2019t overly confident in getting a quick stop, I\u2019m OK with you going for it on fourth down. I\u2019ll add that the distance doesn\u2019t even matter there, you have my full blessing. Great, good talk.<\/p>\n
20. Where the team goes from here is going to say a lot about what we\u2019re in for this season. I\u2019m not expecting a win down in Miami. But I don\u2019t want to see the Patriots lose like this twice in a row.<\/p>\n
Victory Mondays are always better than Ah Crap We Lost Again Mondays\u2026 but man, am I glad football is back.<\/p>\n