{"id":36876,"date":"2025-05-09T16:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T16:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/36876\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T16:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T16:59:09","slug":"the-top-10-patriots-moments-of-2024-no-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/36876\/","title":{"rendered":"The Top 10 Patriots Moments of 2024: No. 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to another slow period on the NFL Calendar, which means this is a good time to knock off another one of The Top 10 New England Patriots<\/a> Moments of 2024.<\/p>\n

And in case you\u2019re wondering… yes. This is an absolute slog.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve been doing this countdown of the Top Patriots Moments since 2013, and I don\u2019t know if I have it in me to hang it up. I\u2019m also, for better or worse, a completist. Starting something and not finishing it doesn\u2019t sit well with me for some absurd reason, so abandoning this countdown now would have me twitching all season long. If you have zero desire to relive this past season in any capacity and can\u2019t for the life of you figure out why anyone would want to recap these brief glimpses of sunshine amid a whole lot of storm clouds, I certainly don\u2019t blame you. Enjoy the rest of the great Pats Pulpit content, and I\u2019ll see you in August when I pick the Fan Notes back up.<\/p>\n

But for those of you who want to ride it out with me until the bitter end, let\u2019s do this.<\/p>\n

The list so far:<\/p>\n

10<\/a>. Jerod Mayo out, Mike Vrabel in.
9<\/a>. Drake Maye hits Austin Hooper for a 38-yard TD on 4th-and-15 against the Miami Dolphins<\/a>.
8<\/a>. Joey Slye nails a 63-yard field goal to close out the half against the San Francisco 49ers<\/a>.
7.<\/a> A free play gets DeMario Douglas into the end zone vs. the Los Angeles Chargers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At Number 6, we have a nice change of pace from this countdown: a Patriots win.<\/p>\n

6. A nine-sack day helps list the Patriots over the Chicago Bears<\/p>\n

The Chicago Bears<\/a> seem to be one of those teams that is perpetually about to turn a corner and become a playoff contender, but they always find a way to keep driving straight ahead instead of making said turn and end up in a sewer ditch. The 2024 Bears, courtesy of last year\u2019s trade with the Carolina Panthers<\/a>, were able to draft Caleb Williams with the 1st overall pick, hoping the rookie could improve on their 2023 record of 7-10 and become the QB that finally got them back to relevance. There might not have been Super Bowl aspirations in the Chicago area, but Bears fans were fairly excited overall for what the 2024 season promised.<\/p>\n

The Bears ended up finishing 5-12 on the year, good enough for last place in the NFC North. And one of those losses came at the hands of the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n

The 2-7 Patriots marched into Soldier Field on November 10th, 2024 and beat the brakes off of the Bears to the tune of 19-3, a score that isn\u2019t at all indicative of how the game played out. The New England defense, for the first time in a very, very long time, played the way we all thought that they would from the start, not giving anything up and forcing Williams to run for his life right from the opening whistle. Five different Patriots – Jahlani Tavai, Jeremiah Pharms Jr., Keion White, Dell Pettus, and Brenden Schooler \u2014 all registered one sack ,and Anfernee Jennings and Deatrich Wise each had two. Williams was 16 for 30 for just 120 yards on the day, and his nine sacks totaled 51 combined yards lost. His QBR was just 13.1 The Bears only had one drive all game that went for more than 21 yards, a 12-play, 50-yarder that led to their only points of the day. They just couldn\u2019t do a single thing offensively, and not due to their own incompetence (though make no mistake, the 2024 Bears weren\u2019t a good team); the defense just played out of its mind.<\/p>\n

On the flip side of the ball, the New England offense was balanced and efficient. The Pats rushed for 144 yards on the ground and seven different Patriots caught a pass. Drake Maye had one rookie brain fart when he threw a fairly ugly pick, but was solid otherwise. Even Ja\u2019Lynn Polk got in on the action, hauling in one of the two passes thrown his way for two yards and a touchdown \u2014 the only TD of the entire game.<\/p>\n

With the win, the Patriots moved up to 3-7, with wins in two of the last three weeks. And while the season was already over at that point, for the first time since Week 1 of the season, there was some real momentum around Patriots Nation. The young QB was learning and getting better every week, leading five scoring drives on the afternoon, and the defense showed the ability it had been sorely lacking all year up to that point. 2024 was all about finding positive pieces to carry into 2025 and beyond, and this game was exactly that. Plus, with their nine-sack day, the Patriots set a modern-era team record; their only game with more came all the way back in 1963, when the then-Boston Patriots registered 11 against the Oakland Raiders. So it for sure had to find a spot on this list at Number 6. <\/p>\n

Honestly, it should probably be higher, but I\u2019m saving the Top 5 Moments for what I\u2019m hoping will represent future happiness.<\/p>\n

Game highlights here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to another slow period on the NFL Calendar, which means this is a good time to knock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,29,13850,1167,249,1095,2326,2094,6,883,152,208,724,725,24,3444],"class_list":{"0":"post-36876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-front-page","10":"tag-moments","11":"tag-new-england","12":"tag-new-england-patriots","13":"tag-new-england-patriots-opinion","14":"tag-newengland","15":"tag-newenglandpatriots","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-no","18":"tag-of","19":"tag-patriots","20":"tag-pats","21":"tag-pulpit","22":"tag-the","23":"tag-top"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114478944416594667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}