PlayAction Column: Bill Belichick has earned right to fix Patriots’ problems
These days, however, the Bills sometimes or even often win ugly; the Patriots most always play ugly. The Bills have a sack-happy defensive line, tied for the league lead with the Ravens. The Pats have a sad sack quarterback in Mac Jones, who is on as thin ice as his thin-skinned coach.
They both could and likely should be gone at the end of the season.
How Belichick missed the blatant signs that Jones had a ramen noodle arm, and was not a legit NFL quarterback boggles the goggles.
Jones has two more interceptions than touchdowns, is barely throwing for 200 yards per game, and sports a microscopic 74.4 passer rating. His arm and game scares no one except Patriots fans themselves.
And iMac is getting little help from his fellow Patsies.
NE’s best runner, Rhamondre Stevenson, who was very productive his first two seasons, is averaging a trifling nine feet, or 3.0 yards, per carry. The Pats’ top receiver, Kendrick Borne, is 40th in the NFL in yards. Stefon Diggs is No. 3 and Gabe Davis, whom many Bills fans think is an underachiever-receiver, is No. 27.
It went from nobody wants to play the Patriots to nobody wants to play for them. The 2023 Patsies are minus-80 in point differential. The Bills are plus-84.
During the drought, the often-hapless Bills mirrored NE this season, and the Patriots, at least statistically, reflected what the Bills are doing.
And yet, in the last two weeks, the Bills and its fans have been imploding in their own separate stadia. The team is self-destructive with bad calls and flags, and its fan base is self-flagellating with bad calls into talk radio.
The pessimism is masochism, however (arguably) warranted
