Hurley: The higher end of Patriots season projections is now very possible

BOSTON -- The "moral victory" debate is childish.

Somewhere in the rah-rah, macho man culture within the sport of professional tackle football, we've abandoned the ability to analyze, assess, and ultimately reach some conclusions based on what we're seeing. It's win or lose, black or white, happy or sad. No in-between, no nuance, no nothing.

If you find positive parts from a loss, you're a loser. If you harp on concerning trends in a win, you're ... also a loser.

It's dumb.

That's why, if you watched Sunday's game between the Patriots and Eagles and didn't have your perspective on the 2023 season changed, then you must not have been paying attention.

This Patriots team can be pretty good. Better than most of us envisioned.

Now, things haven't changed to the point where we're charting out a course to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. They still don't have quite that level of offensive talent, so we won't be losing complete perspective on the state of the season.

Still, if you looked at the Patriots on Sunday -- and in particular, if you looked at two critical areas -- then you saw a team take what we believe to be an elite, championship-caliber team to the 60th minute of a football game. One fewer mistake, one more tapped toe, one better coaching decision, and the Patriots likely would have won the game.

Obviously, they made those mistakes, and those toes weren't a-tapping, and their record shows 0-1 after a week of action. But the issues on display were largely correctable, and looking forward, it's now a lot easier to envision some potential L's flipping to W's between now and Jan. 7.

A double-digit win total now looks like an achievable goal.

The two key areas, from one man's perspective, came from the quarterback play in an uncomfortable pocket and from a defensive unit facing a highly potent offense.

On the former, Mac Jones was playing behind an offensive line that included rookies Atonio Mafi and Sidy Sow in the guard spots and Calvin Anderson -- who barely played football this summer while dealing with an illness -- at right tackle. Mac looked unbothered. 

Mafi got a 38.5 grade from Pro Football Focus, ranking 61st out of 65 guards. Sow was even worse, with a 28.8 grade, which ranked 64th out of 65. Calvin Anderson was only moderately better at right tackle, with a 56.7 grade that ranked 49th out of 65 tackles. Trent Brown was average, ranking 24th out of 65 tackles, while David Andrews was good. But the overall offensive line picture was a mess. And Jones -- with a huge assist to Bill O'Brien -- minimized the damage.

The third-year quarterback was undeterred by the league's best defensive line bearing down on him, as he wiggled around the pocket to create enough space to turn in his first 300-yard, three-touchdown passing performance. The Eagles registered two sacks and seven QB hits, and Jones was hurried 21 times -- seven more than any other quarterback in Week 1. He still turned in a performance that was very good -- and likely good enough to win if the aforementioned toes of Kayshon Boutte had kicked up some rubber pellets late in the game (or earlier in the game, for that matter).

With Cole Strange and Mike Onwenu due to return sooner than later, the offensive line play will improve. Expect the quarterback play to improve with it.

The defensive performance, meanwhile, speaks for itself. Jalen Hurts looked ordinary, or perhaps a bit worse. He threw for just 170 yards and looked lost with the ball in his hands. Some of that could be chalked up to a lack of preseason work under a new offensive coordinator, no doubt, but the Patriots were making plays across the board. That should not be discounted. Rookies Christian Gonzalez and Keion White looked like they belong, Jabrill Peppers looked like a hard-hitting player in the prime of his career, the run defense was stout and disciplined, and the secondary was flying around the field. The Eagles mustered just 251 yards of offense, fewer than any single game last season. 

That reflects well on New England, and that's just an assessment of the Patriots in a vacuum. League-wide, things might have changed a bit, too.

Certainly within the division, Aaron Rodgers going down just a few minutes into the Jets' season brings their ceiling down a whole lot. Zach Wilson is, quite simply, not a quarterback who can lead a team to wins more often than not. For every positive play he can make with his special athleticism, he makes two (or three) back-breaking plays that will ultimately sink the Jets. A quarterback upgrade could help, but those are hard to come by on the open market in September. For now, the Jets will have to endure seeing Wilson run backward 40 yards every third snap before either throwing an interception or setting up a punt.

And if the Bills are hitting their overdue dip back to earth -- which they looked like they were hitting in Week 1, at least -- then the scope of the AFC East has certainly changed. At the very least, a 3-3 split for the Patriots against divisional opponents this season has gone from an aspirational dream to a distinct possibility. 

Outside of the divisional games, Sunday's performance was encouraging enough to believe two things: One, the Patriots can and should win the "winnable games" on their schedule. And secondly, they look capable of pulling off some victories that looked like they'd be impossible as recently as Sunday at 5 p.m., when they trailed 16-0 and looked lost.

Playing the win-loss prediction game is always a dangerous game, but indulge it for one moment. Let's say the Patriots go 3-3 in the division and "take care of business" against New Orleans, Las Vegas, Washington, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh. That puts them at eight wins with five other games to try to add to the win total.

Though they were a playoff team a year go, the Giants had a historically bad Week 1; we don't know what they'll be in late November, with the Patriots coming off their bye. But they might be bad.

The Broncos may be better under Sean Payton, but with a loss to the Raiders already under their belt ... maybe they won't.

The Chargers' defense looked atrocious Sunday, and while Patrick Mahomes is still Patrick Mahomes, that K.C. offensive arsenal has taken a severe hit. The Chiefs will be beatable at times this season. Meanwhile the Cowboys certainly still look to be an imposing opponent.

Still, take those five games and cook up any record for the Patriots that you'd like. You're probably not going 0-5. A 3-2 showing may be the farthest extreme toward that end, but even a 2-3 record -- assuming the rest of the schedule goes according to plan -- is enough to get the team to 10 wins.

Obviously, one or two of the assumed wins can turn into losses. But the point is, if your range of wins for the Patriots was somewhere in the 7-10 range entering the season, you should have seen enough during Week 1 -- in Foxboro and around the league -- to firmly believe the high end of that scale is very much in reach for Bill Belichick's team.

That may not get your motor running the way it used to when an AFC title game trip was a given and a Super Bowl trip was a biennial event. Understood. And the presence of a retired Tom Brady at Gillette on Sunday was a reminder that those days are long gone.

Yet if you slogged through hopeless campaigns in 2020 and 2022, with a "playoff" season filled with wins over terrible opponents sandwiched in between, then you know that this season looks like it will be representing some real and long overdue progress in the right direction.

It's not about "moral victories." It's about being good enough to earn real victories. The Patriots, quite simply, look capable of doing that on a regular basis this season.