It was a bit of a clown show and other leftover Patriots thoughts

BOSTON -- Honestly, I stopped keeping track. What seemed like a fun and whimsical side story early on turned into a full-time job before halftime. It became too much to track.

I'm talking, of course, about the moments and miscues from Sunday's Patriots-Giants game that better resembled a clown show than an NFL game.

As for what was tracked, here's a quick summation.

-Start at the end with the obvious: Chad Ryland missed a 35-yard field goal at the end of regulation on a kick that would have tied the game. These days, that is a certified chip shot. Yet for the second straight game, the rookie missed a 35-yarder. This one might have sailed wide of the protective net.

--Wan'Dale Robinson fumbling a handoff on a jet sweep on the Giants' opening drive. The Giants had the ball on New England's 26-yard line after a surprisingly efficient drive. Alas, they turned it over on an unforced error.

--Three plays later, Mac Jones fumbled a shotgun snap on third-and-2, but it didn't count because the Patriots failed to get the play off before the expiration of the play clock. This was, as a reminder, the offense's third play of the game. And they did not have their doo-doo together. (The resulting third-and-7 saw Jones throw to DeVante Parker on a slant. Adoree' Jackson broke up the telegraphed pass with ease.)

--On a second-and-17 a few plays later, Saquon Barkley -- the best offensive player in this game -- dropped a screen pass. On the very next play, Tommy DeVito threw an accurate pass to Wan'Dale Robinson. He dropped it, too.

--Two plays later, Demario Douglas muffed a punt. He recovered the loose ball, at least.

--Facing a fourth-and-7 at the Giants' 37-yard line, the Patriots decided to punt, which is clownish in and of itself when you spent a fourth-round pick on your kicker. Yet when lining up for that fourth-and-7 play, they appeared to have gotten the Giants to jump offside. Perhaps a 50-yard field goal would be attempted now. But no. It was actually a delay of game. And because this game was this game, the Giants declined the penalty, thereby making it theoretically more difficult for Bryce Baringer to drop the kick close to the goal line. He actually succeeded at that, with Brenden Schooler downing the ball at the 6-yard line after the false start/neutral-zone infraction/delay of game trifecta.

--Mac Jones threw this pass.

It was pure clownery. The decision to throw to a tightly covered, undersized receiver was clownish. The mechanical breakdown to once again throw a pass off the back foot was clownish. And the brutal overthrow was clownish, too.

People paid to go to this game.

--The second quarter began with Sterling Shepard dropping a pass. When your quarterback is Tommy DeVito, you should try harder to catch the passes that hit your hands. As a general rule. Unless you're in Clown College.

--Nick McCloud, who was blocking Matthew Slater on a Patriots punt, got hit in the tuchus with the ball, which was not great special teaming. Slater, then failed to pounce on the loose ball after the muff, which was likewise non-superb special teaming.

--The Giants punted a few plays later, and Keion White picked up an unnecessary roughness penalty while on the return team. That penalty moved the Patriots' starting field position from their own 16 to their 8-yard line.

--The Giants began the second half by sending the opening kickoff out of bounds, which is the height of clownery. That allowed Bailey Zappe and the Patriots' offense to start at their own 40-yard line, and they scored their lone touchdown of the game.

--This was a run that happened:

Very cool. Again, it cost money to attend this thing.

--The Patriots could have gone for it on a fourth-and-1 at their own 39-yard line, but they instead had Hunter Henry line up under center and bark out calls, trying to get the Giants to jump. It didn't work, if you can believe that. So Henry motioned out wide, and Ezekiel Elliott lined up as a Wildcat-type QB in the shotgun formation. His fake calls didn't draw anyone offside either, which is so crazy. Then the Patriots burned an always-valuable second-half timeout in order to send the punt team onto the field.

It was some low-level trickery. It couldn't even fool the Giants.

--This is where the Patriots are right now. They're down in the mud with the dregs of the NFL. And they're coming out on the losing end.

It stinks.

Even if you're coping by chasing the rush of that race to the top of the draft, you must admit that enduring these games has become a chore.

That kind of covers all of it, doesn't it? But we've still got a few leftover thoughts kicking around from that scintillating 10-7 game. So let's hit them.

--The Patriots have so many problems bigger than their one at kicker, but it's still so baffling to see the team DRAFT a kicker who's not automatically at least one of the 10 best kickers in the league. That has now happened twice in four years, as we can't forget the insane Justin Rohrwasser pick of 2020. The practice of drafting subpar kickers is almost as baffling as taking a mediocre guard in the first round.

While the use of the draft pick is what it is, there's also the reality that Ryland wasn't very reliable in training camp. He got almost no preseason game action, so the practice field is where most of the judgment on the player took place. The Patriots ultimately chose to go with Ryland over Nick Folk, perhaps because of the draft capital invested. And now, well, he's 12-for-18 on field goals. Nick Folk is 21-for-22.

(I know a lot of fans were happy to see that ball sail wide left, for draft order implications. I get it, but from this position, the team has to be evaluated from the standpoint of wanting to and trying to win.)

--Let's look at Mac Jones' interceptions a little more closely. The first one was truly inexplicable, especially for a guy who knows he's holding on to his job status by a thread.

He faced some pressure, but not a lot of pressure. He had nobody open. The obvious play in this spot is to run out to the left, see if somebody might get open, and throw the ball out of bounds if nothing develops. It's just basic, simple quarterbacking. But Mac does none of these things.

He hits the top of his drop ... and then kind of fades away with a backpedal while scanning the field. Then, instead of running away from a rusher, he just leans back on his back foot and throws an all-arm pass to the boundary.

It's just reckless. Absolutely reckless. I thought he'd have gotten the hook there, but the coaching staff stuck with him.

His second pick was likewise problematic. He's just got to know that with a free rusher in his face on third down while in field-goal range (theoretically), he's got to accept the play as a loss. He isn't someone who can spin away from a free rusher, so sometimes taking a loss is the only move. Throwing a rushed, panicked pass into traffic is not the type of mistake a leader can consistently make, yet Jones has made it a habit.

Much like the throw across the field in Dallas, this was a pass with a zero percent chance of success. And both picks speak to just how mentally mangled Jones is at this moment in time.

--The issue for the team, though, is that Bailey Zappe isn't the guy. He can throw well-designed screen passes with the best of them, but the second he's asked to actually throw the ball downfield, he gets picked.

Out of the absolute cleanest pocket imaginable, Zappe opened up wide and threw into zone coverage with a safety lurking over the top. 

Like Jones' picks, this one had a zero percent chance of success.

Seemingly, only Zappe's passes behind the line of scrimmage can work.

The quarterback play for this team is almost unwatchable right now. Whether the bulk of the blame belongs on the players themselves, or OC/QB coach Bill O'Brien, or whatever else, the end result is just so unfathomably poor.

--It also should be stated that the Giants would not have scored their lone touchdown if not for Isaiah Hodgins running right through Jonathan Jones in the red zone on a third-and-10.

That's a huge missed tackle, in a game where neither team could score.

--Trent Brown indicated that he didn't start because the Patriots were managing him health-wise coming off the bye week. Maybe that's true. But after Belichick denied that J.C. Jackson's and Jack Jones' benchings were disciplinary in nature, only to later release Jack Jones and keep Jackson at home on the Germany trip, we are free to wonder where the truth lies here.

Brown, if you missed it, spent part of last week telling the media that he's the team's best offensive player, saying "[bleep] them" when asked about critics, sharing the details of his knee and ankle injuries, and opting to not answer in the affirmative when asked if he feels good about being a Patriot.

"That's where I am," he said when asked if he's happy being in New England. "I'm thankful for the opportunity to fulfill my dream, nonetheless."  

Nonetheless!

--I don't know if Tyquan Thornton can be a productive NFL receiver. I certainly have my doubts, based on the lack of output over the past season and a half. But I am still a bit baffled about the ways he's been used since being drafted in the second round. Last year, Matt Patricia had him running short routes that required precise cuts and explosion, which doesn't suit his strength as a guy with straightaway speed. He's done some more of that this year, but on Sunday, he was ... handed the ball on a jet sweep on a third-and-8.

I understand wanting to get the ball into the hands of a fast ball carrier, but he's shown very little at this level to make anyone believe that play had a good chance of success.

That was the final play before Ryland's missed kick at the end of regulation. It went for three yards.

--Rhamondre Stevenson averaged 4.7 yards per carry. Ezekiel Elliott averaged 5.1 yards per carry. Together, they ran 30 times for 144 yards and a touchdown.

Given the state of the quarterback position, they probably should have been given at least 40 carries with that success rate. Nevertheless, O'Brien went with a balanced approach, offsetting 31 designed runs with 37 passing plays (35 attempts, two sacks). That approach, with the Giants near the bottom of the league in run defense, deserves scrutiny.

--There was one quarterbacking highlight, though. When Zappe eluded a rusher and thought on his feet to flick a pass to Stevenson? That's a play that Mac Jones seems incapable of making right now.

But then again, the fact that we're highlighting this as some sort of positive shows how low the bar is to clear right now.

(The Patriots followed up that positive play with the aforementioned fake-going-for-it, calling-timeout, eventually-punting play, which was disappointing.)

--OK then. Well, all right. S'pose it's on to next week now. The Chargers and Brandon Staley are a mess right now. We'll see if they are sloppy enough to lose in Foxboro, where the Patriots are 1-4 this season. Sounds like fun. Oh, and we can do the quarterback mystery game all week again? Can't wait. Let's go.