Hurley: Latest Patriots loss is just the new normal
BOSTON -- If you were hell-bent on coming out of Sunday's game focused on the positives, it wouldn't be too difficult.
DeVante Parker? Baller.
Rhamondre Stevenson? Baller.
The defense? Four sacks, an interception, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.
The offense? Five scoring drives, three-for-five on red zone trips, 447 net yards. After averaging 10.5 points per game through two weeks, that's a significant improvement for a unit that has faced a tremendous amount of doubt for the past several months.
It's just ... unfortunately, even if you're dead set on going sunshine and rainbows after Sunday, you'll ultimately end up finding much more wrong than good from the loss.
And what's most striking is it doesn't necessarily feel like a fluke. It just kind of feels like the new normal.
While sure, the four turnovers -- three picks for Mac Jones, and a Nelson Agholor fumble -- were a bit excessive, the overall issues that plagued the Patriots on Sunday figure to be plaguing them for the season.
Containing an opposing offense's best weapon -- formerly a staple of Bill Belichick-coached Patriots teams -- proved to be a challenge that couldn't be conquered. Lamar Jackson threw for four touchdowns and ran for another, accounting for 325 yards and posting a crisp 110.3 passer rating. Mark Andrews caught eight balls for 89 yards and two of those touchdowns.
Mistakes on the offensive line continue to be a theme, with penalties (three called, two accepted) and allowing hits on the quarterback (three sacks, plus one more hit which led to injury). The overall offensive operation remains clunky, with a pair of timeouts being burned in order to run a play combing with some head-scratching play calls.
Elsewhere, mistakes that were unfathomable during the Tom Brady/dynastic era -- like a too many men on the field penalty -- have become ... commonplace. It's also no longer a rarity for the opponent to have a better special teams showing than the Patriots, which was the case on Sunday vs. the Ravens.
Put simply, the Patriots aren't underperforming. They're not overperforming. They ... just might be what most everybody thought they'd be. Which is a bit underwhelming.
We aren't allowed to reach any grand conclusions here at the end of September, though. Belichick explicitly told us at summer's end that the team's identity can't really be known until five, maybe six weeks into the season. And if Mac Jones is out for any stretch of time -- a situation which seems extraordinarily likely -- then the evaluation process is delayed even longer.
For now, we know that in the realistic outlook that a 2-2 record through four weeks was a best-case scenario, the Patriots now need to go on the road and beat Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay to reach that mark. And some of the games that looked like layups in October -- vs. Detroit, at Cleveland ... at the Jets? -- likely aren't guarantees.
It's not necessarily uncharted territory for the Patriots. The 2020 team started the year 2-2 before losing three straight and settling in to sub-mediocrity. Last year's team started 1-3 but rattled off seven straight wins against bad or shorthanded teams, ultimately making the playoffs and being a shade better than mediocre.
Now they're 1-2. Their quarterback is hurt for the second time in three weeks. They're in last place in the AFC East. They're not nearly bad enough to completely collapse and scrape the bottom of the league. But they're not functional enough to even pretend like a postseason run a la the 2021 Bengals is possible.
We don't know precisely where they'll land on the scale by January, no. But it feels safe to say that it'll be somewhere in that range between sub-mediocre and super-mediocre. Going back to their Week 10 bye in 2019, the Patriots are 22-22. Once the owners of the greatest home-field advantage in sports, they're now 11-12 at Gillette Stadium during that span. On the road, they're 11-10. Just another team.
Sunday may be about bad picks and ugly fumbles, but in the big picture, the 11-point home loss to a fringe contender just isn't out of character for the Patriots -- not based on the way they've played for years. It's not a small sample size. It's not a trend or a streak. It is merely the new normal in New England.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
