Looks like the Patriots are...

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Flagg the Wanderer

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...that team that is going no where, but no one will want to play. 2-4, could very easily be 5-1.

They're not quite out of it yet - Jets next week, 2 winnable games following that, and their key divisional games ahead of them.

But they'll need to get to no worse than 5-5 after 10.
 
The team is definitely heading in the right direction. Too many moving parts and some players that aren't playing their best (like Jonnu Smith, N'Keal Harry), but in general going toe to toe with the big dogs with a rookie QB leading the way is pretty impressive. The losses have hurt quite a lot, but this team has come out swinging game after game. Maybe they get it together down the stretch this year or maybe they continue to be up and down. But I'd love our chances next year with Mac in his 2nd year and an expanded playbook/knowledge. 2-4 sucks considering the possibilities, but this team is making opposing teams respect them. There's no moral victories here, but the future looks bright with #10. Suddenly these gut-punch losses don't feel as terrible after that. People need to be a tad more patient.
 
The team is definitely heading in the right direction. Too many moving parts and some players that aren't playing their best (like Jonnu Smith, N'Keal Harry), but in general going toe to toe with the big dogs with a rookie QB leading the way is pretty impressive. The losses have hurt quite a lot, but this team has come out swinging game after game. Maybe they get it together down the stretch this year or maybe they continue to be up and down. But I'd love our chances next year with Mac in his 2nd year and an expanded playbook/knowledge. 2-4 sucks considering the possibilities, but this team is making opposing teams respect them. There's no moral victories here, but the future looks bright with #10. Suddenly these gut-punch losses don't feel as terrible after that. People need to be a tad more patient.
Please, you are kidding yourself. We used to be the team that laughed at the the fanboys with the moral victories. Oh yaa, we almost won, we almost got there. Bullshit, this team is exactly where Bill Belichick put us. Brady can't play anymore? Really? We can't afford a roster? How do you guys like the way Bill spent that 165 million? Hows that Oline look? Could have used Gilmore today? Bill needs to be fired asap, him and his d bag sons need to be shown the door, they have destroyed this team.
 
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Please, you are kidding yourself. We used to be the team that laughed at the the fanboys with the moral victories. Oh yaa, we almost won, we almost got there. Bullshit, this team is exactly where Bill Belichick put us. Brady can't play anymore? Really? We can't afford a roster? How do you guys like the way Bill spent that 165 million? Hows that Oline look? Could has used Gilmore today? Bill needs to be fired asap, him and his d bag sons need to be shown the door, they have destroyed this team.

Go away to the Brady planet, sock. Not the time for your nonsense.
 
Please, you are kidding yourself. We used to be the team that laughed at the the fanboys with the moral victories. Oh yaa, we almost won, we almost got there. Bullshit, this team is exactly where Bill Belichick put us. Brady can't play anymore? Really? We can't afford a roster? How do you guys like the way Bill spent that 165 million? Hows that Oline look? Could has used Gilmore today? Bill needs to be fired asap, him and his d bag sons need to be shown the door, they have destroyed this team.
you are a fool with that take - get your clown shoes and get out
 
it looks like this team was supposed to be good OL, good D, and good running game - so far they have not shown any of the 3 supposed strengths.
 
Why is that? Honestly, ask yourself the hard questions. How exactly did we get here, what choices were made that led us here? If you're honest with yourself, the answer becomes very apparent. Then you'll be as pissed as me.
 
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Why is that? Honestly, ask yourself the hard questions. How exactly did we get here, what choices were made that led us here? If you honest with yourself, the answer becomes very apparent. Then you'll be as pissed as me.

Because "on paper" isn't worth anything as opposed to actually showing it on the field? I'm not that upset about the truth.
 
Please, you are kidding yourself. We used to be the team that laughed at the the fanboys with the moral victories.
We used to be the team with fans who understood football. Unfortunately with winning repeatedly comes front-running fans who just don't appreciate how rare the last two decades were. Reminds me of Gary Tanguay once saying the season will be a total loss if they tdon't go to the superbowl.

OTOH, your posts and those of Mazz are so similar in tone, content, working and syntax that I have a had time believing that you are nothing but a sock puppet.,

Why is that? Honestly, ask yourself the hard questions. How exactly did we get here, what choices were made that led us here? If you honest with yourself, the answer becomes very apparent. Then you'll be as pissed as me.

The way we got here was Belichick's insistence on accountability, not overpaying for any one player, being cold-hearted to the point of being ruthless when it came to personnel decisions, and most of all, avoiding dead money by letting players go a year early rather than a year late. On time if possible, but a year late is a disaster..

Edit: I'm not pissed at all. I am extremely hopeful for the future. This is a team that is going places.
 
I can assure you I am not Grogan. UT can confirm.
I am too old to try to keep track of multiple accounts. Lol
 
I think the team is improving. They played a pretty good team, and just came up short. I think the qb, Mac Jones, has improved. The coaching is still really good. I don't feel bad that they didn't keep Brady. I mean, who really thought he'd win the championship when he went to Tampa Bay? That's a team that was 7-9 the year before. As far as any bad feelings about Belichick, he has been a great Patriots coach for a long time. We've been lucky he's been the coach of the Patriots. I mean, 6 Lombardi Trophies! Also, I've been a fan of the Pats since the early-mid 1970's. I've rooted for them through some really bad times, prior to the last 20 years. So they're back into some bad (non winning) times. I'll repeat, I think they're improving. And, I'm blessed to be a fan of a team that has won so much, for 20 years!
 
The Pats just went to overtime with a top-5 team in the league despite losing the turnover differential -2, and effectively giving up two pick-6s (Diggs' actual pick-6, and the Meyers TD that was called back, which promptly turned into a turnover, a 7 point swing). If they had recovered the muffed punt, they likely win that game in regulation despite losing the turnover battle -1 (-2 in actuality, but -1 hypothetically had they recovered that muff) to the best offensive team in football. I say this not to argue that this was a moral victory, but I say this to demonstrate that there isn't some fatal, fundamental flaw with this team. They're a good, not great, football team that can play with anyone in the league, but need to stop turning the ball over and be a bit a tougher in critical, late-game situations if they want to turn close losses into close wins.

My reaction is not one of: "man, this team is complete hot garbage, with a bad coach, bad players, and no future".
Instead my reaction is: "man, that was a close game. I'm frustrated this team can't make the critical plays late in games to come up with wins, and I'm really frustrated that they keep turning the ball over".

There isn't some fundamental flaw or "gotcha" issue. The coaching (particularly offensively) could be better in spots, I think McDaniels made some serious strategic errors today. The players need to make plays and execute better at times, they need to stop turning the damn ball over ... but they're not a bad team, with 3 of their 4 losses coming by a combined 9 points, two of those games being against top-5 teams in the league. They laid their once-per-season egg against New Orleans and played down to Houston.

They're still 1-3 years away from potentially being elite again (pending personnel decisions and Mac's progression). They need more talent in their defensive front-7, and Jones needs time to grow physically and gain experience, but they're not a bad team in their current iteration; they're a pretty good, not great team, that can't stop turning the ball over. Outside of the Jets game, I believe this team's TO differential for the season is -9 (-5 including the Jets game). I don't care how good you are, you won't win many games when that's the case.

The defense was good enough today, but they weren't great. "Great" would've been a late turnover to seal the game. Am I disappointed in the defense given who they were playing? No. Do I want to see them take the next step towards being great, which is generating game-winning plays? Absolutely.

Am I happy they lost? Absolutely not. Are they immune from criticism? Nope. Were there coaching decisions that I would've liked to have seen approached differently, by both Belichick and McDaniels? 100%, yes.

Do I think Bill Belichick is some feeble, infirm, old man who has lost his grasp on the game, lost his edge, and lost the essence of winning football? Not at all. Do I still feel he's as good of a coach as you'll find in the league? Yes, certainly. Do I trust him leading this team through the next 4-5 years, should he choose to stick around for that length of time? There's no one else I'd rather have.

Football is such a game-to-game, matchup sport. Do I think it's likely they win the division? Not at all. But we've seen runs happen, teams get hot, wacky plays/bounces of the ball, etc, and I wouldn't be shocked if New England found some traction and ended up around 9-10 wins, while Buffalo loses their magic. Would I put money on it? Nope, not for a second. Will I hold out hope they turn things around? Yeah, for sure.

Division aside, I think they have a good chance of making the postseason as a wild-card. 2-4 looks bad ... 3-3, or 4-2 would feel much better, but ultimately 2-4 is only one or two games away from 3-3/4-2, and most of the league is sitting in the 2-4 to 4-2 bracket, with 11 games left to be played. Don't need to be a mathematician to realize the team's goal of making the postseason is still very much in front of them.

The most important thing is that this team recovers physically and emotionally in order to avoid a letdown against the Jets. If I was Belichick, I might give them an extra day off and let them recharge. After a tough, emotional loss like this, I think it's better to err on the side of less work, more time to mentally/physically reinvigorate, than run the guys into the ground and come out flat the following week.

Looking forward to the rest of this season: The schedule is somewhat frontloaded. Buffalo is a good team but those AFCE games are usually tight and we matchup well with them. Outside of those games against Buffalo, the toughest ones left are LAC, CLE, TEN, CAR - all of those games are played by the end of November and are winnable. If they can win 3-4 of those matchups and pull out at least one against Buffalo, I think they will get a wild card spot (and if they find their way in, no one is going to want to play them, IMO).

At the end of the day losing f*cking sucks. The difference between a nice autumn evening and a miserable one is a Pats win, and I miss the feeling of them pulling out a big win ... miss it a lot. That said, it’s hard to feel they’re a bad team after watching today’s game; they looked like a playoff team to me. They just can’t find the plays they need to win close games. Tough, but on the balance I feel relatively positive about watching them going forward (for the rest of this season, and beyond into future seasons).
 
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I think the team is improving. They played a pretty good team, and just came up short. I think the qb, Mac Jones, has improved. The coaching is still really good. I don't feel bad that they didn't keep Brady. I mean, who really thought he'd win the championship when he went to Tampa Bay? That's a team that was 7-9 the year before. As far as any bad feelings about Belichick, he has been a great Patriots coach for a long time. We've been lucky he's been the coach of the Patriots. I mean, 6 Lombardi Trophies! Also, I've been a fan of the Pats since the early-mid 1970's. I've rooted for them through some really bad times, prior to the last 20 years. So they're back into some bad (non winning) times. I'll repeat, I think they're improving. And, I'm blessed to be a fan of a team that has won so much, for 20 years!
The Bucs were loaded with talent. Your post belongs in the Bucs thread?
 
We're improving in a rebuilding year. We took two of the best teams in football to the wire. And the positive news is there is huge room for improvement. That's what I feel good about. We gave up 445 passing yards last night. Bill has never before coached a team that has allowed that total. And yet we still took them into OT. We had offensive, defensive and ST errors but we still pushed an SB contender like Dallas all the way. If this doesn't show you where Bill sits among fellow coaches, nothing will. There is NO way we should have been that close to Dallas. How many more plays did they have? Look at their offensive yards, look at out turnovers...

Yet somehow, Bill finds a way to keep fighting, scheming, tweaking. His players always fight to the death for him and he doesn't make the coaching errors in the same manner that his peers do.

Now, picture this team with the errors cut down, a healthy O Line, Mac getting ever more comfortable with his receivers and TEs. Harris and Stevenson getting better and a defense playing better football.

It strikes me that most Patriot fans, to their credit, get what's going on.
 
DAMN! What a voice....
Talk about a leader. They raved about him in Bama because he worked his ass off academically as well as the football, He made sure he got his degree on its merits and became a mentor for other athletes and even tutored them. The faculty couldn't say enough good things about him by all accounts. Muse will likely confirm this. He's such a Belichick type player.

You have to be really impressed with what Saban does year in and year out with his players. Like Bill, he clearly looks for particular players, with particular intelligence and character.
 
We're improving in a rebuilding year. We took two of the best teams in football to the wire. And the positive news is there is huge room for improvement. That's what I feel good about. We gave up 445 passing yards last night. Bill has never before coached a team that has allowed that total. And yet we still took them into OT. We had offensive, defensive and ST errors but we still pushed an SB contender like Dallas all the way. If this doesn't show you where Bill sits among fellow coaches, nothing will. There is NO way we should have been that close to Dallas. How many more plays did they have? Look at their offensive yards, look at out turnovers...

Yet somehow, Bill finds a way to keep fighting, scheming, tweaking. His players always fight to the death for him and he doesn't make the coaching errors in the same manner that his peers do.

Now, picture this team with the errors cut down, a healthy O Line, Mac getting ever more comfortable with his receivers and TEs. Harris and Stevenson getting better and a defense playing better football.

It strikes me that most Patriot fans, to their credit, get what's going on.
I like our future very much. We're just missing a few players - an OT, a WR1 with good hands, a good to vgood CB, a LB...our needs are obvious - and a little time to come together.
 
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