Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 18: Patriots vs. Jets

Things to consider while waiting to see if the saga ends with the hero's final fall from grace, or if he'll get a redemption arc:

--By now, it's obvious to even the most hopeful Patriots fan, and I'm going to have to raise my hand here, that what we've been witnessing for the last two seasons has been the Dynasty's Fat Elvis stage. Still around. Still performing. Still semi-recognizable. Still packin' them in. But only the most devoted, blindly loyal fangirl can watch them mumble through familiar songs and sweat through gold lame' jumpsuits and think they're seeing the true King who took the world by storm. Even the 2021 playoff team just feels like Elvis' 1968 Comeback Special, when he got back to his roots, worked out for months, and looked frigging amazing in head to toe leather and gave his fans hope again. Which turned out to be just an anomaly. A one-off. Which he immediately followed up by making The Trouble With Girls and a steady diet of Peanut Butter & Barbiturate sandwiches. Now just to finish the metaphor, losing at home to the Jets is the Dynasty dying on a Graceland toilet. 

--What's going to happen to Bill Belichick is a matter for another blog. Many other blogs. A series I've already started, in fact. For now, I'm just going to do what I've been doing here for 20 years or so, which is focus on the game itself. Which shouldn't take long, since the Pats really gave us nothing to talk about. I mean, even a man who's put in his 10,000 hours of Knee Jerk Reacting to Pats games by about 2006 can only say so much about a 2-yard Ezekiel Elliot dive or another incompletion meant for DeVante Parker. 

--Let's get this funeral started by focusing on the utter futility on offense. Which looked very much like the utterly futile offense we saw for the better (worse) part of 2023. To the point you can't even argue weather was a factor. You know how on every sitcom there's a Christmas episode that's just like all the other episodes except it's snowing outside? That's what this was. More of the same dreck we've been watching all season, but with a lovely backdrop.

--And even if you want to factor in the conditions, that's not an excuse. It's an indictment. One of the defining characteristics of this franchise since 2001 has been how well it performs in the worst kinds of weather. The Patriots of the 2000s and 2010s were like the Soviets' Siberian Divisions. The ones Stalin kept in the far East until he got intel that the Japanese had no plans to invade. So he shipped them by rail all across Asia until they got to Stalingrad. Which to them, was like a day at a Tubing Park with the kids. The Germans that had been hanging on by their frostbitten fingertips didn't even know they existed until they showed up. Fresh, fully equipped for the weather, and starving for some action.

--All the way back to the game that started the Dynasty, the Snow Bowl, playing their best in the worst elements was a feature of this team. One of my favorite bar bets is to ask how many passing yards Tom Brady had in that blizzard. The guess is usually between 120 and 150 or thereabouts. The correct answer is 312. David Patten alone had almost as many receiving yards in that one as the team had in total offense yesterday. Take an offense that is non-productive in ideal, climate-controlled conditions and give them a challenge like dealing with a sloppy field, and those two factors will join together to form a Voltron of pure ineffectiveness.

--Teams from places like Miami, Houston, San Diego or Jacksonville, and the game would over as soon as they set foot off the plane. There's no better example than the freak October storm in 2009. Where, like yesterday, footprints in the snow made the field look like The Marauder's Map:

And the Patriots just squeaked by the Titans with 426 passing yards, 619 yards of total offense, and 7 touchdowns on the way to a 59-0 win. "Mischief Managed." Whereas this current edition solemnly swore they were up to no good, and backed it up. With -7 yards in the 1st half. For the game, 31 net passing yards, 119 total yards and according to my unofficial count, seven 3 & outs, three turnovers on downs, and two interceptions. 

--They played like Bambi the first time he stepped onto a frozen pond. Which is what you could always count on other teams to do when they landed in Foxboro. This is their native environment. They're ecosystem. They're supposed to thrive in these elements. So that is no explanation for their abysmal failure. What explains it perfectly is the roster they took to the field with. At certain points they broke the huddle with Bailey Zappe at QB, tight ends Mike Gesicki and Pharaoh Brown, running back Kevin Harris, with wide receivers Jalen Reagor and Demario Douglas. Not to disparage any of those guys, who played hard whenever given the chance and could be productive complimentary players in a top NFL attack. But program that lineup into your Madden simulator and tell me how many wins it produces. 

--And while it never came up, we spent all of yesterday one Zappe ligament (which connects your ubulus muscle to your upper dorsinus) tear away from having Nathan Rourke under center. Nathan Rourke, who could've walked all through the Gillette tailgate and a full loop around the stands in a Nathan Rourke jersey and not be recognized by anyone except Nathan Rourke's friends and family. He was the QB2 ahead of Mac Jones. In his postgame, Belichick sort of suggested that Rourke had a good week of practice, and that's how he earned the promotion. But even if Schrodinger's Equation is correct and every event that takes place creates a different, alternate parallel universe, there is still no timeline in the cosmos in which a week of  practice would elevate this total non-entity over the third year starter this offense was built around. None. This again deserves a blog of its own. Because clearly Belichick has no use for McCorkle. And made a conscious decision that if he's going down, he's taking Jones down with him. Stay tuned on that. 

--I mean, what else can we say other than this experiment of reuniting this offense with Bill O'Brien was such a dismal system-wide failure, that O'Brien was reduced to breaking out his secret file of gadget plays? Because why not? Desperate times call for ridiculous measures? A double reverse from Elliot to Reagor:

--That was the Patriots second longest play of the day. Then off of it, O'Brien ran a similar look that ended up as a Flea Flicker. Which unfolded with all the speed and efficiency of the Registration Desk at the RMV when they have to check with their supervisor and lost 16 yards. I can't find a postable video of it, but if you want to see it again (and I'm going to suggest your time is too valuable), here it is on the Jets' site. Essentially what blew up the play and the reason it Flicked no Fleas was Will McDonald read it as the same reverse they'd run earlier, so he stayed in pursuit on Douglas, who took the lateral from Elliot. By the time Douglas was pitching it back to Zappe, McDonald had bounced off two blocks and was already gumming up the works. I'm not suggesting this trash fire of a play was all O'Brien's fault or the result of some moral failure on the part of anyone involved. Just that poorly designed, poorly executed plays are what happen to poorly constructed teams of poor quality. That's the definition of your 2023 Patriots.

--I mentioned Reagor's run was the second longest play from scrimmage, the longest being Reagor's Go route beating DJ Reed up the sideline:

Good speed. Good job of tracking the ball. Great body control. Enough to tempt you into thinking he might have a future with this team. Admittedly Reagor got his pin for joining the Egregious Drop That Cost Us a Win Club in the loss to Washington. But that's hardly an exclusive group on this team. He's a max-effort guy blocking on running plays and screens. I remember reading that when he was at TCU 33% of his receptions were on what were deemed uncatchable balls. And he was drafted ahead of Justin Jefferson for some reason. We need certified, blue chip, fully guaranteed or your money back wideouts on this roster, not fixer uppers. But as a depth guy with high upside, he could be a keeper. 

--Once again you have to feel for the Patriots defense. Strike that. You don't HAVE to. As long as this is still America, you feel what you want. And if the vampiric orgy of awfulness on the other side of the ball has sucked all the life out of you by this point and numbed your ability to empathize with anyone, I can relate. Still, it was alarming to see Breece Hall successfully run on them the way he did. They finished the season with the lowest Yards Per Attempt average in the league at just 3.3. But Hall ground them down with an astonishing 37 carries for 178 and 4.81 YPA. Mostly in 3- to 5-yard Fun Size bars. But enough of them that eventually the run defense wore down and cracked. Highlighted by this run to the boundary side out of 22-personnel. Jabrill Peppers read the direction of the ball and came downhill in run force, but Irvin Charles came off his edge block to get a piece of him and put him on the ground. Mehki Becton set the edge on Keion White. And Nick Bawden (so help me, I miss having a fullback) blasted Jonathan Jones into the club seats to spring Hall for the biggest play of the afternoon:

--As it is with the (using the term loosely) skill positions on offense, whatever Steve Belichick's unit has accomplished as the season's gone on has been done with backups, backups of the backups, and guys you never heard of until 10 minutes ago. On 3rd & 10 just before the half, Xavier Gipson is being covered by [checks notes] Marco Wilson, leading to an incompletion and a 49-yard field goal try hitting the post. Twice in a row we had passes inside the 5 broken up by Alex Austin. The only legitimate starter we have at cornerback is Jonathan Jones, and even he is battling through injuries and only managed 68% of their defensive snaps. Though that was a team high. Our other starters are Myles Bryant, who on the second Jets drive lost Gipson on a deep slant and got bailed out by Peppers. And Shaun Wade, who got shaken by Garrett Wilson for 34 yards on Trevor Siemian's rainbow:

Note to self: I need to do something with the term "Siemian's Rainbow." Is it an Irish jig? A boat name? A cocktail? A bedroom maneuver? I might actually just be conflating it with John Candy playing a giant leprechaun. Which I'm fine with because even 40 year old John Candy comedy is more fun that watching a 4-13 team swirl the drain:

Never gets old. And makes me want to just dive down the rabbit hole of SCTV bits for the rest of the day and forget that my football team is probably hours away from officially declaring this era over. But duty calls …

--It's slightly awkward to single out any Line of Scrimmage defenders on a day when you've given up 185 rushing yards. But as anyone who saw me at high school parties trying to impress girls by doing celebrity impersonations can confirm, I've never been shy about making things awkward. 

--So I'll just go ahead and say again that Christian Barmore is one of the best interior linemen in the league, and Anfernee Jennings has found his place on this team in the absence of Matt Judon. The former is settled into that Richard Seymour role of 5-tech tackle who slides inside to the nose in certain situations (occasional passing downs), can 2-gap or fill a hole, hold his ground against double teams or shoot a gap. Right after the half he had a two-play sequence in which he fought off a Carter Warren block to make the stop on Hall, then penetrated to chase Siemian out of the pocket and force a throwaway. He finished with 10 tackles, 2 tackles for loss and a QB hit. 

--The latter led a defensive stand in the 1st quarter after Bryce Baringer's shanked punt gave New York a short field. First Jennings snuffed a screen pass to Hall, holding it to 1-yard. Then held his edge to bring down Hall for 1-yard on a 1st down. Then got into the backfield to chase Hall down from behind. Unfortunately, the Jets ran Hall right at Josh Uche (versus a dime package) to set up a 1st & goal. But a fire zone blitz led to a throwaway and held the Jets to a field goal. In all, Jennings had 7 tackles, 3 TFLs and a QB hit. If there's a silver lining to losing Judon, it's him getting his shot this season and hitting nothing but net. He'll be a huge asset going forward.

--As long as we're looking for little moral victories we can feel good about, I'm going to nominate Brendan Schooler and Pharaoh Brown getting into scraps in an otherwise meaningless game. Then coming back for more:

Schooler is a pure special teamer for a franchise that might not carry pure special teamers any more. And Brown is cast as more of a third tackle than route-running tight end. But there will always be room on my team for tough guys who don't back down from a fight. They can drink from my canteen any time. 

--This Week's Applicable Movie Quote: "Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?" King Theoden, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

--I just want to end on something vaguely resembling a high note. This season has sapped the KJR life out of me. Seriously, I think it's been bad for my emotional, physical, and spiritual health. But I've soldiered on because people tell me so often how they like these and even plan their Monday mornings around them. So thanks for that. I hope I never ran out of ways to express how painful this has been on all of us. Here's to the promise of better things starting in September. 

--Finally, here's wishing the best to ever do his job a fond farewell. Godspeed: