The Patriots have been a mismanaged mess most of this miserable 2023 season.
And it’s not just about the quarterback position where Mac Jones has regressed into a puddle of his former successful self, splitting reps in practice last week with backup Bailey Zappe as teammates claimed not to know who the starter would be right up until game day.
It’s also not just the 2-9 record that’s the worst in New England since a 1-11 start in 1993 in the initial Drew Bledsoe days in Foxborough.
Robert Kraft’s team has been a total system failure. Roster-building. Coaching. Playing. It’s all been pretty darn putrid these days in Patriot Nation, the team bottoming out under Bill Belichick each ensuing week in ways that most never thought was possible.
Many probably think that happened yet again Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium in the 10-7 laborious loss to the Giants with rookie kicker Chad Ryland missing a 35-yard field goal in the final seconds that could have sent the ugly football game to extra time that seemingly no one wanted to see.
On the surface some may say that Ryland looks a lot like so many of his teammates, a disappointing failure who’s missed short field goals in consecutive losses that are contributing to a team that’s been left defeated both literally and figuratively.
To the contrary, Ryland’s missed kick against the Giants may just be the best thing that’s happened to this Patriots team all season. Even if it doesn’t feel that way right now, it may just be the first step toward turning around this sinking ship of a team and a franchise. Ryland’s wide-left missed kick may just be the kick-start the New England turnaround!
As Lt. Gordon says in The Dark Knight, “A hero can be anyone.” Even a rookie kicker who’s heroic act comes in the mysterious form of a missed chip shot field goal with a game on the line.
Ryland is the hero that Patriot Nation needed and maybe even deserved. His miss might just be the biggest kick in New England since Adam Vinatieri’s Super Bowl-winning boots.
Ryland’s miss did the one thing that could salvage this season for all involved even if all involved won’t necessarily be around the reap the benefits in the fortuitous future. His miss kept the two-win Patriots very much in the hunt for a top-three pick in next April’s NFL Draft, while also pushing the Giants out of the picture. That means, at this early juncture New England could be in line for one of the two supposed franchise quarterbacks expected to be available – USC’s Caleb Williams and UNC’s Drake Maye – or the generational wide receiver talent that is Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr.
Thanks to Ryland’s chip shot miss – which by the way is kinda par for the course when you live life with a rookie kicker learning his craft and taking his lumps on the fly at the NFL level, even a talented fourth-round pick – New England has much greater chances of being in the hunt for a truly Blue Chip talent in April. And Patriots’ fans might just be able to see, accept and acknowledge a light at the end of this dark, treacherous tunnel their team has been speeding down this out of control season.
No, the Patriots aren’t tanking. No, Belichick didn’t have Ryland miss his kick in New York on purpose.
New England is simply a bad football team right now. A team with abysmal play at the quarterback position, where interceptions come far more frequently than NFL-worthy passing plays. A team that will be undergoing a significant overall this offseason, with likely changes at quarterback, head coach and GM, at the very least.
And truly bad football teams in such an organizational transition as the one the Kraft family must oversee this offseason are better off with a top draft pick to combine with their expected bounty of cap space to work with to rebuild a roster in line with future success.
Thanks to Ryland’s missed field goal, today the Patriots are a step closer to a hopeful rebuild than may have otherwise been the case.
That may be hard for the rookie kicker to accept right now. Might be hard for some fans to rationalize after decades of nothing but success and winning ways. Might even run counter to the sports-rooting morals of some.
But, as a once-wise man likes to say, it is what it is.
The Patriots may just be a better team in the not-too-distant future because of Sunday’s ugly loss and even uglier missed field goal.
Chad Ryland is the damn hero Patriot Nation needed.
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