The time for excuses, explanations and focusing on the process is just about over.
With Friday night’s ugly 23-6 preseason finale in Las Vegas behind us, the Sept. 11 opener in Miami and the time when results actually matter is nearly upon us.
There is no more time for, “It’s just the preseason.”
Or, “It’s only a practice.”
And the “They aren’t even game planning” excuses are even more meaningless now than when they were first voiced.
“It’s real football now. It’s the season,” Mac Jones said after another tough time on the field, he and the first offense sandwiching a pair of three-and-outs around a drive that ended in an almost laughable interception in the first quarter against the Raiders.
Even with New England playing its first teamers on both sides of the ball against Las Vegas’ backups, it was much of the same summertime struggles that have beaten down Bill Belichick’s frustrated new offense through a month of training camp and preseason action. Missed blocks leading to run stuffs. Pass protection breaking down. Not many open targets. It was again an offensive attack that’s had more brutally bad plays than efficiently good ones.
And a defense that’s shown more potential than its offensive brethren over the last month, was struggling to stop former backup quarterback teammate Jarrett Stidham at Allegiant Stadium.
“Too many big mistakes, too many little mistakes,” Belichick said, lamenting that maybe his team left too many plays on the joint practice field during a week that was pretty underwhelming in that competition as well.
The Patriots have not been a good football team this summer. Not on the practice field. Not in joint practices. Not on the preseason game field. Not nearly often enough, anyway.
What we will soon find out is what kind of regular season team New England will be. Because as Jones says, real football is about to kick off whether Belichick’s team appears ready for it or not.
Though he’s shown clear signs of frustration at practice and again Friday night on the sideline in Las Vegas, Jones is at least still voicing optimism at this point in the process.
“We’re going to grind through it,” Jones said. “I think it’s good to kinda be where we are and learn from everything. And have good conversations. That’s the important part, is don’t sit there and say that it was bad, it is what is. You gotta, ‘OK, what happened on this specific play? What could I have done better? What could we have don’t better as a group? What could have been explained better?’ Whatever, it’s just all attacking each problem and finding a solution. So a lot of that needs to be done in these next couple weeks and we’re going to do it and we’re going to put our best foot forward and make it happen.”
Of course that it’s late August and it’s already a “grind” probably tells us all we need to know about where the Patriots are right now.
As Jones noted, and his coach has said endlessly over the years, “It is what it is.”
