One Patriot Place is slowly turning into Dysfunction Junction, or so it seems with both the New England Patriots performance on the field as well as what is happening off of it.
During the darkest of times over the course of the first two decades things never reached a point of public embarrassment for players, coaches and staff. Mind you, the darkest of times usually meant the team DID NOT win the Super Bowl but rather made it or at least the AFC Championship. There was no point where a Tom Brady-led team lost back-to-back games by a combined score of 72-3. Still, there were scandals and rumors aplenty - pick your favorite Gate, or perhaps the tales of the 2017 season with “Tom vs Time”, Malcolm Butler’s benching, Alex Guerrero’s banishment and more. Yet despite Seth Wickersham exposés and intense Boston media scrutiny, criticism of the players in the building and the team’s talent was largely kept under wraps.
Sadly, as the 2023 season unravels faster than an unattended kite string in a hurricane, the team’s ability to manage the noise seems to be unraveling as well.
According to Fox Sports’ Henry McKenna, a source close to Mac Jones said postgame of the players surrounding the QB, “No matter how good of cook you are, you cannot make garbage taste good.” The source went on to add, "Even if it was not Mac at QB, what QB would want to play here under these conditions?" Jones was benched for a second consecutive week in the second half, having thrown a pick-six in each game. Jones now has six pick-sixes in his short pro career, with four coming at home at Gillette Stadium. For context, Tom Brady had four pick-sixes at Gillette Stadium in his time with the Pats from 2002-2019. So there seems to be a lot of garbage flying around the stadium that houses six Lombardis.
Whatever is the source of the offense’s inability to drive let alone score the ball is not what’s at hand (we’d start with the offensive line but that’s for another column). And as underwhelming and injured as the Patriots wide receivers, tight ends and running backs have been to date, en masse or individually (and they have!), to think anyone close to the embattled QB, who himself has played rather poorly to be kind, would think criticizing the team anonymously to one of the league’s broadcast affiliates is a good idea shows us how far things have fallen organizationally.
In 2006 when the Pats traded Deion Branch leaving Tom Brady to try and win with Reche Caldwell, Doug Gabriel and an aging Troy Brown, did a source close to Brady criticize the team’s playmakers publicly? How about in 2013 when Wes Welker left and Brady had rookies Aaron Dobson, Josh Boyce and Kenbrell Thompkins to complement Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola at receiver? Actually, that group sounds like a marked improvement from this current crop. The point is no, such a public shaming was unheard of and never found the light of publicized day. It's beyond a head-scratcher; it’s a headshaker as shock and embarrassment consumes the team, fanbase and region.
Suffice to say embattled Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a living legend of professional football, has his work cut out for him on the field. His team followed up his worst loss as a coach with a 34-0 shutout loss at home, Gillette Stadium's worst loss ever. Now he has fires to put out off the field with his players and their friends as well. Just the kind of noise the team pledged to ignore that now is almost deafening at One Patriot Place.
