The Patriots are officially a mess

Both on the field and off, the New England Patriots are hitting new lows early in the 2024 NFL season.

For as bad as the team is, the New England Patriots could logistically still be 3-2 and tied with the Buffalo Bills for the AFC East lead. That might ultimately say something about the talent level of the players on the field despite their 1-4 record.

If you’re looking for some other positive reason to bear witness to a franchise’s fall from grace, I’m afraid that’s about the best I can do.

The Patriots fell to 1-4 after a 15-10 loss to the Miami Dolphins Sunday at a sun-drenched and humdrum Gillette Stadium, which had the vibe of a morgue even in its best of days. New England now has as many wins at home as the place has lighthouses (one) since the start of the 2023 season.

It’s a terribly coached team under rookie head man Jerod Mayo, who’s in way over his head with the remedial roster handed to him by Eliot Wolf. Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt’s playbook seems more limited than the eight plays you got to choose from in Tecmo Bowl. The quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, seems more intent on throwing the ball away than he is finding a receiver more than seven yards downfield.

But the penalties on Sunday, 12 for 105 yards, were a fair indication of just how poorly coached and undisciplined this team truly is. For the first time in more than 30 years (not including air pressure debates, cheating scandals, drafting a murderer, shopping center massage parlors, and 18-1), the New England Patriots are the laughingstock of the NFL, a league with plenty of sleaziness amongst its clubs to give it competition. The team stinks because there was no plan for a transition from quarterback Tom Brady, and the owner doesn’t want to pay anyone to do that same job unless he can financially swindle him with the philosophy of “team” like he did Brady for the better part of two decades.

Any suckers?

Besides all the obvious, it hasn’t been a good month, already, for the Patriots. On Monday we learned that team safety Jabrill Peppers, who was inactive on Sunday, was arrested and charged on Saturday with “assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, strangulation, and possession of a Class B substance believed to be cocaine.” According to reports, Braintree police responded at 4:15 a.m. for a disturbance call involving an altercation between Peppers and his girlfriend. The caller said Peppers “hit her, choked her, took off her clothing and put her outside,” according to the police report. The woman told officers that Peppers put his hand on her neck and smashed her head against the wall before allegedly pushing her down a flight of stairs following an argument.

The Patriots signed Peppers to a three-year, $24 million extension three months ago.

This all came to light only days after the team played People’s Republic of Foxborough by censoring one of its own reporters. Patriots.com’s Evan Lazar claimed that the team in the locker room was “teetering on a mutiny,” on the site’s “Catch 22” podcast, only to see the podcast scrubbed within days after its sound made the talk show rounds.

This isn’t the first time the Patriots have erased sensitive material (good luck finding this one), but in the midst of the most dour period on Route One since Rod Rust, it’s awfully petty to come down on a team employee just doing his job. How’s the locker room? What a great group of guys. Even though they lost, they’re singing Katy Perry tunes and slapping each other in the shower with towels. Jerod Mayo is really putting something together and we can all thank Mr. Robert Kraft for that. (This delves into a 15-minute discussion about why Robert belongs in the Hall of Fame, followed by a list of the top 10 bargain contracts the Krafts have found for this season.)

The Patriots could tell you they were dependent on the swanky Gillette lighthouse leading the way, and it might make the most sense regarding some of the roster moves (or lack thereof) Wolf and company have made. That did include re-signing nearly everybody from a four-win team a year ago and continuing a style of running game that might as well be brought to you by Tareyton cigarettes for all its cultural relevance. What good is a lighthouse for an already sunken ship?

Where do they go from here? Well, Mayo will survive at least one more season, thus hopefully fulfilling Robert’s vision, the one he had in 2019 (but still chose coach over The Franchise one year later) that told him Mayo would make an excellent head coach one day. Remember, this is a man who backed into Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick. He knows what it takes.

The Peppers situation puts the team in a whole new scenario of serious, off-field violence, something the Patriots haven’t had to deal with in nearly a decade. (Speaking of, the actors playing Kraft and Belichick in FX’s surprisingly good “American Sports Story” debuted at the end of last week’s episode. Let’s just say it doesn’t seem like producers are going to be complimentary of the pair’s involvement, or their overall demeanor, with Aaron Hernandez.)

And with interest at an all-time low in the Kraft era (including the Pete Carroll years), comes the news that rookie quarterback Drake Maye might get his first start this weekend against the Houston Texans. Judging the results of other rookie quarterbacks, the Patriots can only benefit from having him out there over Jacoby Brissett, who is the quarterback mainly because he cost less than anybody but Tim Tebow and is pals with the Van yokel running the offense.

What do they have to lose? Besides a dozen more games?

The New England Patriots have finally come full-circle to their darkest days as a franchise, as bad on the field as they are incompetent in the front office. Now, they come complete with off-field legal troubles. How long until someone in the Patriots locker room plays the modern day Zeke Mowatt?

What a terrific mess.