The New England Patriots are 1-3 and look like one of the worst teams in the NFL after a month.
They rank dead last in total yards per game and passing yards per game. They’re 31st out of 32 in scoring, too, ahead of just one team: the Miami Dolphins, their Week 5 opponent.
Some might expect a team in such a situation to make a change at quarterback, but not these Patriots. New England spent the No. 3 overall pick on Drake Maye in April with its sights set on the long road, not October.
“I’m not really thinking about that,” Patriots coach Jerod Mayo told reporters on Wednesday. “Look, Jacoby (Brissett)‘s our starter. He’s our starting quarterback this week. I think Jacoby has showed a lot of toughness out there. Going back, even looking at the film, there are times where an average guy would not be able to get back up, and I think he’s done a good job with that.”
Mayo isn’t lying about the tape. Brissett has been thrown behind arguably the worst offensive line in the NFL — a unit that has allowed 17 sacks, the second-most in the NFL through four weeks, and the highest QB pressure percentage (47.4) — and is routinely getting clobbered by opposing defenses. On more than one occasion, it’s appeared as if Brissett has been hit hard enough to prompt a trip to the sideline, but the gritty veteran has toughed it out.
To make matters worse, New England lost its best offensive lineman, center David Andrews, to a shoulder injury that will require season-ending surgery.
Mayo wouldn’t outright admit it Wednesday, but it’s not exactly an ideal situation in which any team would like to place a rookie.
“I would say those are independent of each other,” he said of Andrews’ injury and how it relates to Maye’s standing on the depth chart. “You always want to have a veteran center in there, but with that said, they don’t tie in together.”
Mayo can claim the two aren’t related, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how inserting Maye now wouldn’t be good for his long-term development. The coach also isn’t about to budge just because the losses are starting to pile up.
The Patriots will have to resign themselves to the fact it’s going to be a tough season. All they can do is focus on improving from week to week with the hopes it produces positive results.
“For us, it’s about mental toughness. It’s about mental agility,” Mayo said. “We won’t be rigid in our thought, and we’re going to try to put the best team out there. I’m not really a big ‘woe is me’ or anything like that. We knew going into the season we would take our lumps, and even after the first game when we beat Cincinnati, we understood that this is unsustainable as far as winning that way.
“With that being said, there have been things that we’ve done well, especially after the first two games. Those were competitive games. The third one wasn’t so competitive, and this past one, we still had an opportunity as bad as we played. I think it still comes down to execution.”
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