The Patriots may be the worst team in the NFL and Bill Belichick may no longer have the answers

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey – Bill Belichick was done. He had been asked 22 questions over four minutes and he muttered them with short answers about how everyone on his struggling team had been told to be ready to play. He didn’t want anything else. So he gently lowered his right hand like a sledgehammer, abruptly ending his post-match press conference.

Bill Belichick’s live post-game press conference:

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 26, 2023

The 71-year-old coach emerged through a tunnel and turned right past the MetLife Stadium football field, where his New England Patriots had just lost 10-7 to an undrafted rookie backup quarterback and a New York Giants team. who had been among the worst in the NFL.

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Three months into a dysfunctional season, there’s no point in ignoring the obvious. After nine losses in 11 games and with a quarterback situation that is turning this once proud franchise into a laughingstock, Belichick has run out of answers. The tricks and stunts he has performed have not worked. His team has not responded. His squad sucks. And his explanations for how he became so bad are even worse.

“I told everyone to be ready to go,” Belichick said four different times.

All of this, of course, leads to the uncomfortable question that will haunt the final six games of this season. Will Belichick return? Are these the last games of a brilliant career, one that is ending with an implosion that once seemed unfathomable?

What question could be more important than that after seeing the product presented by Belichick’s team on Sunday? He tried something different this week, an attempt to revive a weak offense that is dragging this team down. Belichick decided No to name a starting quarterback. He let Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe practice with the starting offense, hoping one of them would be so good that a decision would be made for him.

Instead, it was another decision (or indecision?) by Belichick that backfired for this team. Belichick is the same coach who in 2001 explained that Tom Brady was getting practice reps instead of Drew Bledsoe by saying that a team can’t split those sessions with multiple quarterbacks because they are too valuable; any Snaps hamper the starting quarterback’s preparation.

But 12 weeks into this season, Belichick split practice reps between Jones and Zappe. Perhaps it should not be surprising, then, that they both had difficulties.

The argument here is not in favor of Jones or Zappe. In fact, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that both are bad.

But instead of having them compete for the starting job at this point in the season, it’s the coach’s job to make a decision and do everything he can to get it. that quarterback ready.

If you want to play Jones, try to build his confidence. Let’s support it publicly. Do what you can to make sure he doesn’t have to make difficult decisions. See if running the ball works.

Otherwise, switch to Zappe. It would be easy to say that Jones is hopeless at this point. Go to Zappe. Spend a week preparing it to play. He plans a simple, unsophisticated offense that he can master.

😶 pic.twitter.com/W6oVnXLoc8

– FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) November 26, 2023

Instead, Belichick chose an inexplicable midseason contest that brought out the worst in both quarterbacks. They made almost identical interceptions in double (or triple?) coverage.

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Patriots’ midweek quarterback competition isn’t what this team needs

The move likely caused irreversible damage to Jones, who was benched for the fourth time in 11 games this season. He seems completely broken and in need of a new start somewhere else. So the Patriots will probably have to turn to Zappe, even though his summer was so bad that the Patriots cut him before Week 1. The second-year man has performed so poorly this season that he couldn’t even beat Jones for the starting job. Sunday.

It’s all combined to make this a lost season. It doesn’t matter what the rest of the team does because the offense is so bad. The Patriots scored three touchdowns and only 30 points in all of November.

“Just bad quarterback play,” Jones said Sunday, summing things up aptly. “If the quarterback doesn’t play well, you don’t have a chance.”

That has been, and will continue to be, the case for the Patriots in 2023.

Even if owner Robert Kraft hasn’t said anything publicly about the job security of the only head coach he’s hired over the past 24 years, anyone who follows the team knows Belichick’s seat is pretty warm. Kraft hoped this season would end with a playoff berth.

Instead, his franchise has become a mockery. JuJu Smith-Schuster was yelling at coach Troy Brown on the sideline Sunday. As punishment for breaking curfew, players are either left home for away games (JC Jackson) or banned outright (Jack Jones). The Patriots have won two games this season and none since October 22. Their offense is tough to watch, and was vastly outmatched by a Giants unit led by Tommy DeVito. Nobody knows who is the holder in the most important decision in sports. And they’re approaching a stretch of three straight primetime games in which the nation will be forced to sit back and watch what has become of Belichick’s team.

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The Patriots shouldn’t fire Bill Belichick now, but after the season, all bets are off

This season is no longer about making the playoffs. That dream died a long time ago. These final few games are a chance for Belichick to show why he should remain in charge of making all football-related decisions for the Patriots. He can’t just be about resting on his six Super Bowl rings, not when the Patriots have become a laughingstock.

But the results so far have been absolutely embarrassing. The Patriots failed to score a touchdown in Germany and lost to Gardner Minshew and the Indianapolis Colts. They had two weeks to sort things out. Instead, they concocted a significant quarterback competition that resulted in poor play from both. Any pass either quarterback throws downfield feels like an attempt to hold your breath and pray it’s not an interception attempt.

Now, after a loss to the woeful Giants left them with a 2-9 record, the Patriots are in a place they haven’t been in decades. They might be the worst team in the NFL. And evidence is mounting that Belichick no longer has the answers to fix it.