Some may think that women don’t belong in the sports space, but that headline I just dropped is the most accurate summary of the Patriots week 1 loss to the Dolphins and the haters are furious.
It’s so New England to spin zone a loss marred with unnecessary personal foul penalties, turnovers, and continued garbage play calling by Josh McDaniels into another big win for the winningest sports franchise of this lifetime. You never like to lose, but before even one Bills fan can post a dynasty funeral meme, we Patriots fans have this really feeling like a .5 in the win column.
That’s because at times it was actually fun watching Patriots football again. Tight ends finally caught a few footballs. First play of the game was a 30 yard run by Damien Harris. Josh Uche and Matt Judon are a good time. Best of all, Mac Jones looked like someone who is going to get anointed as the next Tom Brady for the next 6-8 weeks on Boston sports radio.
There are a few reasons why it feels like local pipe fitters all across New England will be calling into WEEI tomorrow, fitting Mac Jones’ gold jacket. This is one of them:
This is another:
Mac Jones came out of this game with the only stat line that matters. He isn’t the reason the Patriots lost. With this loss, we can officially close the book on the decision to release Cam Newton. Mac has earned some brownie points with Patriots fans just one week into his NFL career.
Having your 7′ tall, 400lb starting right tackle going out on the first series is not ideal for a rookie QB in his first NFL start against a divisional rival at home for the first time in front of real fans in two years. Mac Jones didn’t really look like he noticed.
There was a lot of other good stuff that happened that feels like a waste since they lost the game. We finally have hope. Real, tangible hope that we’ll someday see those duck boats drive down Boylston Street again blaring T-Pain. The 2 years of misery were not for waste. Watching Brady and Gronk go for back to back Super Bowls with the Bucs is just a hair less excruciating.
But there are some things that I’d consider worth losing sleep over.
First is Josh McDaniels relentless commitment to the run game in the worst situational game moments. At this point if you asked me to describe a quintessential Josh McDaniels offense I would immediately show you a clip of a pitch to James White on 3rd and 2 that goes for a gain of 1 after Mac Jones has completed 90% of his passes on that drive. Even if it worked it wouldn’t be my favorite play call. I don’t look forward to 16 more weeks of tweeting mean things about Josh McDaniels, and neither do you, but it’s inevitable.
Another thing did become abhorrently clear watching Devante Parker catch approx. 300 slant passes for 10-15 yards on 1st down: someone needs to start a GoFundMe for Stephon Gilmore. Whatever we have to do, as Patriots fans, from a financial standpoint, we need to make it happen. Once they work out some of the kinks in the front that secondary may visibly stand out as the weakest unit on this team. Although that TD saving breakup by Jalen Mills was pretty entertaining.
Even after all of that bad stuff, it’s hard not to get even a tiny Patriots boner listening to Mac Jones talk in his postgame. He certainly sounds like the new top selling jersey on NFL.com