Patriots Nation is understandably upset today. The last three games have been brutal to sit through, despite squeaking-out that Dallas win in style. Ironically, the Pittsburgh and New York games very nearly ended in similar ways. This is one of those Mondays where the sky just seems a little bleaker, the birds are chirping a little less, and you realize your team is knotted in a three-way tie in the AFC East.
The good news for Patriots fans is...your team is knotted in a three-way tie in the AFC East. It sounds horrible, I know. But consider this: If the Lakers and Celtics go into halftime with the score being 46-46, then the game goes from being a 48-minute game to a 24-minute game, and whoever scores the most points wins. It’s like playing half a game.
All a team has to do is make the playoffs. Once that happens, anything’s possible. Patriots fans have long since prided themselves on anticipating championships, but this is a different time now, and the playoffs are my primary concern. Right now, the Patriots and the Jets and the Bills all share a 5-3 record. Essentially, that means we’re all at 0, with 8 games left. Given the struggles lately, this really isn’t such a bad scenario. Consider this: next week, if we beat the Jets and the Bills lose to the Cowboys, the Patriots will be 6-3, and the Jets and Bills will be tied at 5-4 and stuck in a hole that they’ll have to worry about.
The Patriots aren’t in a six-foot hole, we only think they are because we’re so used to being the ones standing over the casket and shoveling the dirt. Ok, so we’re not that team this year. We’re not in the hole, and we’re not filling the hole. If anything, we’re sitting on the ground with New York and Buffalo, all of us peering down at the hole, wondering who’s gonna be down there. The easiest way to stay out of the hole is to just win. That’s the silver lining. All the Patriots have to do is win this 8-game season. Pretend next week against the Jets is the first game of the season. There was never a loss to the Bills, the Steelers, or the Giants. Game 1 of 8: Patriots versus Jets.
But first, we need a moment of clarity so we can be sure we go 7-1 instead of 4-4. There is such a thing as a defining moment, and this Patriots team is in need of one. To start with, we need an admission of failure and a commitment to succeeding. Because right now, this is getting to feel like clockwork; the Patriots lose, and the players and coach give me the same “we need to execute better” routine. This is not a moment of clarity. This is a we’re-gonna-keep-doing-it-this-way speech. That’s not good enough.
I came across an interesting article today about a recent speech given by the president of Universal Studios. In his speech, he unleashed a heavy dose of truth that I found surprising and surprisingly satisfying. He said: "One of the worst movies we ever made was Wolfman. It’s one of those movies, the moment I saw it I thought, ‘What have we all done here?’ That movie was crappy. We all went wrong. It was one of those things. Like I said, we make a lot of bad movies. That’s one we should have smelled out a long time ago. It was wrong. The script never got right. [The cast] was awful. The director was wrong. Benicio stunk. It all stunk. Wolfman and Babe 2 are two of the shittiest movies we put out." And referring to Land of the Lost, he said: “I mean, there was no excuse for it. The best intentions all went wrong.”
I read that, and I felt a little better about those movies. It doesn’t change the fact that they were terrible, but it does give me comfort that someone involved in an executive position is aware of the flaw, and might fix it in the future. There remains something to be desired from the hunger of the New England Patriots. Bill’s been getting a lot of heat lately, and I think some of it is justified. There seems to be a complacency with losing for a team that lives in a town where winning matters.
This Patriots team can make the playoffs this year. But to do so, they’ll need to play great football for 8 games. Good football won’t do -- not against the Jets, the Chiefs, the Eagles, and a final-week match-up with the Bills. This is a time for great football and championship leadership, and part of that leadership has to be accountability. I’ve heard a lot of players take responsibility lately, but it never feels genuine to me. I’m aware that no words can undo the last two painful weeks of football, but there are words that can give me hope that we’re about to go 8-0 or 7-1. There are words that make me feel like someone in Foxborough is “on this.”
