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The New England Patriots suffered a 41-21 loss to the Houston Texans in Week 6 of the 2024 NFL campaign to push their record to 1-5 on the season. Despite Drake Maye putting together an encouraging outing in his first start at quarterback for the Pats, the team as a whole made a bevy of mistakes that they were never going to be able to overcome against a potential Super Bowl contender in the Texans.
The loss was New England's fifth straight, and after a surprising victory over the Cincinnati Bengals to open the season, they have proven themselves to be what they were reasonably expected to be; one of the worst teams in the league. After trying to rebuild on the fly in the wake of Tom Brady's departure, though, this was a necessary move for the team to make, even if it's incredibly painful to endure.
And yet, all the narratives surrounding this team would have casual fans believing they are the biggest disappointment in the league. In reality, these struggles are what New England has to go through in order to return to the top of the mountain. But as their woes continue to drag on, the ridiculous expectations for this team only seem to get more and more far-fetched.
The Patriots cannot escape their past
New England is in the beginning stages of building themselves back up from the rubble they currently are in the wake of their long-running dynasty coming to an end. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are gone, and while Belichick struggled mightily to keep this roster in good shape after Brady's departure, that's neither here-nor-there. At some point in the post-Brady era, the Pats were going to have to rebuild.
They tried to put it off by keeping things together with glue and duct tape by rebuilding on the fly with Mac Jones, and well, we saw how that worked out. The team finally decided to embrace the rebuild this offseason by moving on from Belichick, dumping Jones off to the Jacksonville Jaguars, and drafting Maye to be their new quarterback of the future.
A quick look at this roster indicates a stunning lack of talent that has only been made worse by a bevy of injuries. Ja'Whaun Bentley and David Andrews, two veterans the team couldn't really afford to lose, are out for the season already, and there's a decent chance Christian Barmore won't play at all this season due to blood clots. Safety Jabril Peppers time with the team could also be over after he was placed on the Commissioner Exempt List due to his recent arrest.
Jerod Mayo has inherited an unenviable situation from Belichick. That's not a dig at the legendary coach, but rather a fact of the matter. Yes, Mayo and de facto general manager Eliot Wolf were given a full offseason to begin fixing this team, but they weren't going to turn the scrap heap that was the 2023 Patriots into a Super Bowl contender right away. The goal was to keep the key pieces Belichick had in place around on new deals, while getting rid of the guys who didn't fit into their future plans.
Again, those future plans were not designed for New England to be a winner right away. Calls for the team to fire Mayo or offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt after just six games are simply ridiculous. Yes, the team has struggled, but that's precisely what they are supposed to do. This is a rebuild; success is not going to be realized after just a few games. These guys need time to put their plans into place.
That's the issue with coming off one of the greatest dynasties in the history of sports. Patriots fans are starving for something to cheer about in the wake of the failed Jones era. That's largely why Maye has been thrown into the fire, despite the team's insistence that they are attempting to do what's best for him and his development.
In his first NFL start, Maye showed reasons for excitement that simply did not exist through the first five games of the year. He threw for 243 yards and three scores, while also being the team's leading rusher with 38 yards on five carries. He also threw a pair of interceptions and lost a fumble, which are the sorts of growing pains that are to be expected with a rookie quarterback.
I've already discussed this at length, but playing Maye in this moribound offense is not the best thing this team can do for his development, and I'm standing by that, even after his encouraging first start. There's an argument to be made that he has both the worst offensive line and the worst group of pass catchers in the entire league supporting him.
But the narrative that Maye would somehow help make the Patriots better immediately permeated the walls of Gillette Stadium, and that led to him replacing Jacoby Brissett after just five starts. Who cares if this team is good this year, though? They aren't supposed to be. And therein lies the major problem that is plaguing the Pats early on in the 2024 campaign.
The belief that every New England team should be a winner is directly influencing the decisions the team is making. In reality, though, rebuilds are a natural part of the ebb and flow of sports. Dynasties don't last forever, and now it's time to regroup so that a new one can be created.
There's still an insistence that this team should be winning now, though, and that's resulting in the Patriots running the risk of making the same mistakes with Maye that just made with Jones. It hasn't bit them in the butt yet, but we are only six games into this new era. And if the desire to win immediately continues to linger around Foxboro, it's only a matter of time until things come crumbling down around this team again.
