Fan notes on the Patriots’ loss to the Dolphins

If you missed yesterday’s game between the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins, congratulations! You are the only real winners here.

Two of the league’s worst offenses fought for the right to say they were the biggest disaster of 2024. And New England came out victorious…I think. Honestly, who knows. And it doesn’t matter anyway.

1. I’ve decided to make it a goal for the rest of this season’s Fan Notes to stop talking about the offensive line. “The Patriots offensive line is terrible” has become the NFL equivalent of “Will be a real hit today” or “Why the hell does gas cost so damn much?” It’s become one of those obvious statements that we say just to make some kind of small talk or to rationalize our current situation, and there’s not really much more to say about it. There’s just nothing there and that’s just how it is.

2. I don’t think it’s all on the O-line either. Jacoby Brissett had time and missed open guys. The play call did not reflect the restrictions along the line. Of course, injuries play a role. It’s very easy to say that the Patriots are just one good line away, but it’s more than that.

3. I also think the only way to get through this article is to treat yesterday’s game like some sort of academic exercise where the players all represented little bits of bacteria floating around a petri dish and I’m in 8th grade again. -I pretended to take notes instead of giggling every time another kid in my class made the exact same joke about other things you’d need a microscope to look at.

4. The real positive I take away from this game – and I mean that sincerely – is that underneath the flames of this debacle of a game, there are some Patriots players who are either getting better every week or are making consistently good plays. And all of these players are part of the young core that looks to be crucial to future versions of this squad. DeMario Douglas is starting to re-establish himself as a solid route runner and viable receiving option. Kayshon Boutte continues to make the most of his snaps and makes a strong case to become a more regular part of the offensive rotation. Christian Gonzalez is one of the best cornerbacks in the league and Bryce Baringer is an All-Pro level punter. Rhamondre Stevenson is a real weapon when he doesn’t fumble. Brenden Schooler is an elite special teamer. Marte Mapu had the green dot on his helmet and seems to be receiving high praise. Somewhere beneath all the nonsense you can see a talented team, and any players who don’t deliver are not in New England’s long-term plans.

5. But one real negative I take away from this game is how undisciplined the Patriots were, and that’s largely due to the coaches. An overplaying penalty that negates a punt looks terrible, and giving Miami an entire football field’s worth of free yards in a game where field position and points are paramount is inexcusable. Jerod Mayo has made some highly questionable coaching decisions, and why the Patriots called off the run so early is a mystery to me. It all starts at the top and works its way down, so hopefully Mayo and Co. will be watching the game video of themselves this week too.

6. I’d like to know what more Christian Gonzalez needs to do to get DeMarcus Covington to come to his locker every week with a photo of a receiver and just say, “Think about that guy.” The man hasn’t had an easy ride since he started in the NFL and delivered every time. Every time an elite receiver plays against the Patriots, it’s because they’re in a zone or because Gonzo isn’t covering him.

7. I’d also like to know to what extent New England’s inability to halt their upward trend of late is due to injuries rather than talent and a lack of fundamentals. Backs can jump to the outside relatively easily against this team, and I’d say there’s about a three-yard standard deviation between the first time a Patriots defender makes contact with a running back and the time he finally goes down. It’s strange too because the thing that impressed me most about the Patriots in preseason was how strong the tackling looked.

8. And they might have to figure all of this out without Jabrill Peppers. If these accusations are justified, I can’t imagine he’ll be there much longer. You don’t behave like you did back then, especially not as a team captain. We’ll see how it develops.

9. I never expected Antonio Gibson to be as productive as he was in these first five weeks. Admittedly, a lot of this was out of necessity. But he appears to be good for at least one big play per game and has shown excellent patience and gap discipline as a runner.

10. Finally, I just have to repeat what I’ve said several times: this is a team that is playing exactly as we expected. They simply aren’t talented enough to compete with most teams in the NFL.

11. And I’d still rather have this version of the Patriots than what we endured last year, where every three-and-out seemed like it was just three random plays with no rhyme or reason, followed by a botched special teams play, to screw up the whole defense. So far in the 2025 season I have never seen anything other than the maximum performance of everyone involved. You can’t yell so hard at a five-year-old child who’s swinging a hammer for not hammering in the nail.

12. That wasn’t the case with Ja’Lynn Polk’s touchdown: Aside from the fact that Polk carves out a strange little niche for himself by making spectacular catches on incomplete passes that end up out of bounds, we have another example of how completely The rules that surround a catch are nonsensical. The result was that Polk was facing the wrong way when he made the catch. If it had been on the sideline, it would have been there. If he had looked back into the end zone, it would have been there. But since he stood with his back to the boundary, the toes that hit the ground first fade into the background, while the heel must also be in the boundary. Right decision, but just a crazy nuance that makes no sense. And as we’ve all seen numerous times over the last decade-plus, absolutely no one who plays, coaches, watches, directs, manages, orchestrates or broadcasts professional football can even begin to tell you what a catch is. That’s just the way it is and at this point we’ll never know.

13. I’m very excited to see what the Drake-Maye conversation will look like this week. Last week it seemed like people were okay with letting him sit for a while longer, and I wonder if what we saw yesterday converted anyone one way or another.

14. But Jerod Mayo said after the game that Jacoby was still the guy. He also said, without so many words, that Brissett’s job was more or less to take the beating for as long as he could take it. So there is that.

15. Despite the loss – and as I’ve said many times, wins and losses aren’t that important this season – I would much rather be a Patriots fan than a Dolphins fan this season. We all knew New England was going to do poorly this year, but Miami was a lot of people’s first choice to win the AFC East. Now they are without a quarterback and prospects and are projected to be $44 million over the cap in 2025. I can’t imagine too many Fins fans feeling dazed and dazed over yesterday’s win.

16. Also… this is worth mentioning. Buffalo appears to be just good enough to be eliminated from the playoffs early, but doesn’t have the teeth or talent to make a truly deep playoff run. They’re also close to the cap in 2025 and are in danger of Josh Allen going 10-7 in his best season for a few more years and being eliminated in the divisional round. Obviously only one team ends the season happy every year, and you can’t have a Super Bowl or bust mentality as a fan. But there’s also something about feeling like your team simultaneously has the best chance of winning a championship, but at the same time doesn’t have enough pieces.

Playing the Texans next week should be fun. It’s either going to be a complete bust or one of those games where a terrible team slows down a good team and no one can figure out why.