Pats keep showing fight down the stretch, but just aren't good enough to do anything with it. If they can't beat the Jets on Sunday, they might as well enter the Caleb Williams sweepstakes.
They're not going to tank. Ridiculous to even assume they would.
If they lose this Sunday, they should. They'll be 0-4 if they lose to NYJ since there's no chance they are beating Dallas on the road Week 4. At that point, tank.
Of course I hope they actually win this next week. And I believe they will.
Breath slowly, they're...not....going....to....tank.
They're too good to effectively tank. Who between Kraft & Belichick would even order the Code Red on the notion? And have you seen the likes of Arizona, Houston, Chicago. There is some absolute crap out there right now in the NFL. They're not going to be bad enough to get a Caleb Williams.
Let's also remember they just lost to the Super Bowl runner-up in Philadephia & a team that was in the playoffs last season in MIA that is looking like the real deal again this season. The schedule is brutal. This is a better football team that the 2022 iteration.
It is, but the improvement may not be that significant (not to mention that the bar known as last season is pretty low). They have an actual OC, which is great, but the O-line is a constantly revolving door due to injuries, and includes a bunch of "depth" guys—which is a polite way of saying "guys who aren't great at their job."
They still have no legit WR1, the running game is stuck in the mud, and they keep running low-risk/low-reward plays like the lateral pass to the WR behind the LOS, which usually nets about 2 yards. Oh, and Mac's arm strength leaves something to be desired.
I know that the O-line is bad and Mac is young, but the overall development of the team is coming in very small increments—perhaps too small to amount to much this season. It's like last year's debacle of having two defense-oriented guys be the OCs set the team back a couple years.