The Patriots are 3-3 so far this season with a reasonably good chance of improving to 4-3 when they host the dreadful Bears on Monday Night Football.
Four-and-three — that sounds pretty decent, doesn’t it? But is New England really as good as its record, or has it benefited from perhaps pro football’s easiest schedule in its first six games?
And how about third-string quarterback Bailey Zappe, the fourth-round draft pick out of those college football hotbeds, Houston Christian and Western Kentucky?
It’s certainly hard to believe that the Patriots have started more different quarterbacks in the first six weeks of the 2022 regular season than they have in any of the past 22 seasons, but it’s true.
Well, I’m not buying into the Patriots’ success yet, nor am I buying into the “Zappe Fever” that is running rampant in New England. Yes, the Patriots won three of their past five games, two of those with the 23-year-old rookie running the show, but have you really, really looked at the opponents they’ve taken on?
In Week 1, New England fell to a much-improved Dolphins team, 20-7, scoring one measly TD. Miami won its first three games, including a surprising victory over the Bills and a road victory over the Ravens, but they’re now 3-3 after losing QB Tua Tagovailoa. But Miami held New England to just seven points, and since then, the Dolphin defense has given up 38, 19, 27, 40, and 24 points to its opponents, and they’re seventh-worst in terms of yardage surrendered in the NFL. So the Patriots got their behinds kicked by a decent Dolphins team that does not boast an elite defense, even though the Patriots’ defense played pretty well, as evidenced by the fact that Miami scored 42 points against Baltimore a week later.
How about the 17-14 victory in Week 2 in Pittsburgh? At the time, it was pretty impressive, given that the Steelers had beaten the defending champion Bengals in Week 1, but in retrospect, New England’s win in Week 2 was not that big of a deal. Pittsburgh is a bad team, as evidenced by its losing to what we’ll see is a lousy Browns team in Week 3, falling to the improved Jets at home the following week, and getting blown out by the Bills by five touchdowns in Week 4. I discount Pittsburgh’s win last week against Tom Brady & Co. because TB12 was likely still hungover from Patriot owner Bob Kraft’s Friday night wedding party, so much so that Brady couldn’t even join his Bucs teammates for their Saturday walkthrough and practice, even though the Steel City is just 371 miles from New York City, where the reception was held, and is an easy private jet trip or limo ride for a hotshot like Brady.
The Steelers are fourth-worst in the NFL in terms of giving up yardage, yet New England scored just 17 points against them, and one of its TDs was gift-wrapped after it recovered a fumbled punt deep in Steeler territory.
The Patriots lost a winnable game in Week 3 against the Ravens at home, and while Baltimore has some impressive wins (Jets, Bills, Bengals), they’re just 3-3 because, yup, they also boast a bad defense, having given up the NFL’s fifth-worst yardage total, and New England had a 20-14 lead in the game before falling, 37-26.
Zappe got to play in Week 4 in Green Bay when, after first-string QB Mac Jones had gotten hurt late in the Ravens game and backup Brian Hoyer exited the Packers game with a concussion, Zappe took over and almost led New England to a nice road victory, but again, have you looked at that Green Bay team this season?
They’re awful! The Packers got blown out 23-7 in the season opener in Minnesota, and the last two weeks, they’ve lost back-to-back to the surprising New York teams, the Giants and Jets, the latter a 27-10 beatdown at Lambeau. Two-time defending NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers has just the 17th-highest QB rating in the NFL, and only has nine TD passes in six games.
Yes, Zappe subsequently led the Patriots to two straight wins, at home against the Lions and then on the road in Cleveland, but are we really taking anything substantial from those games? Yes, the Patriot defense shut out the Lions’ then-top-ranked offense in Week 5, and that unit is obviously New England’s biggest strength right now, but overall, the team has a long way to go to be considered among the league’s better teams, much less the NFL’s elite.
Last week’s 38-15 decision over Cleveland came a year after New England beat those same Browns, 45-7, and this year’s win was against a former Patriot backup QB, Jacoby Brissett, whom Bill Belichick and his coaching staff were well familiar with. Zappe played well, admittedly, and the Patriot defense shut down one of the NFL’s best running games, albeit one that had to revert to the passing game when New England jumped out to a big early lead.
As of this writing, it still has yet to be announced whether Zappe will take the reins again for MNF at Gillette, or if Jones will return to the field, but either QB should be able to move the ball against the frightful Bears (2-4), who will be hard-pressed to score with the league’s second-worst passing attack.
But moving forward, Jones should be the primary quarterback for New England, as the 2021 first-round draft choice is the better player and more equipped to take the Patriots into the more difficult part of the schedule, which is looming, beginning next week in the Meadowlands against the 4-2(!) Jets.
Zappe Fever is all well and good, and as mentioned, the Patriots’ defense could actually be pretty good, but give me a quality win against an upper-echelon opponent before I will believe in this team as more than an 8-9 non-playoff team at season’s end.