New England Patriots links 10/12/21 - Belichick: “How about this offensive line?”

TEAM TALK

• Mike Dussault breaks down the Patriots emerging offense through five games: Mac Jones and the Patriots offense are starting to make strides and find their identity.
• Press Conference Transcript: Bill Belichick.
• WEEI Patriots Monday: Bill Belichick and Mac Jones.
• Angelique Fiske notes Bill Belichick’s text to Alex Cora is the ‘highlight’ of his year. There’s something special about the New England sports connection. The players and coaches have a special bond, supporting each other in big moments.’
• Inside the Patriots Locker Room: Postgame speech and celebration. (1.35 min. video)

LOCAL LINKS

• Evan Lazar’s Film Review: Patriots QB Mac Jones is way ahead of the curve relative to other rookies.
• Andrew Callahan’s Patriots film review: How Mac Jones’ first NFL comeback was engineered.
• Evan Lazar’s Advanced Stats Report: Mac Jones, Matt Judon, Pats’ O-Line stand out in win over Texans: There were some positive takeaways from the Patriots’ comeback victory.
• Zack Cox’ Patriots snap count analysis: Jamie Collins made big impact in cameo.
• Mike D’Abate (PatriotMaven) Patriots 2021 Week Five snap counts: Interpretations and implications.
• Matt Dolloff’s Personnel Report: Rhamondre Stevenson gets bigger role vs Texans.
• Chris Mason addresses three lingering questions after great escape in Houston. 1. What’s up at CB?
• Ian Logue (PatsFans) 5 Thoughts on the Pats win over the Texans. 1) One of the things that’s becoming frustrating is the fact that this year’s New England Patriots team has yet to take on the traits of past clubs, and it’s been one of the key reasons behind their early struggles.
• Zack Cox picks the five biggest factors that led to the Patriots erasing a 13-point second-half deficit to knock off the Houston Texans. 1. Third-down defense.
• Henry McKenna (PatriotsWire) 9 takeaways from Patriots’ comically ugly win over the Texans in Week 5. 1. The Patriots are not good. We don’t really know what they are.
• Michael Hurley serves up some still-warm leftover Patriots thoughts: The Patriots won. Barely. Against one of the worst teams in the NFL. Other than that, it was a good Sunday.
• Jerry Thornton shares his knee-jerk reactions to Pats-Texans: In the Before Times, in the way, way back, we used to come out of games like this concerned that the defense didn’t play well, there were a bunch of mistakes, missed kicks, turnovers, stupid penalties and so on, and the only reason we came away with a win is we had a quarterback who hung in there, found a rhythm, mounted a comeback and made up for everyone else’s shortcomings. But he wasn’t going to be able to do that forever. I too used to worry about that. Now I think it’s something we should celebrate.
• Dakota Randall takes a shot at why the Patriots ultimately should feel good about their ugly victory over the Houston Texans: They potentially saved their season.
• Clare Cooper (PatsPropaganda) Taking on the Texans, and kicking out a win.
• Mike D’Abate (PatriotMaven) Notebook: Harris ‘checked out OK’; Develin runs Marathon, and More.
• Phil Perry’s Week 5 Report Card: Backup O-line shines bright in front of Mac Jones.
• Steve Balestrieri (PatsFans) Week 5 Report Card: “Entering the game, if you told me that the Patriots would struggle because the patchwork offensive line, held together with Gorilla Glue and 100mph tape, with four out of the five starters missing was the issue, I’d have totally bought that.”
• Luke Ervin (PatsBuzz) Patriots stock report following Week 5 win: 4 Up, 4 Down.
• Mike D’Abate (PatriotMaven) Worth the watch: Yay or nay? Week Five, Patriots vs. Texans. Ted Karras - Yay.
• Andrew Callahan highlights how the patchwork offensive line paved the way to a comeback on Sunday.
• Andy Hart talks about how the backup-filled OL had a wire-to-wire winning effort.
• Eric Wilbur says the Patriots have a top-5 defense in terms of yards per game allowed, but how good is it really?
• Karen Guregian reports on Mac Jones and his teammates relishing big-game moments and being in those pressure-packed situations.
• Zack Cox tells us what Mac Jones wrote in his ‘improvement journal’ after the win on Sunday.
• Dakota Randall shares the Patriots’ post of David Andrews delivering a pregame speech to the patchwork O-Line.
• Ryan Hannable suggests it’s not time to give up on Jonnu Smith just yet, remember Stephon Gilmore?
• Karen Guregian passes along a report saying RB Damien Harris is day-to-day with rib/chest injuries; Tests reportedly rule out significant injury.
• Hayden Bird highlights Bill Belichick on WEEI discussing texting with emojis ‘What are those?’, and his friendship with Alex Cora.
• Scott McLaughlin highlights WEEI guest Boomer Esiason on how the Cowboys game could tell us a lot about the Patriots.
• CBS Boston reports former Patriots fullback James Develin completes his first Boston Marathon.

NATIONAL NEWS

• Albert Breer (SI) Monday Afternoon QB: The Bills are now the class of the AFC; Plus, the Chargers’ situational awareness, Davis Mills’s strong showing, the Saints’ and Packers’ depth and more notes from Week 5.
• Corey Seeley (TheDraftScout) Tuesday Morning Football: Behind Josh Allen, the Bills have changed the narrative in the AFC, Jon Gruden out as Raiders head coach, Mahomes and Chiefs need help.
• Cody Benjamin (CBS Sports) One thing we learned about each NFL team in Week 5 of 2021 season. Patriots: Mac Jones may be poised, but they seem at least a year away from competing. That may have been obvious before, but talk about a steep drop off, going from a close game with the Bucs to a close one with the Texans.
• Adam Schein (NFL.com) NFL’s worst losses in Week 5: Lions, Bengals, Raiders feeling the pain.
• Rodger Sherman (The Ringer) The winners and losers of NFL Week 5.
• Tory Barron (ESPN) NFL kickers have historically rough week with record-setting misses.

EXTRACURRICULAR

• Mike Florio (ProFootballTalk) Jon Gruden tells staff he will resign.
• Shalise Manza Young (Yahoo! Sports) Jon Gruden got what he deserved – but why is Washington’s Daniel Snyder relatively immune from this email scandal?
• Jenny Vrentas (SI) Gruden has resigned. Now, it’s time for the rest of the Washington investigation to be made public.
• Cody Benjamin (CBS Sports) Jon Gruden timeline to resignation: How Raiders coach went from 10-year deal to early exit from Las Vegas. /Now do the timeline of Dan Snyder.
• Mike Florio (ProFootballTalk) League likely would have kept leaking emails, until Jon Gruden was out. /Remember when Cris Carter told rookies to ‘get a fall guy’? Jon Gruden just became that guy.