Make no mistake: The 2023 Patriots are terrible

For the masochists among us, I’ll be back tomorrow with my Fan Notes. But I also need to take a moment this evening to make sure that everyone knows just how bad this 2023 New England Patriots team is.

At 1-4, the season is over. There’s always a chance that they turn it around, but the odds of that happening are unfathomably slim. The more logical thing to do is acknowledge that whatever passes for a Patriots squad in 2023 is a complete disaster and adjust your expectations accordingly.

Just to put things in perspective:

• This team has allowed 69 unanswered points over two games.
• This team hasn’t scored a touchdown on the last 33 possessions.
• New England now ranks dead last on pass protection.
• They have now given up four pick-sixes at home over the last three seasons. Tom Brady gave up four over 17 seasons.
• The Patriots have now lost more home games without Brady under center since 2020 (25) than they did over Brady’s entire tenure with the team.

We also just saw Michael Onwenu, Demario Douglas, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Jabrill Peppers, and Ja’Whaun Bentley fail to finish this latest embarrassment of a game. The Patriots are coming off back-to-back losses that represent the worst of Bill Belichick’s tenure in which the team that left the field was weaker than the team that took it. This is just an objectively terrible team, and there’s no cavalry coming.

The way I see it, there’s nowhere to go from here but down. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and all we can do is sit here and watch it all play out.

Buckle up, everyone. We’re all in for a ride.