FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- How did the Patriots follow up the worst loss of Bill Belichick's career? With the second-worst loss of his career.
A week after quarterback Mac Jones got benched in the second half of a 38-3 loss to the Cowboys, Jones got benched in the second half of a 34-0 loss to the Saints. New England rolled up a paltry 156 yards of offense, turned the ball over three times and made just eight first downs on Sunday. Boos rained down from the Gillette Stadium stands as the Patriots kept going three-and-out, kept punting in Saints territory and generally just looked inept and uninterested.
Belichick's team is now 1-4 as it heads to Las Vegas next week for a game against old friend Josh McDaniels and the Raiders, and it sure didn't sound like the Patriots had any answers after the game. Asked what they need to do to pull out of this, Belichick muttered, "Start over." Asked what that meant, he shrugged and muttered again, "Start over."
It is not remotely any sort of stretch to suggest that this is the worst the Patriots have looked since Belichick got there in 2000. And it's totally fair to wonder whether their season is salvageable, whether Jones can really be a franchise quarterback and how much longer Belichick will even want to do this if this is the way it's going to be.
So having witnessed this complete catastrophe with my own eyes Sunday, I felt there would be no better place to start our NFL Week 5 overreactions column, where we judge a few potential takeaways from the weekend's games.
Jump to:
Belichick's final season?
Ravens' offense hasn't improved?
Giants picking early?
Vikings should trade Cousins?
Cowboys aren't on the Niners' level?
This will be Belichick's final season as the Patriots' coach
I mean, it's so bad right now. Pick a stat from this game, and it's more horrendous than the one before it. The combined minus-69 point differential over the past two games is the worst over any two-game stretch in franchise history. It's the first time since 1970 that the Pats have lost two straight games by 30 or more points. It's the first time since 1992 that they've scored a total of three or fewer points in a two-game stretch. Jones had the fourth interception returned for a touchdown of his career at Gillette Stadium; Tom Brady had a total of four of those in his lengthy career at Gillette.
There's nothing to like about the way the Patriots look right now, and mumbling into the microphones in the wake of this fiasco, Belichick didn't sound like he could come up with anything either. He's 29 wins short of Don Shula's record for regular-season wins by a coach, and the way it's going right now, that looks like a five-year project.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
To be clear, I do not believe the Patriots would ever actually fire Belichick. But I covered the final year of the Shula era in Miami, the final year of Joe Torre with the Yankees and the final year of Tom Coughlin with the Giants. I have a little bit of experience with what it feels like when a historically magnificent run by the guy in charge just feels like it's probably over. To think there's no chance the Patriots would get to the end of this season and decide it's time for a new voice at the front of the room would be naive. That's especially true if they're also looking to start over with a new quarterback next year, as it appears possible.
Team owner Robert Kraft has spoken about his regard for Patriots defensive coordinator Jerod Mayo as a head coach prospect, and there are plenty of people around the league who think Mayo is in line to be Belichick's successor. When that would happen is obviously a mystery, but the Pats are on pace to finish this season at 3-14. And if they do that, I don't think a change at coach would be any big surprise at all.
The "new" Ravens offense isn't any better this season
The Ravens had a chance on Sunday to seize control of the AFC North. A victory in Pittsburgh would have made them 3-0 in the division with road victories over all three of their division opponents. You don't need a lot of points to beat the Steelers, and the Ravens needed only 18 of them to do that Sunday. They got 10, though, and lost.
Now, it's no big surprise that coach Mike Tomlin has this Steelers team at 3-2 despite having basically no offense whatsoever. Tomlin is a wizard and will go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a result. But what is a surprise is that Baltimore's offense -- which we were told would be fresh and wide-open and exciting under new coordinator Todd Monken -- still seems stuck in the mud. Sure, the Ravens scored 28 in Week 4 against the Browns, which was impressive, but it came one week after they scored just 19 against the Colts.
The Ravens haven't shown consistency in the passing game, nor have they shown anything to make us think they're ready to rank among the top offenses in the league. Yes, quarterback Lamar Jackson has played extremely well in stretches, and prior to Sunday, he had completed more than 70% of his passes in every game this season. But it just hasn't been what the Ravens planned it to be when Monken took over, they signed Odell Beckham Jr. and they drafted Zay Flowers in the first round. The offense still seems like a lot of Mark Andrews, a lot of Jackson running and a lot of leaning on the running backs, whoever they might be in a given week.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
I always thought there would have to be growing pains. It's the first time since he entered the NFL that Jackson is running a new offense. Now add in the incredible run of injuries the Ravens have already endured this season -- having to play multiple games without their starting center and starting left tackle, having lost starting running back J.K. Dobbins to a season-ending injury in Week 1 and having barely had Beckham.
The Ravens are 3-2, and Jackson has shown improvements in key areas as a thrower. If you believed this was an offense ready to reach a new level this season, you're still allowed to believe that -- even if it hasn't happened right out of the gate.
The Giants will have a top-five pick in next year's draft
Of last season's playoff teams, the one that has looked the worst so far this season is the Giants -- and it's not even close. They gave up seven more sacks on Sunday in a 31-16 loss to the Dolphins in which the defense scored their only touchdown. Running back Saquon Barkley missed his third straight game with a right ankle injury. Quarterback Daniel Jones left the game with a neck injury and was replaced by Tyrod Taylor. Regardless of who is at quarterback, the Giants can't protect him or get the ball downfield. And even if they could, they don't have any receivers down there who can be counted on to catch it and/or do anything with it.
Every good thing that happened to, for and by the Giants last season seems to have evaporated, and right now, there appear to be too many problems for reigning Coach of the Year Brian Daboll to fix.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
The Giants are on that same three-win pace that the Patriots are on, and 3-14 certainly sounds like a record that gets you into the top five in the draft. ESPN's Football Power Index is giving New York a 60.7% chance to end up in the top five, too.
A trip to Buffalo next week to see the wounded Bills doesn't feel like the kind of thing that's going to get things back on track. After that, the Giants still have road games to play in Las Vegas, Dallas, Washington, New Orleans and Philadelphia, plus home games against the Packers, Rams and Eagles, among others. The schedule does them no favors, and unless they're about to get really healthy on offense really soon, it's hard to see how they pull out of this in time to challenge it.
The big question here, though: If the Giants do pick in the top five next April, knowing they can get out of the Daniel Jones deal after 2024, do they think about taking a quarterback with that pick? Yeah, life comes at you fast.
The Vikings need to seriously consider trading Kirk Cousins and planning for the future
The Vikings gave the Chiefs a game on Sunday, don't get me wrong. They got themselves in Hail Mary range at the end of the 27-20 loss before Cousins took a game-ending sack without getting the throw off. It's not that the Vikings are a bad team that should throw in the towel. They're competitive, in large part because Cousins is a good quarterback who helps keep them competitive -- even against the best teams in the league.
They are, however, 1-4 after Sunday's loss. They're three games behind a very good-looking first-place Lions team in the NFC North. This year's problems on defense look a lot like last year's problems on defense. And star receiver Justin Jefferson hurt his hamstring on Sunday, and it sounds like there's at least a chance he'll miss some time.
The 1-4 start is salvageable, but it's also not a season that's teeming with hope at this point.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
We're three weeks from the trade deadline, and Cousins is in the final year of his contract. His base salary this season is $10 million, which means an acquiring team would have to pay him just $555,555 per week. Easy math: If the Vikings traded him this week, his new team would have to pay him $7.2 million for the rest of the season. If they traded him at the deadline, his new team would have to pay him $5.555 million for the rest of the season.
Cousins has an affordable salary and he's playing well, with 1,498 passing yards and 13 touchdown throws. He could help someone, and the sooner he gets to the Jets or Falcons or whoever needs a real quarterback to maximize an otherwise strong roster, the better. He'd likely have to learn a new offense on the fly. Now, Cousins has a no-trade clause, and he and his family like it in Minnesota. This is an obstacle, and possibly one that couldn't be overcome. But if Cousins is not in the Vikings' 2024 plans, and they went to him and told him that and asked if he wanted them to deal him to a contender, you'd think he'd at least have to consider it.
Clearly, the 2022 Vikings were overachievers in the first year under a new coach and new GM. Good for them. Things have turned around in 2023, though, and this team needs to be thinking about what the post-2023 plan is at QB. If that's Cousins, cool. There are worse choices. But if it's not, and if this coach and GM who didn't bring in Cousins but inherited him decide they want to go another direction, it probably makes sense to see what they can get for him over the next couple of weeks.
The Cowboys aren't on the 49ers' level
You knew the Cowboys were in trouble when they committed a penalty on the first play of the game, two on the 49ers' opening drive and one on the extra-point attempt at the end of it, for good measure. If there was really a chance Dallas was going to announce itself as a true title contender on the same level as the unbeaten, unstoppable-looking 49ers, the Sunday night game would have had to start a whole lot differently than it did.
Instead, it played out according to Cowboys fans' worst nightmares, packed with defensive breakdowns, failed third-down attempts, turnovers ... everything you can't do against a top team and expect to be considered one yourself. When it was all over, the Cowboys flew home 42-10 losers to the team that has knocked them out of the playoffs the past two years, left to wonder if this might just be a hill they aren't capable of scaling.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
If this was just one bad game in October, sure. But again, the Niners are the team the Cowboys haven't been able to get past in the playoffs. It's not out of the question that they'll see them in January again, and if they do, where's the evidence that they would have a chance to beat them?
The 49ers did everything they wanted to do Sunday night, and the game did not appear difficult for them in any way. A Dallas defense that had allowed 41 points total in its first four games gave up 42 in this game's first 48 minutes. The supposedly overhauled Mike McCarthy offense couldn't sustain anything against the Niners' ferocious defense. It was a beatdown in all areas, one that left you incapable of believing the Cowboys are ever going to win the Super Bowl as long as they have to beat the 49ers to get there.
Dallas' three wins this season are against teams whose combined record is 3-11. The Cowboys' losses are to a pair of NFC West teams -- San Francisco and Arizona -- that managed to bully them physically. The most common critique I hear of Dallas when I talk to people around the league is that the Cowboys are good but not overwhelmingly physical. They had a chance to prove that wrong Sunday against a team that absolutely is, and they completely flopped. And quarterback Dak Prescott had a chance to author a signature game against a major rival, and he completely flopped (three interceptions).
Everything that's said about the Cowboys -- good or bad -- always feels like an overreaction. But this week, they deserve what's coming their way. The 49ers make a lot of teams look bad and will continue to do so. But a lot of those teams aren't expecting to see San Francisco in the playoffs, and the Cowboys could. They just look a long, long way from ready for it.