Signs and Misdemeanors

Meaningless game? Check. No season-ending injuries? Check. Losing 40-3 and not caring? Check.

I couldn’t help thinking while watching the Patriots-Lions preseason game, my eyes slightly averted so as not to burn my optic nerves, there will probably be games like this in the regular season. There are the rookie wide receivers and rookies will play like rookies sometimes. The Patriots are also asking players who are being asked to make the move from supporting player to leading role like Shane Vereen and Danny Amendola and sometimes the spotlight may shine a little too brightly for them. There will be moments when they play like the stars we expect them to be, like they did against Philly and Tampa. There will be moments when they look like accountants who wandered into the game having gotten lost on their way to the men’s room, with skill sets that don’t seem to readily translate to the playing field. Like most of Belichick’s teams, I think the 2013 Patriots will play their best football after Thanksgiving. Another way to look at that is there will be some rough moments in September and October.

I’m now reminding myself of the year New England started the season in Buffalo and lost 31-0 but ended the season by hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

That happened.

That’s not to say I think there are “good losses.” Well, it was good that it was a preseason game. Perhaps it was a Zen slap of awareness and Belichick will use it as a teachable moment; there could be some ROI to that. I know that in the classic narrative of any winning streak, the inciting incident is the loss that preceded the run of W’s but correlation is not causation. How does that loss have anything to do with a win five weeks later?

Perhaps it’s simply never good to play your third-string guard – a converted tackle – against Ndamukong Suh. Perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into a game where the Patriots had clearly prioritized evaluating James Develin and Michael Hoomanawanui over winning. Overreacting is a rite of preseason passage, I suppose. The victories are harbingers of Super Bowls and the losses are omens of a disastrous 4-12-0 regular season with the faint hope that somehow the Jets will go 3-13-0.

Once I’d confirmed that nobody had gotten hurt for the Patriots, I started waiting for someone to get cut. Somebody should be cut after a game like that. Or so I thought as Belichick has yet to make a move. That will come soon enough, I suppose, with the deadline to cut the roster to 75 coming up this Tuesday.

It was just one game and a preseason game to boot.

As my Pigskin Yoda would say, it’s time to move on.