Preemptive Pigskins

 The Dolphins are Dangerous, the Bills are a Patrick Mahomes injury away from touching the Lombardi, the Jets have Dark Thor at QB, Mac Jones is the pigskin version of Schrodinger's Cat, DeAndre Hopkins has signed with the Titans, and Bill Belichick is on the hot seat. 

Did I miss anything, fellow Pats fans?

It seems Robert Kraft should've taken advantage of the reno of Gillette to rename it Bleak House.

And yes, I totally forced that Dickens reference. I mean, expectations for the 2023 New England Patriots are not exactly great.

Yeah, I did it again. (If you know, you know.)

Okay. 

Yes.

It's way too early to be asking yourself where they're playing the Super Bowl (Vegas, baby!) and booking non-refundable airfare and hotel rooms regardless. Let alone burying the Patriots in the AFC East cellar before they've even teed up the season-opening kickoff. All of this is just so much scribbling on virtual paper for now but yeah, on paper, it doesn't look so good for the Patriots. 

Or does it?

Reasons to be Cautiously Optimistic About the 2023-24 Patriots

Bill O'Brien opens the box and finds the cat, I mean, Mac Jones is… alive!

Mac Jones will never be Tom Brady (duh, nobody is) but I think maybe he could be Troy Aikman (pinpoint accuracy, pure pocket passer, lacking in athleticism and dancing ability, high concussion risk). If O'Brien has spent as much time watching 2020 Alabama highlights as I have, maybe he sees that, too. 

Speaking of manifesting the future…

Could Rhamondre Stevenson be Mac's Emmitt Smith? 

Maybe.

Could Tyquan Thornton be his Michael Irvin? 

Probably not. Not yet, at the very least. 

Yeah, I get why everyone east of the Connecticut River wanted the Pats to sign D-Hop. Well, except me. As soon as Hopkins let it be known he wasn't chasing a ring, I knew Belichick wouldn't sign him.

Having Mike Gesicki to pair with Hunter Henry at TE will be a definite plus, of course, and yes, I'm counting on Thornton making the second-year leap at WR (even if I'm holding on to his ticket to Canton, for now). I'm also counting on DeVante Parker having at least one more good year left in the tank (cue the sour grapes chatter about Parker being just as good as D-Hop at this point in their careers). It wouldn't hurt if the Pats offense rediscovered Kendrick Bourne on shallow crossers with O'Brien calling the plays.

I'm counting on one of those young running backs (Kevin Harris, Pierre Strong) being the Robin to Rhamondre's Batman (the Nolan/Bale Batman, of course), and Ty Montgomery staying healthy as a 3rd down option.  

And I'm counting on Adrian Klemm coaching up the offensive line. That might be a bigger ask than O'Brien unlocking Mac Jones, given the uncertainty at tackle, a position I've come to understand as critically important in the modern NFL. Given the current solution is the enigma that is Trent Brown on Mac and Cheese's blind side and hoping Riley Reiff isn't just a name I recognize and think, he was kind of good once, wasn't he?, I'm really hoping the Pats hit on draft picks Sidy Sow and Antonio Mafi (technically not tackles, but nobody's perfect).

I'm counting on McCorkle, too; that he's as competitive as I've read in stories about him and that he's committed to proving he's a face of the franchise, game is on the line, Super Bowl-winning QB.

Okay. I'm willing to give the kid a couple of years to get there, but a win in the playoffs this year would be nice.

They can't be worse on Special Teams…

Could they?

Okay, the chances they'll be worse on Special Teams are low but hardly zero. Still, the first step in fixing a problem is recognizing that you have a problem in the first place and it's pretty clear from the draft (and not just the kickers) the Patriots understand they need to get much better in this phase of the game in 2023. There was already some talent there in the estimable Matthew Slater, and second-year pros Brenden Schooler, and Marcus Jones, and maybe Joe Judge is actually better at coaching special teams than he is at coaching quarterbacks, so I guess we'll see how it goes.

Defense Wins Championships

In a weird bit of synchronicity, I had recently revisited the 2018 championship run and the defensive masterpiece created by the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII, holding the high powered Rams offense to just 3 points, and found myself wondering how that compares to Belichick's HOF defensive game plan for SB XXV. Apparently, I'm not the only one. 

Has Belichick lost his fast ball? 

Okay, SB LIII was five years ago and cognitive decline as we age is a real thing (trust me) but I don't think so (then again, this is me talking).

More importantly, does he have the weapons on defense to counter the rather daunting offensive gauntlet the AFC East has become?

I am cautiously optimistic.

Yes, Devin McCourty retiring is going to hurt, especially early in the season. And losing promising CB and firearms enthusiast Jack Jones to the prison system is hardly ideal. But if the Patriots hit on their top three draft picks this year (CB Christian Gonzalez, DE Keion White, S/LB Marte Mapu), a Top-10 defense just got even better. 

It's July

Nobody's winning - or losing - the Super Bowl this Sunday.

Go Pats!