Pigskins Again

It’s been a minute. 

Okay, it’s been like two million minutes. It feels more like two million years when your pigskin heroes might be unironically compared to the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The winds of November came early for my pigskin heroes the past few years. If you were a Patriots fan like myself, you probably saw that storm coming. You don’t get Bill Belichick and TomBrady for twenty years without paying the Pigskin Piper. 

Yeah, I thought it would be bad, but after twenty years I’d forgotten how awful bad can feel. It turns out 4-13-0 feels really, really bad. A million minutes of 4-13-0 will shake your pigskin psyche, throw it on the ground, give it a good kicking (they still call it football, after all), and set it on fire. 

Two years ago, I was sure Jayden Daniels was the clear cut best QB prospect in the draft. Maybe the only slam dunk franchise QB in the draft. I also liked Caleb Williams and Bo Nix, but Daniels was my#1. Drake Maye? I thought he might top out at Kirk Cousins. I wasn’t even sure it mattered after watching New England’s coaching staff destroy Mac Jones. When Drake Maye wasn’t the Day 1 starter as a rookie (and with Daniels tearing it up in DC), it seemed all my worst fears would be realized and I would surely die before the Patriots were good again. 

I was left with nothing to do but root against the Kansas City Chiefs of Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, the only credible threat to the sepia-toned legacy of the Patriots Dynasty, and ultimately, it was just too much negativity in my life. And I also think Taylor Swift deserves a happily ever after (no, Travis Kelce was not on my Love Story Bingo Card). So there’s that. I really hope those crazy kids can make it. 

I certainly didn’t see it coming after the opening week loss to the Oakland Raiders. That was one of those “winnable” games on their “easy” schedule that had some of us (yes me) in New England dreaming of an 8-9-0 season, maybe even 9-8-0 and a tiebreaker would get into the playoffs. After losing to an objectively terrible Raiders team, one more rear of 4-13-0 seemed far more likely. 

Then they won in Miami and I didn’t know what to think. They fumbled away the game against the Steelers and it felt like this season was going to be a roller ride with incredible, confusing highs, and stomach turning, projectile vomit inducing lows. 

After the Patriots routed the Panthers, it was off to Buffalo for a reality check. I spent the entire 4th quarter waiting for Josh Allen to punch me in the nuts but it turned out I’d need to wait until Week 14 for that to happen. 

I would have to wait for the winning streak to hit 10.

Now, after the brutal, heartbreaking loss at home to the Bills, after the gut-check, comeback win on the road over the Ravens, the Patriots are 12-3-0. They’re in the playoffs. A win over the Jets this Sunday and a Bills loss, and the Pats take the AFC East; win out and they’re division champs, regardless of what Buffalo does. 

To call what the New England Patriots have done in 2025 “remarkable” seems like a real waste of a thesaurus. 

In a sense, it’s easy to say how they got here, though what they did was hardly easy: They got everything right. The head coach. The OC. Free agency. The draft. 

And Drake “Drake Maye” Maye is definitely not Kirk Cousins. No, I don’t think he’s Tom Brady, either.But he might just be a taller, more athletic Drew Brees. 

Too much, too soon?

New Englanders have run out of superlatives for their adorable assassin of a QB. Putting it simply, Drake Maye is The Man. Other men want to be his Dad (okay, we are an aging population but maybe just me) and women want to kill his bitch of a wife - after they get that candy cane and chocolate chip cookie recipe. 

Look, I have no idea when or how this ends. The NFL is an anything can happen world. That’s ultimately bad news for 31 teams but we aren’t there yet. There’s still time to dream, to hope, to believe. I still remember 2001. Super Bowl, baby!

It could happen. 

Whatever does happen this season, it's been special. What I experienced in the 4th quarter of that Ravens game was special. Best of all, it looks like I won’t die before the Patriots are good again, after all. 

Go Pats!