The New England Patriots don’t do any one thing well — not well enough for the team to have an identity after three weeks. That wouldn’t be the biggest problem if they weren’t 1-2 and slated to face Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a matchup that feels likely to end in a Patriots’ loss.
So the Patriots seem to be stuck in a hole to start their 2021 season while they attempt to accelerate their development timeline. The season is now 17 games after a rule change. But it’s growing harder and harder to see them being playoff-relevant when their quarterback is struggling enormously with the deep game, the defense cannot make clutch stops and the enormous free agency class is having mixed success.
We dive into the team’s prospects for 2021 while reviewing the loss to the New Orleans Saints and previewing the matchup against the Bucs.
Here’s what we’ve got.
The bottom line: it’s impossible to envision the Patriots winning on Sunday.
