The Patriots Between the Preseason and League 2024 Start
The 2024 NFL preseason is behind us, and the Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo currently isn’t the calmest person in the world.
The 1-2 score in the season prep isn’t something that the admirers of the three-time Super Bowl winners in the last ten years are used to. Although the club management has been facelifting the team for a while, sacrificing current results for future outputs, Patriots fans always expect stellar performances from their players – even when the results are missing.
Let’s touch (down) on the ongoing situation in the New England Patriots squad and see where this team is headed at the dawn of the 2024 season.
Prequel to the Patriots’ 2024 Situation
Every NFL fan knows that the Patriots are the most successful NFL franchise, with 17 playoff appearances and six Super Bowl victories. The 2000-2022 streak with Bill Belichick at the helm and Tom Brady leading the pack in the field is unprecedented. Comparable only to the Chicago Bulls dynasty of the 1990s, the Patriots made the NFL popular across the globe, while recruiting millions of fans both in the US and worldwide.
However, once Tom Brady left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2019, and Belichick retired in 2023, the Patriots entered a period of reconstruction.
Such changes don’t yield results overnight, so they struggled last season, and the preseason games indicate that their performance in the following NFL championships could be similar. Even the odds announced by the NFL betting pundits speak in favor of another season of transformation in the Patriots’ headquarters: +30000 – the lowest in the league. They’re far, far away from the Kansas City Chiefs’ +500, San Francisco 49ers’ +600, and Baltimore Ravens’ +1000.
For instance, in 2014, the Patriot’s odds at the season’s start were +650; in 2018, the probability was +600. The Patriots won the Super Bowl both times.
Injuries Leading to Additional Problems
The latest edition of the Patriots’ low performances – the defeat they suffered from the Washington Commanders at the preseason’s end the other day – didn’t look good, for sure. Still, apart from some clear issues in the strategy and field game, the list of injured players makes for an entire respective NFL lineup.
The newest addition to this injury-benched squad is quarterback Jacoby Brissett. He sustained a right-shoulder injury in the match against the Commanders and won’t be ready for the first match in the regular season against the Cincinnati Bengals on September 8. Linebacker Christian Elliss also had a tough duel during the same game and is also questionable for the opening match.
With Tyrone Wheatley on the injury reserve list for several months now and recently injured Hunter Henry and Siddy Sow, coach Mayo faces serious lineup issues at the dawn of the new NFL season. Still, there are some positive vibrations coming from the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA.
The Bright Side of the Patriots Camp and Preseason
The managerial and professional engine behind the Patriots consists of experienced coaches and operational directors, who know how to build a great team and, consequently, a dynasty. Quarterback Drake Maye, a rookie who played for the North Carolina Tar Heels in the NCAA league, seems to be the backbone of the redesigned Patriots. In his statement after the game against the Commanders, Maye stressed that the camp practices and preseason games have helped him build the necessary mentality, preparing him for the real thing: his first professional NFL season. The 2022 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Player of the Year, Maye is the fresh spark that could ignite a new Patriots era.
What Maye needs is proper guidance and knowledgeable mentorship. This is where head coach Jared Mayo has a lot to offer. A long-term Patriot as a player, who defended the backfield between 2008 and 2015 and won one Super Bowl during that period, Mayo is the kind of coach this team needs. Guiding the Patriots since January 2024 as the head coach, Maye has shown the right passion and dedication for big results.
The Mayo-Maye tandem isn’t similar only by their surnames; they’re both novices in their respective fields, ready to join forces and make the New England Patriots a dynasty again.
What we, devoted Patriots fans, can only do is keep following them in the 2024/2025 season, hoping we’ll beat the odds above, building a new path for another great generation of the New England Patriots.
