Patriots Must Break This Years-Long Trend To Save Their Season

The list of problems plaguing the New England Patriots’ abysmal offense is longer than the fancy new Gillette Stadium lighthouse is tall.

Some stem from their mediocre talent at multiple key positions. Others can be blamed on the coaching staff.

One that encompasses both groups, though, is New England’s persistent and problematic tardiness.

The Patriots’ offense, simply put, has been awful early in games. Six weeks in, they’re being outscored 39-6 in the first quarter and 98-33 in the first half. They trailed by double digits before halftime in all five of their losses, including Sunday’s 21-17 defeat in Las Vegas.

Only Zach Wilson’s New York Jets — the lone team the 1-5 Patriots have beaten this season — rank lower in first-quarter scoring entering Week 7. Only the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants have scored fewer first-half points.

Offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien lamented these early-game woes when speaking with reporters Tuesday.

“I think there were some things that were better (against the Raiders). Obviously, not good enough,” O’Brien said. “We just got done meeting with the offense, and one of the things we talked about is there’s a very small margin for error in the National Football League. And when we talk about coaching better, one of the things we need to do is we have to harp on the details a little bit more.

“They have to take ownership of the details. We have to start these games better. It’s not good to start the game with two penalties. It’s ridiculous. That falls on me; that falls on them. I know I say it every week, we’re in it together, but there’s a small margin for error, and we’ve got to get better.”

The Patriots committed penalties on each of their first two offensive plays against Las Vegas, then another early in the second quarter that wiped out a long Ezekiel Elliott touchdown. Quarterback Mac Jones also threw an ugly interception just outside the red zone that squandered a second-quarter scoring opportunity — emblematic of another nagging issue.

Seven of New England’s 11 giveaways this season (tied for fourth-most in the NFL) occurred during the first half of games, and two others were on the first series after halftime.

Here’s a stat that sounds impossible: The Patriots’ six game-opening drives thus far yielded more points for their opponents (seven, off a Week 1 pick-six) than for themselves (six, off field goals in Weeks 3 and 4).

“We start these games and we get behind 10-0, and that has to stop,” O’Brien said. “We’ve got to be able to put together drives early in games that come away with points, and we haven’t done that.”

This isn’t just a 2023 issue. The Patriots also ranked 30th in the NFL in first-quarter scoring last season and dead last in 2020. (They were a respectable 14th in ’21, Jones’ rookie year.) From 2003 through the end of the Tom Brady era, they ranked outside the top 10 in that category just once and never were lower than 12th (2013).

Since Brady’s 2020 departure, the Patriots have not been a team built to win high-scoring shootouts or overcome multi-score deficits. These days, a slow start for New England might as well be a death sentence.

“It’s been hard to play from behind,” head coach Bill Belichick said Monday. It’s not the way you want to play in this league or really in any competitive sport that I can think of. We’ve got to do a better job of that. No doubt about it. We just have to do a better job.”

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The Patriots have not won a game after trailing by more than seven points since Week 5 of the 2021 season, when they scored 16 unanswered points to win 25-22 over a Houston Texans team that went on to finish 4-13. That’s still the only fourth-quarter comeback of Jones’ NFL career.

New England made legitimate comeback bids in three of its five losses but couldn’t close the gap in any. For it to have any chance of upsetting the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins these next two weeks and ensuring its season is not effectively over before Halloween, it must reverse this trend.

“We have a chance to turn this thing around,” O’Brien said. “But we all have to buy into it and wrap our brains around the fact that we have to pay attention — coaches and players — the details better and get this thing done. That’s what our mindset is right now.”