EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Years from now, it’ll be interesting to see how history remembers the Patriots’ 10-7 loss to the Giants at MetLife Stadium on Sunday.
Was it simply an ugly awful loss? A cobblestone on the bumpy path from dynasty to dysfunction? Or was it a necessary defeat that set the table for a New England turnaround somewhere in the future?
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In the present, it was simply a miserable football game. There were 14 punts and very few highlights. New England quarterbacks threw three interceptions and got into the red zone just twice.
The once mighty Patriots lost to a team quarterbacked by Tommy DeVito, the Giants’ desperation starter who most people hadn’t heard of a month ago. DeVito is instantly in the conversation with Kyle Orton, Brock Osweiler, Chad Henne and A.J. Feeley as to who is the worst starting quarterback to beat the Patriots in the last 20 years.
It wasn’t as if DeVito played well on Sunday. But he was better than what the Patriots could counter with.
New England simply doesn’t have a serviceable starting-caliber NFL quarterback on their roster. Mac Jones was awful. Bailey Zappe was almost as bad. Bill Belichick’s comical mishandling of the situation this week and this year didn’t help. But it’s starting to become apparent that Jones’ success in 2021 was probably the outlier and that his failures in 2022 and 2023 are closer to who he really is.
Zappe isn’t good enough either. The flash in the pan that produced Zappe Fever last year was extinguished a while ago. The Patriots need to acquire multiple quarterbacks during the offseason. Next fall, Jones should be competing, probably for a backup job elsewhere, while Zappe tries to stay in the NFL.
Outside of Tom Brady, Belichick’s quarterback acquisition, evaluation and development history is poor and this year’s failures are a glaring reminder.
But for the rest of the year, their struggles have value. Getting an elite quarterback is the most effective way to turn around a franchise and the most promising avenue to get one is through the draft.
To that end, Sunday’s brutal showing was hard to watch but easy to stomach for Patriots fans who are paying attention.
There might be a future All-Pro late in the middle of the first round or later, but Caleb Williams and Drake Maye are the clear-cut top two choices. They’ll certainly be taken first and second overall in April’s draft. The Patriots need to lose to get there.
According to ESPN Analytics, the Patriots’ chances of getting a top-two pick would have been 9% with a win, but are at 38% after the loss.
Even if they get a top-two pick, there are no guarantees. Every time there are two consensus picks at the top of a draft, at least one of them – Rick Mirer, Ryan Leaf, Robert Griffin III and sometimes both of them — Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariotta — end up being huge disappointments.
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But given where the Patriots are, their chances of turning their fortunes around are much higher with Williams or Maye at the center of their rebuilding.
Chad Ryland’s missed field goal could be the wide left that helps make things right or simply a bad play in a season full of them.
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
