Patriots HOFer: NFL has ‘sloppy football’ problem this season

The Patriots haven’t played anywhere near the kind of football they’re expected to this season. They’re 2-8 going into their Week 11 bye, and haven’t shown a lot of promise that things will change. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but quarterback Mac Jones has taken the brunt of it.

The third-year QB hasn’t taken the step forward many thought he would. But the offensive line hasn’t done their job protecting him, while the offense has been struggling to put up points.

Matt Light, though, is of the belief that the Patriots aren’t the only team facing the kind of issues New England is.

On the latest episode of “Eye On Foxborough,” MassLive Patriots reporter Karen Guregian was joined by team Hall-of-Famer Matt Light to discuss the state of the team, and why he believes it’s not just the Pats and Mac Jones who are struggling this season.

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“I think the one thing — and I don’t know that it’s necessarily a positive — but I’m not sure that the way that people are judging this team or really the league in general is fair for one reason,” Light said. “If you were to back up and you think about over your career covering the NFL and seeing all the different teams of different coaches and the playing styles and the trends — 10 years ago, 12 years ago — you would say that there were at least 10-to-15, and maybe more in some years, really good quarterbacks, right?

“You’re talking about the Philip Rivers, you’re talking about the (Aaron) Rodgers and the (Tom) Bradys and the (Drew) Brees and the Mannings (Peyton and Eli). There were a lot of other quarterbacks, too, performed at a high level, maybe didn’t have the longevity that some of these guys did,” he continued. “But today, who’s the great quarterback? I think the overall consensus would be Patrick Mahomes is a great quarterback. Outside of that, there’s a lot of people that throw their hands up and they say, ‘Well, what about this guy?’ And then there’s not a real big agreement on who two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 are.”

Light added that the way the NFL practices now is a big reason why people aren’t judging everything fairly this season because the league has “failed horribly” for how they prepare players to go out on the field.

“If you’re going to judge any aspect of the team in general, you have to say, ‘Well, look at how they practice.’ So how can we actually expect much more than this?,” Light said. “And the answer is you can, but the quarterback position is where it sticks out the most.

“If you don’t have a whole bunch of guys on that offensive line that know how to play together, if you don’t have the backups that have actually been conditioned in the shape and understand what it takes, there’s no way you’re going to have good quarterback player,” he added. “I don’t care how great they are. So the answer is this: Quarterbacks are still very talented, they just don’t get the reps in practice and neither do the linemen who are trying to protect them. And therefore we have really sloppy looking offensive play.

“… And I’m not just speaking of Patriot nation here. … Across the board, it’s really ugly football.”

The Buffalo Bills are a good example of what Light is talking about. They’re 5-5 and 10th in the AFC standings. And for a team with playoff and Super Bowl aspirations, it’s not looking good for Josh Allen and company. The quarterback committed four turnovers in Monday’s ugly loss to the Denver Broncos.

There are other teams that have played the sloppy football Light speaks of, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better before the 2023 season ends.