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How High Should Rubble Bounce, Anyway?

 This was not a Given Sunday.  Of the 11 NFL games played yesterday, six were decided by 21 points or more, and the Raiders 33-22 win over the Eagles was at 31-7 in the third quarter. In fact, the closest thing the league had to an upset was itself a rout, the Bengals' 41-17 road thumping of the Ravens in which Cincinnati scored the last 28 points.

Routs don't get scrutinized for their meaning as often as do closer games. This is because their meaning is usually obvious. The upset rout cited in the above paragraph demonstrated that Ja'Marr Chase is a bad man and that one-man offenses have a tough go in the NFL even if the man is Lamar Jackson. Nobody needs to see the All-22 to learn those things. NFL Red Zone does fine.

The most obvious lesson taught by most routs is that some teams are good, very good or excellent, and others are weak, bad or outright dismal. Such were the meanings of Buccaneers 38-Bears 3 and Cardinals 31-Texans 5. The moral of Titans 27-Chiefs 3 was equally obvious, at least for one team. The Chiefs have issues with a capital I. Maybe issues in all-caps.

So what are we to make of the rout de tutti routs, Patriots 54-Jets 13? We knew coming in that the Jets were a very bad team indeed. Does the score indicate the Pats are a correspondingly good one?

Not necessarily. No sane observer is rushing out to call the Giants playoff-bound because they throttled the Panthers 25-3. All that game proved is that Sam Darnold still stinks. New England fans can certainly be encouraged that their team proved itself capable of a totally dominant performance on both sides of the ball no matter how poor their opposition. But encouraged is a long long way from "we're back, baby." Best to hold off on those assertions until maybe Thanksgiving.

With the exception of Randy Moss, I cannot think of a Pats offensive player in the past two decades renowned for foot speed. The 2021 Pats as a roster would not field much of a 4x100 relay team. But every player on the Pats was faster than any Jets I saw on defense yesterday. I felt sorry for their linebackers, always arriving at the scene of the play about eight yards too late.

I cite this example because group physical mismatches are very rare in the NFL, and a team with a congenitally slow defense is going to be in the running for next year's number one draft pick no matter what else it does. The Jets might be the worst team in a league that's fielding quite a few very bad ones this season.

The Pats ought to know. Their three wins have come against two of the weakest, the Jets and Texans (combined record 2-11). One of their losses came against another sad case, the 1-6 Dolphins. Against teams with a pulse, New England's victories have been strictly of the moral variety.

It's perfectly understandable that Bill Belichick was merciless yesterday when really Mac Jones could've taken a knee on every snap after Zach Wilson got hurt without jeopardizing victory. The coach's team needed to see and more important feel that it could whip another NFL team, any team, even the Jets. It needed 60 minutes of artificial confidence to start a journey towards real confidence.

Coaches despise the term "moral victory." For one thing, have too many, and a coach gets fired. For another, they all know how easily moral victories can became moral defeats. There's not much of a line between "they're one of the best and we were right with them" and "we played our best and didn't win anyway." The latter idea is a fatal one leading to a pessimism doom cycle. When a team stops believing good things will happen, good things stop happening.

Everyone with an interest in the Patriots, from Belichick on down to long-time listeners - first-time callers, should be pleased, even happy with yesterday's game. Their team has proved beyond a doubt this season that it's much much better than the New York Jets.

How happy that should make those folks strikes me as an open question.

posted by Michael Gee @ 8:56 AM