The New England Patriots lost their 10th game of the season against the Indianapolis Colts 25-24 on Sunday afternoon in Foxborough. Mistakes were made, opportunities were squandered, and the team has now lost its last three matchups.
The good news for the Pats is that winning football games isn’t exactly in the team’s best long-term interests. The updated order for next year’s draft has the Patriots as the fourth overall pick, behind Jacksonville, Las Vegas, and the New York Giants. Here are three reasons that combined show why Patriots fans shouldn’t sweat losing games for the remainder of this 2024 season.
Three Reasons Why Patriots Fans Should be Fine with Losing this Season
1. Drake Maye is still producing
How many times have Patriots pundits stated that the number one priority for the 2024 season was for the Patriots to find out if they have their future at quarterback? Well so far, it’s been looking like Drake Maye is going to be the guy who the team will need to prioritize building around for the near future. While Maye hasn’t quite put up NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year-type stats, it’s easy for those who watch Patriots games to see that he is the main reason why the team has had chances to win since he became the starter.
Sunday afternoon, Maye completed 80 percent of his passes, threw one touchdown, and ran for 59 yards on six carries. He also threw an interception thanks to Hunter Henry bobbling a throw near the goal line which was snatched out of the air by Colts defensive back Julian Blackmon. Maye throughout the game extended plays with his feet and gave the offense a spark, which at this point is nothing new. An argument can be made that out of all the rookie Quarterbacks, Maye has done the most with less around him than anyone. As long as he can continue to flourish and grow, the team has much to look forward to, as long as they can get him the help he needs to start winning more games.
2. Better Draft Position
As said before, the Patriots currently hold the 4th overall pick, and that pick can get higher or lower depending on how the rest of the season goes. Losing the rest of their games increases the chances for New England to land an even higher draft pick, but only if the teams ahead of them win more games before the season ends. The Patriots are not a Quarterback needy team, which leaves more room for one of the top position players in this upcoming draft to fall to them.
Both the Raiders and Giants are quarterback-deficient and will likely be looking to fill in that spot. With Quarterbacks like Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders being the top prospects, they’ll likely be the ones who go to those teams. With the Patriots’ deficiencies being mainly on offense outside of the Quarterback, they’ll want to get the best available offensive player on the board, which means those chances increase with them losing out the rest of the season.
3. The team has shown flashes of potential
The best way to improve is to address your problems, and getting better players with a high draft position makes it more likely that the Patriots can address their problems. The issues have been glaring and obvious on both sides of the ball. However, this doesn’t mean that the Patriots haven’t shown any positives from their play this season. The defense has shown the ability to be dominant in multiple games, including this last game against the Colts. They had multiple takeaways against Anthony Richardson, which should have resulted in a victory, but the red zone interception and missed chip shot field goal were the team’s undoing. It took a miraculous drive by the Colts and multiple fourth-down conversions to come back and win in the final seconds. If the Patriots don’t make those earlier mistakes, they likely win by double digits. Bad teams find ways to lose and the Pats have shown they are indeed a bad team that needs to learn how to find ways to win instead of vice versa.
There have also been other games where the Patriots have had chances to win that they ended up losing, such as the first Dolphins game, with the refs botched overturning of Ja’lynn Polk’s go-ahead touchdown with little time left on the clock. The Seahawks game could have also gone differently if not for a late missed field goal by Joey Slye in the fourth quarter. If Drake Maye hadn’t thrown bad game-ending interceptions on first down against the Titans and Rams, they could have had extra chances in each of those games.
The point here is that the Patriots are currently going through the learning process of a rebuilding team, and with a promising young quarterback and a young, talented defense, right now is the time to go through these growing pains. In theory, these losses should allow the team to look back and learn to rectify the blunders that have led to losses, and Jerod Mayo who is only in his first year as a head coach can use this season to grow himself.
Main Image: © Eric Canha-Imagn Images
