Ahead of his first training camp as Patriots head coach in 2025, Mike Vrabel explained that he was judging his team’s performances by three distinct categories: the good, the bad, and the s—t that gets you beat. If Vrabel looks at his team through those specific categorizations, we shall follow his lead.
The New England Patriots were thoroughly dominated on Sunday by the Green Bay Packers. Despite both teams entering the game with identical 5-3 records, only one looked the part. The other, meanwhile,
struggled from start to finish and ultimately suffered one of its worst losses in recent memory.
With that said, let’s dive into our breakdown of the good — sort of — and the not-so-good from the 45-27 loss at Gillette Stadium.
The good: Rare opportunities
We typically try to be positive around these parts of the world wide web, but the glass is nowhere near to half full coming out of Sunday’s game. The search for anything good from the contest therefore has to yield some creative results.
So, how about this: the Patriots were able to get some of their lesser-used player some increased playing time. Whether it was backup quarterback Tommy DeVito or multiple special teamers, they all got some rare in-game reps courtesy of the blowout defeat. Of course, given that New England suffered multiple injuries, they might need those backups to step up in the coming weeks.
The bad: Star players
One common theme for the Patriots on Sunday was their best players not holding up their end of the bargain: quarterback Drake Maye and cornerback Christian Gonzalez had rough days, to say the least.
Maye seemingly reverted to his early-season self, tossing three more interceptions to contribute to Green Bay pulling away seemingly from the get-go. His first pass of the day already set the tone: an apparent miscommunication with wide receiver Mack Hollins, who returned from a four-game injury absence, led to an uncontested interception that was returned all the way to the New England 9-yard line. Two plays later, the Packers were up 7-0.
That was the opening of the floodgates for the team and its quarterback. Maye finished 21-of-38 for 299 yards with three touchdowns and interceptions apiece. He finished with -0.13 expected points added per play.
Gonzalez, meanwhile, played the worst game of his career. The highest-paid cornerback in football was in the area or in direct coverage on multiple big plays. While not all of the blame might fall directly on him — whether it was bracket coverage not working as intended, communication breakdowns, or defensive calls asking him to give some cushion underneath — the bottom line remains: he didn’t play up to his abilities.
Unfortunately for the Patriots if their best players don’t do so, be they Maye or Gonzalez, winning is hard to come by.
The s—t that gets you beat: Big-play defense
All week long, the Patriots defense spoke about how dangerous the Packers were throwing the ball deep — and for good reason: Green Bay had 33 explosive pass plays of 20 or more yards over its first eight games of the season, most in the NFL. On Sunday afternoon, it added seven more.
Three players were responsible for that. Quarterback Jordan Love and wide receivers Christian Watson and Matthew Golden, who dominated New England’s secondary all day long. Watson had catches of 43, 39, 33 and 28 yards, while Golden beat New England for gains of 49, 43 and 24.
In total, the two wide receivers combined for 335 receiving yards and two touchdowns on 17 receptions. For comparison, the rest of Green Bay’s skill position crew caught six passes for 37 yards and a TD.
The Packers kept going to Watson and Golden again and again and again, and the Patriots had no answer to them.
One of the most concerning parts of it all was the aforementioned Christian Gonzalez being on the wrong end of multiple explosive plays. However, he was not the only culprit. Fellow starters Carlton Davis — who exited in the late second quarter with a knee injury — and Marcus Jones both were beaten deep, while the team’s safeties also looked suspect on several reps.
The entire group looked noncompetitive at times on Sunday.
