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.
Welcome back, 2024 New England Patriots! While this is an exaggeration, of course, Sunday’s 35-6 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars brought back some painful memories of what was ultimately a lost season
for the organization. The Patriots were thoroughly outclassed in all three phases of the game, suffering their worst loss of the Mike Vrabel era and dropping to 1-2 on the year.
With that all being said, let’s dive into our weekly breakdown of the good and the not-so-good from the blowout loss in Jacksonville.
The good: Opportunities for backups
Yes, we are gasping for straws here.
Obviously, the Patriots had some positive moments even in a 29-point loss. Drake Maye hit a few chunk plays; Will Campbell provided quality play at left tackle; Marcus Jones hauled in an interception; Christian Gonzalez continued to be his shutdown self; Rhamondre Stevenson didn’t fumble. And: the team’s backups like second-string quarterback Tommy DeVito got some rare opportunities to take the field in a regular season setting.
All in all, however, the good was not just out-weighed by the bad — it didn’t even register on the scale. That’s how bad this loss was, and why we are choosing an admittedly arbitrary positive to take away from it.
The bad: Penalties
Whether or not Sunday’s game was truly representative of New England’s capabilities this season remains to be seen; the Patriots suffering bad early-season losses in Florida are not exactly a new invention in 2026. That said, it is clear that the team’s margin for error particularly in light of some personnel losses over the first three weeks is marginal especially against quality teams.
This is why getting flagged nine times is not a winning way to play football for the Patriots. Those penalties cost the team 68 yards, but they were more impactful than that.
For example, a Morgan Moses hold negated a 21-yard Drake Maye touchdown run. On the very next play, Romeo Doubs was flagged for offensive pass interference, pushing the team back an additional 10 yards and turning 1st-and-10 at the Jacksonville 21 into 1st-and-30 at the 41.
There were back-to-back neutral zone infractions (by Gabe Jacas and Elijah Ponder), a taunting penalty that turned 4th-and-1 into 4th-and-16 (by Mack Hollins), and a block above the waist to undo a 31-yard kickoff return (by Cameron Latu). Long story short: penalties were an issue in all three phases, and they came in all varieties. Not necessarily a glowing endorsement for the team’s discipline, and the coaching staff’s ability to enforce it.
The s—t that gets you beat: Virtually everything else
Usually, there isn’t one singular area that led to a team scoring only six points on offense while simultaneously giving up 35. The Patriots’ loss in Jacksonville was no exception.
There were Drake Maye’s continued ball security issues, as in: one Football Follies-worthy lost fumble and a pair of dubious decisions resulting in interception. There was some bad blocking up front, especially on the right side of the line where the team was down to a third-string guard and playing a hobbled right tackle. There was a wide receiver group failing to get consistent separation.
That’s just the offense. On defense, the Patriots allowed the Jaguars to go 5-for-5 in the red zone and 8-for-12 on third down (including a 17-yard touchdown in the third quarter). The unit did register one interception, but other than that was unable to affect the quarterback or his supporting cast.
On special teams, Andy Borregales shanked a 38-yard field goal try, the aforementioned penalty erased what would have been a long kickoff return, and Kyle Williams fielded what could have been a kick out of bounds for an effective net loss of 31 yards. It just was not good enough there, or anywhere else.
“We blocked a guy in the back to start [a] drive, backed up. We don’t use the rules to our advantage on the sideline with the kick,” Mike Vrabel said from the Gillette Stadium podium on Monday. “We turn the ball over, and then we don’t take the chances on defense when we have chances to turn the ball over, turn it over. They executed in the red zone; we clearly didn’t. We missed a field goal. The game got away from us after that. But it could have been a lot of ‘what ifs.’ It could have been 14-9 easily, to where you are in a competitive football game, you can get a turnover, but instead of that, it’s 21-3.”
As noted above, the Patriots’ margin of error is slim at the moment. Any one of the issues the team had on Sunday could have made life difficult. The combination of all of them turned the game into the blowout it was.
