The Patriots are losing games and "glazing over eyeballs in equal fashion"Getty Images
The 2-10 Patriots are the “most unwatchable team in the NFL,” and the league showed it with the team "stripped of a prime-time 'Monday Night Football' game against the Chiefs Dec. 18," according to Christopher Gasper of the BOSTON GLOBE. The Patriots are losing games and “glazing over eyeballs in equal fashion.” So the NFL flexed them out of the "MNF" slot "despite the presence of the face of the league, Patrick Mahomes, and the pop culture couple of the moment, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift." As chair of the NFL’s Broadcast Committee, Patriots owner Robert Kraft “has to know how bad his team’s product is for the league.” CBS Sports Chair Sean McManus was "in the owner’s box" at Gillette Stadium for the team's loss to the Chargers yesterday, and it “had to be painful for McManus knowing this drive-less drivel was on his air.” Even with the "MNF" flex, the entire nation “gets to see this soporific train wreck” Thursday as the Patriots play a prime-time game on Prime Video against the Steelers (BOSTON GLOBE, 12/3).
LOOKING AT THE OUTCOME: NBCSPORTS.com's Mike Florio wrote the Patriots are "so bad that the NFL removed a Patrick Mahomes game from prime time." The Patriots are "currently so devoid of talent” that promos for Steelers-Patriots during Thursday’s Seahawks-Cowboys game featured an image of coach Bill Belichick.” That is why the “
most likely outcome could be a separation" with Belichick "described as something other than a firing.” That way the Patriots can “later get compensation if/when another team expresses an interest in hiring Belichick.” Such a move “would include some risk for the Patriots.” If they want too much for Belichick, he "could always say, 'Fine. I’ll keep coaching the Patriots.'" Belichick “will want to be a free agent” and the Patriots “will want compensation.” Belichick’s “only play to avoid his next team giving up compensation would be to dig in his heels and say, 'I’m not leaving.'" The end result “could be a game of high-stakes chicken" between Belichick and Kraft (
NBCSPORTS.com, 12/3).
PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT: Podcast host Greg Bedard said it is so “freaking embarrassing” for the Kraft family with the Patriots being flexed out of “MNF.” Bedard: “For that to happen, if the Krafts weren’t sold on moving on from Bill Belichick this is sort of like the icing on the cake, this is just indicative of where this franchise has fallen” (“Greg Bedard Patriots Podcast,” 12/1). The Boston Globe’s Gasper said, “in a season of lows, to me” getting flexed out “might be the lowest.” Gasper: “The fact that the star power of the best player in the league in Patrick Mahomes and the star power of the ‘it’ couple in pop culture of the moment, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, was not enough to override your ineptitude offensively and the fact that you put an unwatchable product week after week” (“Felger & Mazz,” WBZ-FM, 12/1).
READY FOR CHANGE? THE ATHLETIC’s Chad Graff wrote the way the Patriots are playing and the way Belichick is acting, with just five games left this season, “it’s feeling more and more like he’s becoming a lame-duck coach.” He has “earned the right,” given six Super Bowls and all the other success he’s brought to New England, to "finish out the year without the indignity of a midseason firing.” But everyone also knows that a “tough conversation with Kraft looms once the season is over.” It is starting to “feel inevitable that something will change.” And the “most obvious place to look is Belichick.” Yesterday may have been “rock bottom for Kraft" (THE ATHLETIC, 12/3). In Boston, Ben Volin reported two agents who represent coaches said that they fear that the Patriots are “such a massive rebuilding job -- not only with the roster, but in updating the football systems and facilities to modern times, and filling the massive power vacuum left by Belichick’s departure -- that they would hesitate to recommend the job to clients who have options” (BOSTON GLOBE, 12/2).
