Patriots Entering Stretch of Season Where Bill Belichick Gets Proven Right

Curran: Belichick's Pats starting to prove they're no bottom-feeder originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Patriots are 2-3, in last place in the AFC East and losers of seven of their past 10 going back to last season. Their starting quarterback is hurt and before he got that way, he was throwing picks more than twice as often as he was throwing touchdowns.

So how was the 70-year-old living legend who coaches the team feeling on Monday morning? Loquacious and bodacious, ladies and gentlemen.

Bill Belichick unsheathed answers during his Zoom conference that checked in at 393, 414 and a jaw-dropping 581 words. He held court on his 400 games as Patriots head coach, the beauty of playmakers like Matthew Judon and Kyle Dugger and tweaking the team’s practice schedule last week.

Patriots Talk: THE AFTERMATH: The climb begins? Patriots blow out Lions behind Bailey Zappe | Listen & Subscribe | Watch on YouTube

He even blurted out details on how running back Ty Montgomery is doing with his ankle injury. (For the record, the answer was: "I do not expect him to return to practice this week.") 

Why so high on life? Because the Patriots have once again entered the portion of the program where Bill gets proven right, right and right again.

The time when they show that, while they may not be elite or even part of the upper crust, they have little in common with the dregs of the NFL.

One of the most interesting aspects of Sunday’s 29-0 face-mangling of the Lions was how little respect the Lions showed the Patriots. When they went for it on fourth-and-1 at their own 45 at the start of the game, that was Lions coach and renowned kneecap biter Dan Campbell clearing his throat to say, "We are about to prove we are tougher than thou…"

Campbell looked across the field and saw a team led by Lil' Bailey Zappe and figured, “What’s gonna happen? We get behind Ollie from Hoosiers 7-0 and we’ll never come back? Please."

And the Lions failed. And failed and failed and failed some more on fourth down. Here’s how the Lions' possessions ended: downs, interception, punt, fumble, punt, downs, downs, downs, downs. They only had one three-and-out all day. All but two of their nine drives got into New England territory. Yet they could never score.

It was Charlie Brown with Lucy as his holder, Wile E. Coyote with the Roadrunner in his grasp, Plankton with a chance to grab the Krabby Patty Formula. Exercise in futility.

In the end, it was 60 minutes of Bill saying to Campbell:

Was Campbell alone in thinking the Patriots could be had on Sunday? He was not. I said New England wouldn’t score 30 on Detroit if they were by themselves on the field until Wednesday. I guess, technically, I was right.

And it’s not like the Patriots hung 29 because they went up and down the field on Detroit. They had one offensive touchdown and have a grand total of nine in five games. But they were most obviously the better-coached and more well-prepared team Sunday. As they’ve been on three of the five Sundays this season.

So Bill’s happy because -- while things aren’t unfolding as planned -- they are going according to plan. His team has improved vastly since the summer. Matt Patricia’s been in a pretty good play-calling groove since the Pittsburgh game and is only getting better. The talent on this team -- offensive line, running backs, secondary and defensive line -- is coming to the fore.

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And here come the "teams you’re supposed to beat." Sunday it was Detroit. Next, it’s the Browns, who allowed the Chargers to run for 238 yards on their way to a 30-28 loss that dropped Cleveland to 2-3 on the season. Then it’s Bears, Jets, Colts, Jets, and 6-3 doesn’t look so far away.

We saw this movie last year as well. The Patriots started 1-3, fell to 2-4 in mid-October then ripped off five wins against overmatched opponents, had a VERY impressive win over a not-overmatched Chargers team and beat Buffalo in gale-force winds. They got themselves to 9-4. Then they staggered to the finish line.

It’s hard to resist making optimistic declarations after a 29-0 win, so I won’t. I think that defensively, this team is better than last year’s. I think they’re better at wide receiver and I think Mac Jones will be drastically better when he returns. I think they can get fat on this stretch of middling (or worse teams) and show they aren’t in the bottom half of the NFL.

Then they’ll be perfectly set up to prove that despite alllll the second-guessing, backseat-driving, catastrophizing and pick-pick-picking we’ve done, they are better than they were in 2021.

They can’t do that yet. And they haven’t. But they are in the process of proving that they don’t belong in the same breath as the bottom-feeders.