It's Over.

Some people say purgatory is the waiting room you sit in waiting for either the Devil or God to open the door and call your name.

Others will say it’s the nine-hour plane ride the New England Patriots took home last night.

I thought bottom was losing by 34 to the Saints. I thought again it was losing to the Josh McDaniels-led internally revolting Raiders. I thought for a third time it was losing to the Commanders at home after they shipped off two of their franchise stallworths days before at the trade deadline. 

But I was wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

Bottom occurred on Sunday afternoon in Frankfurt, where the Patriots went from a bad football team that loses games they should win with a pathetic offense and little to no hope for the foreseeable future, to the laughingstock of the NFL. In front of a literal global audience.

The Mac Jones era is over. It has to be. While others have been saying and more have been thinking this for weeks, today is the day one of his most stubborn defenders (me) finally realized that the flop cards aren’t the reason I’m not winning any hands with the 2-7 off suit I was dealt.

For the hundredth time I’ll preface by saying he wasn’t set up for success. His offensive line has been and still is one of the worst in football. He has one WR in DeMario Douglas that can occasionally create separation on his own, but nothing else. The offensive personnel the Patriots have surrounded him with is criminal enough to be put on the stand, with evidence so damning they’d need the Jamie Foxx version of Willie Gary as representation for any chance of acquittance. 

But good quarterbacks should overcome these hurdles, on the few occasions where they’re provided an opportunity. Few times in Mac’s career, and even less this year, have we seen him do so.

I can go into countless examples, but for my own well-being I’ll stick to Sunday’s game. 

Scoring six points is embarrassing no matter who you’re playing, but scoring six against the Colts who’ve allowed the third most points per game this season, trailing only the Commanders and Broncos (who allowed SEVENTY in one game), is next level. It’s the third game this season the Patriots failed to score a touchdown. It’s the 8th game they’ve scored 17 points or less, and 8th they’ve tallied less than 220 total passing yards (they've played 10). 

The "interception heard around the world" as I call it was the saddest interception I’ve seen in my lifetime, and I was on the sideline for high school powderpuff twice. It was a defining moment in Mac Jones’ career, a true “I don’t belong in the NFL” type throw. 

It’s hard to stand over a five-foot left-to-right breaking putt when you’ve missed the last seven five-foot left-to-right breaking putts with any level of confidence. I can only imagine it’s hard to stand in the pocket for more than a second and a half after you’ve habitually been hit after standing in the pocket for more than a second and a half with any confidence as well.

But that throw was bush league, it just was. It was a no-confidence, I’m mentally broken and don’t belong here throw. And Bill saw it that way too. That’s the only explanation for benching him down four with two and a half minutes to play. Right?! He saw what I saw, what everyone saw.

Mac’s shot. 

That throw not enough to convince you? How about when he attempted to “throw the ball away” using the fourth-grade field day egg-toss technique. 

A play which led to a fourth grade principal-like chew out as if he instead used that egg to throw at the overly developed 11 year-old girl’s chest.

The Patriots ran the ball well yesterday, so throw that excuse out as to why the offense looked like the 53rd stone at Stonehenge. They didn’t throw the ball more than 15 yards downfield the entire game. Not once! The longest throw from scrimmage, a whopping 14 yards, was the pick I referenced earlier. They didn’t attempt a Hail Mary before the half from the 40 yard line. All of this as a 2-7 football team with literally nothing to lose.

Everything that the CIA-operated Patriots keep in house so well seemed to burst out of the bubble this week. Billy O screaming at Mac on the sideline for playing like a toddler at recess. Belichick benching Mac on the last drive with a chance to win for an ice cold, twice seen this year loser in Bailey Zappe. A fake spike, throw into quadruple coverage interception to end the game. It was sixty minutes of complete disfunction put on tape for the world to laugh at.

All we’ve heard is Mac works hard and everyone needs to be better. But this game is the first time that everything seemed to fall on him. Maybe he is the catalyst behind the most boring offense in football (ok second, but the Giants barely count as a football team). The coaches are sick of him. The players can’t rally around him as he sits and pouts on the sideline. And the fans, even the crazy ones, can no longer believe in him. 

There’s no coming back from this. At least not in New England.

Whether it’s QB play, questionable coaching/personnel decisions that don’t get swept under the rug now that your team isn’t winning Super Bowls, or anything else you could take away from this game, it’s over. 

I just want it to end. I don’t know this team.