Patriots Pulse: We're One Win In Buffalo Away From Being Fully Back

Since the last pulse check, the Patriots have gone 1-1 in a wildly volatile fashion. They dominated the Steelers in what was one of the worst losses you'll ever see by losing the turnover battle 5-0, then came back and equally dominated the Panthers, this time without the turnovers. So we sit at 2-2 after quarter one of the season, a spot in which I'd take a thousand times over a month ago if given the choice.

I'm slowly being convinced we're a legitimately good football team. I was cautiously optimistic after week 2, and while I'd still classify myself in that realm based on our schizophrenic play, the last two weeks have me tilting a bit more towards optimism than caution. I mean we won by 30! We don't do that anymore.

We've outclassed the Steelers and Panthers, cumulatively outgaining them 676 to 438 (excluding the Panthers final garbage time drive cause obviously that didn't matter). The loss to the Steelers was such an aberration, a game in which we had two turnovers inside the two yard line and five total on the day, that I felt as long as we continued the level of production and competence the offense showed minus the turnovers, we'd be okay. And we more than did that yesterday. (Josh McDaniels is lucky I didn't write after last week to rip apart his pre-halftime play calling sequence, passing three times from the 2 yard line with multiple timeouts that led to an INT. But I digress).

We have the 7th best passing attack in the league and a top 10 offense in points, something I was not at all expecting coming into this season. What I thought preseason would be a run-heavy offense has morphed into the two TE set that Josh McDaniels made his name by in his previous two stints with the Pats, run by a QB who's growing and maturing with each start. Quick reads, quick processing, ball out of your hands fast offense that defenses have a hard time keeping up with. And he's running it at a level only the greatest to ever do it has done. I'm giddy just thinking about it.

On the other side our defense, who got off to a horrendously slow start, has vastly improved the last two weeks. We lived in the backfield against Bryce Young yesterday, and the Panthers never got anything going after the first drive. Which is basically the same script as the Pittsburgh game, where the defense locked in after a slow first two drives to limit Pittsburgh's offense to four straight three and outs and five straight punts to keep us in the game while our offense continually threw up on themselves like a toddler after eating their first vegetable.

Christian Gonzalez has returned and the impact was felt immediately. Bryce Young often didn't have the time to let receivers finish routes before being flushed out the pocket, but the times he did there was no one open. Gonzo allowed just 2 catches for 31 yards, recorded three tackles, and seemingly opened up the chapters of the defensive playbook that the Half Blood Prince kept passcode protected with Parseltongue without him on the field. Yesterday (and most of week 3) was the defense I envisioned in my head before the season started, and the one I hope travels to Buffalo next week and beyond.

Did I mention that we have the best/most electric punt returner in the league in Marcus Jones? He has half as many TDs on punt returns as the Patriots offense had at this point last season, a stat that deserves some flowers.

To be slightly sentimental, I'm just enjoying the season so far. We benched our QB because of good play for the first time since COVID, we're consistently outgaining and outplaying our opponents, and both sides of the ball are getting better, and quickly. If that Pittsburgh game is played 100 times we win 98 or 99 of them, so I can sleep at night knowing that those freak games, especially against Pittsburgh who finds themselves in them more than anyone, is part of the nausea-filled roller coaster that is the NFL. That game could've been a backbreaker for this young team, but instead they bounced back like a Novak Djokovic return. That's growth. That's new.

I'm not fully scared to be on national TV against the Bills in Buffalo this Sunday night, so I think I'm officially entering the fifth stage of the lesser known seven stages of grief - testing/upward turn. I'm still more scared than excited, cause we haven't necessarily played any great teams so far, and a 38-14 final is well within my scope of imagination, but I think we can compete. God damn I think we could win. If we do I'll be ready to pop the top off this bitch and talk my shit. I'm not expecting it, but this could be the official arrival of the new-age New England Patriots.