Glendale, AZ – The Patriots playoff hopes are alive for another week with a crucial 27-13 victory over the Arizona Cardinals on Monday Night Football at State Farm Stadium.
With the Patriots disjointed offense making an appearance for the second week in a row, Monday night's must-win effort felt like a summation of New England's entire season.
As it presently stands, the Patriots are back in the AFC playoffs as the third wild-card team and are in the driver's seat for the seventh seed. Due to holding the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Jets and a better conference record than the Chargers, the Pats control their own destiny.
If you care to dream, New England has a home game against the Dolphins in three weeks that could allow them to leap-frog Miami in the wild-card standings. Everything is there for the taking, and it's also fair to point out that they played without their top two wideouts (Meyers, Parker) and running backs (Stevenson, Harris) for most of the game.
However, bringing things back to reality, the Patriots don't look like a team equipped to handle a four-game final stretch that includes matchups against the Bengals (9-4), Fins (8-5), and Bills (10-3) that will surely need a significantly better offensive performance to notch victories.
Due to their remaining strength of schedule and the current state of their offense, a team that controls its own destiny for a postseason berth still only has a 39% chance of making the playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight, and it's easy to see the predictive models logic.
The offense under unofficial play-caller Matt Patricia lacks imagination, downfield threats and continues to have three-play sequences leading to punts like this: stuffed run (first down), incomplete screen pass (second down), false start on an offensive tackle (Brown), and a third-and-14 play where they wave the white flag. For those that need more examples, try this one: stuffed run (first down), second down drop (Agholor), delay of game to make it third-and-15, and surrender on third down.
We could also point out another discombobulated two-minute drill that nearly lost three points on a botched handoff, with the quarterback rescuing a field goal opportunity.
The offense is in a groundhog day-like loop, where it's the same product every week in another win over a backup quarterback following a knee injury to two-time Pro Bowler Kyler Murray on the third play of the game. We can pretend for another week that this team is in a playoff race because, mathematically, they are, but our eyes and instincts know better.
Until the offense looks like a respectable operation and the defense responds to doubts about their performance against elite offenses, let's be real, this team has a ways to go.
Here are nine takeaways as the Patriots remain in the playoff race with a pivotal win in the desert to improve to 7-6 on the season:
1. Powerful Play of the Game presented by Enel: Raekwon McMillan's 23-Yard Scoop-and-Score That Might've Saved the Patriots Season on Monday Night
With the Patriots deadlocked in a 13-13 tie with the Colt McCoy-led Cardinals, these two offenses were headed towards a rock fight that could've come down to the wire.
Despite an injury to Kyler Murray on the opening drive, the Pats defense didn't adjust their game plan much with a cover-three, zone-heavy plan where they stayed the course against McCoy, who was in a rhythm at times, finding openings in the post-safety zones.
However, the game, and potentially the season, flipped when safety Kyle Dugger tackled Cardinals wideout DeAndre Hopkins with the All-Pro receiver on the move. Hopkins was loose with the ball, and Dugger's spinning tackle caused him to cough up the football, and McMillan was Johnny on the spot to scoop up the ball, stay in bounds, and return it to the house.
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2022-12-13 06:16:16Z
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