Patriots Lose to Giants/Fantasy Catch Up

The New England Patriots suffered a significant loss to the Giants, which could be considered the biggest loss in franchise history. The game was poorly played, with multiple turnovers and mistakes by the Patriots. Mack Jones, the quarterback, struggled throughout the game and made several interceptions. The Patriots' offense relied heavily on screen passes and lacked the ability to push the ball down the field. Despite a comeback attempt by backup quarterback Zappi, the Patriots ultimately lost due to missed opportunities and a failed field goal attempt. The Giants played a cleaner game and capitalized on the Patriots' mistakes. The Patriots' offense has been consistently weak this season, while their defense remains solid. There is speculation that Zappi may start in future games, as Mack Jones appears mentally and physically exhausted. The Patriots' lack offensive talent and struggle to compete against NFL defenses. That could go down as the biggest loss in the history of the New England Patriots. I mean, I'm not going to sugar coat this, I think that was the biggest loss in the history of the Patriots franchise, or at least as long as we've been paying attention to the team as people who kind of came up through that Tom Brady era. But Patriots lose 10-7 to the Giants, which obviously is going to have massive implications on the draft pick, which we'll get to a little bit later. But all around, just atrocious football game to watch from a viewer's standpoint. I mean, I had Grace just basically on the couch sleeping next to me the whole game, and I really can't blame her. There were times in this game where I was debating, do I just take a nap during this because you knew it was just going to be a three and out to a punt? But apparently I just walked through the game quickly. You know, Giants come out, they actually get down the field pretty good on DeVito's first drive, and then they do a botched handoff to a wide receiver. And when they do this, I'm immediately like, are we just going to watch a game where there's going to be a million turnovers, just horrible offensive play? And for the Patriots, that was very true. Patriots turned the ball over three times in this game, all three interceptions, and to be honest, there probably should have been six interceptions in this game. But Patriots offense came out, they didn't look too bad in their first couple drives. Again, I mean, it's been a theme this year that Zeke and Mondrae come in and they actually look decent. Mondrae, I thought, had a very good game in this one. Every time he got the ball, it seemed like he was at least getting four yards a carry, which as a running back is all you can ask for. But it's the same issues the Patriots have run into all year with Mack making mistake after mistake. And he goes and he throws one pick. Really bad read. DeMairo Douglas has no shot at it at all. He basically threw it into triple coverage. Really inexcusable. Now, at this point, I said I didn't even understand why Mack would throw the ball more than eight times in this whole game, and the Patriots really were willing to come out and throw the ball in this game for some reason, even though really their only positive offensive plays came through the run game. But as seems to be tradition in these games at this point, this Mack Jones interception really sealed what the rest of his day would look like. All right, so now was it as bad as the Colts throw? No, it was not as bad as the Colts throw. But just another one of those dinky throws off Mack Jones's back foot that he seems to become, has just become his norm in these games at this point where he'll throw one of these interceptions. And this one really should have probably gotten back to the house. Really was Mack Jones's best play of the day as he actually made the tackle on this play to save the touchdown. But this would give the Giants the opportunity to score that they needed as they would convert the rest of this drive, what the 20 yards they had to go at that point, to go into score. And as crazy as it is, Mack Jones then comes trotting back out onto the field the next series, and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. At this point, I'm fully thinking the Patriots want to tank. They want to lose games, and they think Mack Jones is actually going to give them the best chance because there's just no way you could watch Mack Jones play in this game and think that he had any right to even be in it. And again, this has been now multiple weeks where we've been seeing the same thing over and over, and they keep putting him out there, and, you know, it's getting to the point where it's kind of sad. Like, I don't even like to watch Mack play because you could just see he's so destroyed mentally, and he didn't want to be in this game, and his play completely reflected that. Again, he was able to get the ball down a couple times, but this Patriots at this point, all we do is screen passes. We don't push the ball down the field at all. DeVito had a lot more opportunities at the Giants game than to push the ball down the field than Mack did at all in the first half. And then we went to halftime, and here he comes. It's officially Zappi season for the second half. Zappi doesn't look bad, right? He comes down the field on his first drive. I think I saw he had negative three yards of net throwing, which goes to show you all they did is do screen passes on his first drive and then run it with Mondra and Zeke. But again, a very effective drive. They get right down the field. They score the touchdown that they need to tie the game, and at this point, I'm getting nervous because, again, I don't want to win this game, and I'm thinking, can Zappi just come in and just not make the mistakes that we've been seeing Mack Jones make? And then, yeah, he comes in, throws a pretty bad interception that leads to a Giants field goal. And the funny thing is, the Giants had 10 points today. They probably don't have 10 points if it weren't for the Patriots giving them a pretty gifted field position down in their own end. But again, this is the kind of football that the Patriots have needed to play the whole season. It's just not turning the ball over, not making mistakes. The Giants did that very successfully today, where they just, minus that one fumble at the beginning of the game, they played clean football, and that's all DeVito did. He just made the throws that he needed to make, didn't mess around or try to force anything in there, and they just survived. They survived out the Patriots. And then, Chad. Oh, Chad. I love you, Chad. Chad has been about the tank this whole season, and he does it again on a 35-yard field goal. Now, keep in mind, I think the NFL extra point is a 33-yard field goal, so virtually he missed an extra point to tie this game up, and thank you so much for doing that because I had no interest in continuing to watch this product that was put on the field in front of me. We can hop into it. The one thing I want to hit on quick is, DeVito's kind of a rollercoaster of a player. That one where he converted third and 17 with a 41-yard ball over J.C. Jackson, and then comes back and gets sacked and basically throws a ball behind the line of scrimmage, and they go like virtually three and out from that point. Dude is kind of like a wild card to watch, but honestly I thought the Giants were a slightly more fun brand of football to watch than the Patriots today. The one thing I found a little weird about the Giants is, I mean, Saquon Barkley's clearly their best player, and they don't use him, so I thought that was odd. Again, I think things like this could be not tanking, but, hey, we want to preserve this guy for the future, so let's not throw him into the fire quite as much if he feels dinged up at all. He can go and sit. I think if you're a playoff potential team, Saquon Barkley's not allowed to go sit as much as he did today. He actually did go and get a decent amount of time where he was able to go off the field when he wasn't feeling quite right. But, yeah, as far as, you know, next week's concerned, feels like Zappi probably will get the start over Mack just based on performance. Now, yeah, I wouldn't say Zappi really outperformed Mack in this game. I just think Mack's just a broken player at this point, and he needs, I also think he needs the time to just get himself back together, and I just don't see how he's going to change moving forward with any of these games. I think Zappi deserves a week where they put all their investment into getting him ready to play. Because, obviously, you could see from the opener, Mack Jones had the plays on his hip. You know, he had everything he needed to go be a starter, and Zappi clearly was the backup. And then they make the switch at halftime, but I think Zappi deserves a full, honest shot to go start a game and see how he does, because, again, I mean, the guy is 2-0 as a starter, so it'd be interesting just to see. Again, the Patriots aren't going to do anything, and, you know, unfortunately, the Patriots did have an injury in this game. Pop Douglas gets just clotheslined on a punt return. I have no idea. I didn't think that could possibly be a legal hit, especially in today's NFL. And when even the announcers didn't seem to make a big deal of it, I was pretty stunned by that. But, yeah, I mean, I would say Zappi probably earns the start there. You know, I think our defense, obviously, has continued to play well, and second half of this game turned into just a rain bowl, so it just wasn't a game where there was going to be a whole lot of offense in the second half, so the fact that you didn't score in the first half made it extremely difficult for you to get back in this game. But, yeah, I mean, overall, Zappi plays a little better. Mack has...Mack just needs to sit and be behind, and, again, maybe Malik Cunningham...honestly, my best case would be you give Mack the week off next week, don't even activate him, and then let Zappi start and let Malik back him up, and if you need to get some sort of spark in the game, maybe Malik Cunningham gives you that, but, yeah, the Patriots, just overall, the offense is just...they have no weapons, they don't have the talent to keep up with these NFL defenses, and that's kind of the story of this team right now. They're just not a talented offensive football team, and their defense is solid, and that's pretty much what we've been seeing week in and week out, so I did want to share one interesting piece of audio I picked up this week, which was Tom Brady on Stephen A. Smith's podcast. I think he's an incredible coach. He's the best coach, in my belief, in the history of the game, so, I mean, I don't know...the thought of him not being in New England is hard for me to think about, so I think he's...he prepares the team really well, and ultimately, you've got to have a lot of people around you to succeed. You've got to have a lot of things in place for the organization to be successful. I don't think he's probably coaching much difference now than when we were undefeated in 2007. I'm sure he's preparing the team the same way. The results are different, but, again, that's why the sport's so challenging. There's a lot of reasons why teams win or lose. The head coach is a very small part on game day. The quarterback plays a really big part on game day, not the entire thing, but because you touch the ball, you have a big opportunity to impact the game. So if you get good quarterback play, and that says nothing about...I'm just talking in general about football, you know, you've got an advantage. If you play really good defense, you've got a great advantage. I mean, you need a good defensive coordinator. You know, ultimately, it's a lot of things coming together, why things work and why they don't. Yeah, I mean, you can hear Tom try to save himself a little bit from virtually throwing Mac Jones under a moving bus, but I do think it's fair on a certain level. The Patriots haven't gotten the level of quarterback play the past two seasons that they've needed to really be a competitive football team. And you look around the league, all the teams that are doing well have good QBs. That's just kind of the way the league is at this point. It's hard not to win if you have one of those kind of top 15 guys on your roster, and the Patriots certainly don't have that in Bailey Zappi and Mac Jones at this point. So that's kind of...I thought it was interesting to hear Tom Brady kind of back up a lot of the things that Patriots fans have been feeling. And again, it goes to my larger point, I don't see a reason why you get rid of Bill Belichick. Again, his preparation's the same as it's always been. He's coaching up the guys just as well as he knows. It's just the personnel's just not there right now on this team. And that's why it's important to keep losing these games. With that loss today, the Patriots officially moved to the number two draft pick in the NFL Draft. Which is crazy. I mean, we've never...again, since I've been a fan, we've never sniffed a draft pick that's even close to that high. Now again, we need to see how the Cardinals game finishes today, because technically they haven't had their bye week yet. So if they lose, they would have more losses than we would and would jump back up to number two. But crazy to think the Patriots are really in a position to go get one of these really premier talented guys, whether it's Caleb Williams, Drake May, or if they really want to go the Marvin Harrison Jr. route, they could. I don't see why you would do that at this point, just because if you go get a guy...I think about the Falcons with Drake London and Kyle Pitts, you go draft these really talented guys coming out of college. But if you don't have the guy to get them the ball, then they don't serve as much of a purpose as, you know, I'm sure Atlanta thought of them coming out, now having Desmond Ritter trying to throw. Obviously, Bajon Robinson did awesome today, but yeah, exciting though to be at the number two pick. I actually really do think the Patriots are going to be in play for one of these top QBs. I guess they had scouts at that Ohio State-Michigan game to see Marvin Harrison live in person. But yeah, I mean, I think that's...we're really on to the next thought process of continuing to lose and trying to secure this really high draft pick. We're all going to be Cardinals and Panthers fans the rest of this season. I was really hoping that Bryce Young could actually pull it out today, but unfortunately the Panthers kind of did their normal thing of underperforming late in a game, where they really...I mean, they ran like a screen pass on 4th and 6th that wasn't even close. So there's still not a lot of trust there, it feels like, in Bryce Young. But again, that team's not going to try to stop competing because the Bears own their draft pick. So we can continue to hope that they'll compete. Cardinals have Kyler Murray, and since he's been back, they've been significantly more competitive. So, Patriots have a realistic shot at that number one pick. I know it's crazy, but it is true for where we're at. And next week we'll have the Chargers come into town, oddly a team historically the Patriots have done fairly well against, especially when they travel all the way to the East Coast. But we'll talk about that more, kind of on future podcasts. But for now, let's hop into some fantasy talk. It is Titanic, but more importantly, Leonardo DiCaprio week. And speak the words that I have taught you, and I will make you richer than the most powerful CEO in the United States of fucking America. I want you to go out there, and I want you to ram Steve Madden's stock down your client's throats, till they fucking choke on it, till they choke on it, and they buy 100,000 shares. That's what I want to hear. You'd be ferocious. You'd be relentless. You'd be telephone fucking tolerant. Now let's knock this motherfucker out of the park. Gotta love Leo's scenes where he's motivating his workers from Wolf of Wall Street. But catching us back up, obviously we didn't have the pod last week with Thanksgiving around week 11, but we had me losing to Jimmy. Admittedly, I never thought that I was going to be in this game, just based on how I started with Joe Burrow and Mark Andrews both getting hurt on Thursday. But I lost 118 to 111 to Jimmy. Jarn, very valiant effort from Tom. Generally, I get mad at the person that loses to Jarn, but in this case, Tom puts up 144 points, Jarn puts up 147. Can't be mad about that. Really great game out of Tom, and his team continues to look very good this week. Ben getting the, I mean, this has to be the closest margin that we're going to see this whole season. But he, and I'm going to go to decimal points, which I don't usually do. Ben wins 123.48 to O'Sullivan's 123.3. Just absurdly close. And then, in the next game, we got Sabati picking up the win, 110 to, uh-oh. Oh, who is our low scorer this week with 92 points? And then our final game, we had Pat able to take down Dan, 112 to 95. So, as far as standings go for this week, Jarn continues to be in first place, and also was just excited to see that Jarn's alive, seeing him actually post in our fantasy group chat for the first time this year. I do feel like that has to somehow get him not last place on the ranking simply for being involved, but 92, James Arnold on top. Then we have Bo, so those two seem to be kind of locked in in those places at 1-2. And then James D jumping up to third, and Sabati in fourth. Kind of surprises there a little bit compared to where we were a week ago. And then Tom in fifth. We have, I think that's Pat just ahead of me in sixth place. I'm holding down seventh right now. Again, just simply at this point looking to not come in last. And Sean in eighth. And then Ben and Dan rounding out our bottom as Dan Allen. Continues to be in last place. But if we flip right now to what's going on this week, I did notice a couple interesting scores that I wanted to take a quick look at. Tom Driscoll's team is playing out of their minds this week as he's going to dismantle Ben's team. But an interesting result in the Dan versus Sean game, where currently Dan is projected to win this game. You may wonder, well Kel, why are you highlighting that game? If Dan is able to win this game, officially, Sean, Dan and Ben will all have the same record pending Ben's results days. But again, sorry Ben, there's no way you're going to catch up to Tom's team with what he's doing right now. We're going to have a three-way tie for the record for last place. And that is where things are going to get pretty, pretty interesting. As I don't know that everyone knows, but Ben and Dan play each other in the last week of the season. So, Mr. O'Sullivan, you have some pretty important games coming up here if you're going to hope to not come in last place. Man, it's starting to get pretty up in the air as far as who could come in last. Again, I swear I don't feel like I'm out of the water. Now again, if I win one more game, pretty much good. But anyone at five and six right now, I wouldn't feel comfortable. So, I'm kind of excited because generally I feel like there's somebody who's very clearly in last place. And we have so much room right now for people to sneak into the playoffs, people to fall off and come close to last place. So, I think it'll be a pretty exciting end to the season. But in any other fantasy news, there will be no apology today. I know some of you out there are looking for that. No apology today. Still considering options on that front. But that'll do it for the show today, guys. Good luck the rest of the way this week. Definitely had some tight-looking games coming up there. So, it'll be interesting to see how this week finishes. But I plan to do another pod later this week, kind of previewing the Chargers game and any other Patriots news that comes out, probably around quarterback situation and what's going on coaching-wise with the team. So, we'll do the audio messages again on that one. If you have any audio messages you want to send over, I will gladly respond to them without listening, and you'll get my honest reaction to whatever you guys want to hear about. So, let me send us out with some more Wolf of Wall Street with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew McConaughey. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Tutski. No, no, thank you, though. Mr. Hanna, what can I bring for you on this glorious afternoon? Well, Hector, here's the game plan. You're going to bring us two absolute martinis. You know how I like them, straight up. And then precisely seven and one-half minutes after that, you're going to bring us two more. Then two more after that, every five minutes, until one of us passes the fuck out. Excellent strategy, sir. I'm good with water for now, though. Thank you. This is his first day on Wall Street. Give him time. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Mr. Hanna, if you're able to do drugs during the day and still functions, he'll do your job. Well, who the fuck else would you do this job? Cocaine and hookers, my friend. Right.