Meyers haunts old team, Patriots lose to Raiders, 21-17

It may not be on the level of Michael Myers scaring people on Halloween, but the shadow of Jakobi Meyers will be haunting the Patriots all season. Just in case anyone had forgotten the Patriots chose JuJu Smith-Schuster over Jakobi Meyers in free agency, Bill Belichick and the Patriots had a front row seat for when Meyers caught a 12-yard touchdown pass from a former Patriot, Jimmy Garoppolo, on Sunday on the way to a Raiders' victory, coached by former Patriots' assistant, Josh McDaniels, 21-17.

The good news for the Patriots was that they scored two touchdowns. The bad news is, for the third time this season, the Patriots came inches away from snatching a possible victory.

In the season opener, Kayshon Boutte didn’t get his second foot inbounds on a catch inside Philadelphia’s 10-yard line on the Patriots’ final drive in a 25-20 loss to the defending NFC champions. In the second game, Cole Strange was inches short of a first down inside Miami’s 30-yard line after a desperation lateral from tight end Mike Gesicki in a 24-17 loss to the high-powered Dolphins. On Sunday, the Patriots were a finger tip drop of a perfect deep pass by Mac Jones of having the ball at least at midfield needing only a field goal to defeat the Las Vegas Raiders. 

The optimist would say the Patriots are three plays away from being 4-2. Bill Belichick said as much in his weekly interview on WEEI on Monday. The realist says they are 1-5 and as Bill Parcells once said, “You are what your record says you are.”

Mac Jones came into Sunday’s game having been benched in his last two games. His future in New England was viewed by many to be on the line in this game against the Raiders.

Before the game, Bill Belichick made the surprise decision of activating Malik Cunningham and making him Jones’ only backup. Bailey Zappe has been Jones’ backup every game for the last season and a half. That was before Sunday. Belichick did say after the last game that the team needed "to start over." Bailey was designated as the emergency quarterback, meaning he could only play if Jones and Cunningham got hurt. There was some chatter about newcomer Will Grier being activated, but he wasn’t.

It was reported that Cunningham had taken some snaps at quarterback last week during practice. Zappe had struggled during the preseason and didn’t show anything in his two relief appearances of Jones against Dallas and New Orleans. It has been a precipitous fall for Zappe. Last year around this time, chants of “Zappe! Zappe!” cascaded down from the crowds at Foxboro. Zappe-mania became a thing. Belichick fueled some discussion of a quarterback controversy this summer by not mentioning Jones by name on several occasions..

Maybe Belichick thought that not having to look over his shoulder at Zappe, or Grier, would make Jones play better. Cunningham is not a threat to get full-time snaps anytime soon. Cunningham didn’t even take any pre-game snaps, presumably to keep the Raiders guessing. That Belichick is so tricky. If Cunningham was going to play, it would  be in specific situations with limited packages.

And that is how it played out. Cunningham was featured on three offensive plays, including once in the first quarter and one at the goal line.

Had Zappe or Grier been active Sunday, the pressure would have been on to bench Jones at halftime yet again. That’s because just prior to halftime, Jones made a mental mistake which has become all too common for him. With just over three months left in the half and the Patriots driving deep into Las Vegas territory for a possible game-tying touchdown, Jones rolled to the right and badly overthrew a wide open Hunter Henry. The ball went right into the arms of Las Vegas’ Tre’von Moehrig at the Vegas 12-yard line. It was Mac Jones’ third consecutive week with a soul-crushing turnover.

Belichick really had no choice but to start Jones again in the second half. Nobody will remember, but Jones responded by playing well. Mac completed 16 of 19 passes for 103 yards in the second half. One of those incompletions came on the last drive when DeVante Parker couldn’t haul in a perfect long pass down the left sideline. It may well have been Jones’ best pass in three years as a pro.

Parker signed an extension prior to the season. It was speculated the Patriots gave Parker an extension to placate his disappointment at the Patriots’ courtship of Deandre Hopkins. At the time, Parker refused to answer questions about Hopkins by repeatedly replying, “Next question.”

Following Sunday’s game, Parker again was coy with the media. When asked what happened on the play, Parker answered that the ball was just beyond his reach and ticked off his fingertips. 

“What’d you see?” he arrogantly asked reporters. I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw an NFL wide receiver short arm and drop a pass that 90% of NFL receivers catch. I also saw said receiver jog back to the huddle without showing any kind of emotion or dejection. This same receiver ran one of the laziest routes I’ve ever seen on a third down earlier in the game in which Jones fired an incomplete pass to Parker’s left when Parker drifted (I won’t give him the credit of calling it a “break”) to the right.

Mac Jones will continue to be the lightning rod for the failures of the 2023 Patriots. He did take a decisive safety which sealed the game. It seems like Jones throws ill-advised passes when he should take a sack, and he takes a sack when he should get rid of the ball. You just as easily could blame Mike Gesicki and Vederian Lowe for totally whiffing on Maxx Crosby allowing him to sack Jones in the end zone. Or you could blame the two penalties on the last drive which pinned the Patriots close to their end zone.

In the grand scheme of things, it is probably best that Parker dropped Jones’ pass. A Patriots’ victory would not have improved the Patriots’ chances for short term or long term success. The best thing for the Patriots is to get a high pick next year to get one of the top quarterbacks in next year’s draft. The franchise needs a long overdue reboot and that reboot includes getting a new head coach and general manager. The only way to make it an easier decision for Robert Kraft to dismiss, arguably, the greatest head coach in NFL history is for the team to have an embarrassingly bad season. They are well on their way.