FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Quick question: who’s going to beat the New England Patriots?
Seriously. Tell me. Who?
Certainly they could lose a game or two at some point this season, but right now the Patriots are the best team in the NFL and it isn’t even close.
The Jacksonville Jaguars were the latest team to feel the Patriots’ wrath, getting pummeled Sunday afternoon at Gillette Stadium to the tune of 51-17. That gave the Patriots 119 points in their first three games, setting a franchise record.
This is what happens when you tick this team off. Question the integrity of the star quarterback, rehash old cheating scandals. All it does is provide this team with fuel. The Patriots won’t talk about the Deflategate investigation anymore. They’re letting their actions speak for them.
They are steamrolling everyone. Yes, the Jaguars had five starters out because of injuries and lost two more during the game. But the Patriots went at them full-throttle, overwhelming a team that a week earlier had beaten Miami – the team that was supposed to challenge the Patriots for AFC East supremacy.
“That team played with precision in all three phases,” said Jacksonville Coach Gus Bradley. “When you play against a really good team, you really see the importance of precision, and we didn’t play with that.”
How precise were the Patriots? Well, they didn’t punt once. Ryan Allen, in fact, has had to punt only five times, and four of them were in the season opener against Pittsburgh.
Allen called his day a “once-in-a-blue moon deal.” But the way this offense is operating, it might become as common as a full moon.
Tom Brady, who became the fourth quarterback in NFL history to throw 400 touchdown passes, has completed 96 passes for 1,112 yards, nine touchdowns and no interceptions. He has completed 72.2 percent of his passes.
Think about that. Brady was a ho-hum 33 for 42 on Sunday for 358 yards and two touchdowns.
Even the Patriots seemed impressed by their latest outburst.
“You never really are surprised with the personnel we have, the way that we work, the way that we’re coached,” said Matthew Slater, the Patriots’ special teams star. “But obviously you never expect to go out there and put up those points. That’s a good football team we played today.”
The Patriots are making it look so easy. But Slater and others in the locker room said people don’t realize how much work goes into each game.
“A lot of people don’t understand the work we put in,” said wide receiver Julian Edelman, who had his usual eight catches for 85 yards. “People think we come out here and practice for an hour and go home and chill. We’re here in this building a lot. We take pride in preparation. That’s been shown these last three weeks.”
As well as they appear to be playing, the Patriots insist they can get better. This week, they stressed starting fast because they hadn’t scored in the first quarter yet. Sunday, they got 10 points in the first quarter.
“We feel good,” said offensive tackle Nate Solder. “It’s never as good as we want it to be. We’re going to keep working. We have extremely high standards and we’re going to keep trying to reach them.
“There’s always something else to improve on. So we keep working. You can never be content or slow down at all.”
The only thing that appears capable of slowing down this team is the schedule. New England can’t win next week because it isn’t playing. The Patriots have their bye week – the earliest possible week for a bye. Will it stop their momentum? Would you blame them if they wanted to play a sandlot game somewhere?
“Everyone else has to deal with it. It is what it is,” said Edelman.
“It’s nice to get (the bye) in the middle of the season to try to get a little break. But we’re going to be grinding it out now. We have to try to take advantage of this week, to try to focus on the Patriots and what we have to do to get better and go from there.”
They won’t rest, really. Oh, the players will get a couple days off, but they’ll work, and work, and work some more until they find another way to exploit their next opponent – the Dallas Cowboys in a road game on Oct. 11.
“We want to get better every single week,” said tight end Rob Gronkowski, who averaged 25.3 yards on his four catches.
They’re driven to get better. They’re driven to succeed.
So I ask you again. Who will beat the Patriots?
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