The New England Patriots are staring down a crucial Sunday showdown against the undefeated Buffalo Bills, marking their first division game of the 2026 season. At a concerning 1-2, this matchup against a 3-0 opponent feels like it could swing their entire year, much like a similar game did for their 2025 Super Bowl team. Our attention is absolutely dialed in on this one, because when things go south this fast, every play feels like it has a lifetime of consequences.
The Numbers Don’t Lie: A Total Disaster
Let’s just be blunt: through three games, the Patriots’ offense has been one of the absolute worst in the entire NFL. We’re talking dead-last in points scored, tied for it, actually. Turnovers? Yeah, also tied for dead-last. If you’re looking at total yards, they’re barely scratching by at 21st in the league, and their expected points added per play is a woeful 28th. Seriously, by whatever metric you wanna use, this offense is stuck in the mud.
Quarterback Drake Maye, who has coughed up the ball a league-worst seven times already this season, has unfortunately become the face of these struggles. But it’s not just on him. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was clear: the problems run deep. It’s on everyone in that offensive structure, from the coaches calling the shots to the players trying to execute. As McDaniels put it, “Our improvement and our progress offensively is going to be a function of everybody. Starts with me, our coaches, our players. It takes a lot of us to do the right things and call the game the way I want to call it and execute it the way they want to execute it, and do those things right, take care of the football, and then go out there and see what that looks like. We know we haven’t done that yet, and so what is the result going to be when we do it? I hope we find out on Sunday.” You gotta hope they find out too, because right now, it’s brutal.
Sticking With The Process, Seriously
Despite the absolute dumpster fire that has been the Patriots offense, the veteran OC is not about to make any drastic, knee-jerk changes. His message? Stick to the plan. He’s not wrong that sometimes when things aren’t clicking, the immediate urge is to blow it all up. But McDaniels is holding firm. “Sometimes, when you get into a stretch where you want to do things so well right now and you’re just not doing them exactly the way you want them, you can feel like you want to press and drastically alter what you’re doing; when I think the solution really is not patience in the sense of being lazy to change something , that’s not what I’m referring to , but I think just sticking with the process of trying to make things right that you know you can make better,” McDaniels explained. He believes the players see what they need to fix, and until they do it right, changing everything just creates more chaos.
You can’t forget, McDaniels is one of the most accomplished offensive coaches in NFL history. Last year, he ran an offense that was among the league’s best before they hit a wall in the playoffs. The hope was that some smart offseason moves and players naturally developing in the system he put in place in 2025 would get this unit humming. So far, that hasn’t happened.
The pressure is insane heading into Sunday’s game against the Bills. McDaniels is hoping to finally see the results of “the process” when his team takes the field. If they can somehow, *finally*, execute like he knows they can, maybe, just maybe, they can start to turn this train wreck around.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Pats Pulpit.
Leave a Reply