Patriots’ disastrous blowout loss to Jets validates the worst fears about this team

— This was the fear, the nightmare scenario that threatened to leave a once mighty franchise as an embarrassing afterthought destined for the bottom of the standings for a second straight year.

It wasn't going to be like this, the New England Patriots insisted. That's what the first two games told us, they said. They were undermanned, sure, but plucky and competent. They took pride in the fundamentals. They did the little things right. There was a new culture and a new way of doing things under their new coach, and they were improving.

And then Thursday night against the New York Jets happened, the kind of national TV butt-kicking the Patriots used to deliver to hapless opponents. Now they're that kind of team. There's no hiding that anymore. Not after 24-3 . Not after giving up 400 yards of offense while gaining just 139 of their own. The Patriots had the ball for less than 20 minutes, and it still felt like too long to have to watch them.

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They hoped they weren't as bad as many feared coming into the season. They doubled down on the offensive line, questioning why so many outsiders were worried about it. They liked their defense, even amid the losses of important players, confident they'd continue to patch together strong performances without Bill Belichick in charge.

None of that happened Thursday night, and now the worst-case situation this season feels possible, even likely.

"We just got beat pretty handily," coach Jerod Mayo said. "So right now, everything is a concern."

It's hard to know where to start after a game that bad. But let's begin with the offensive line.

The Patriots simply cannot have a functional offense when their front five blocks like that. They entered Thursday ranked 31st in the NFL in pressure rate and were somehow much worse than the first two weeks. The O-line allowed pressure on more than half of the team's dropbacks. It gave up seven sacks on 33 dropbacks.

New England's offensive line was terrible last year, but instead of an overhaul this offseason, the powers that be chose a patchwork repair, signing a couple of journeymen ( Vederian Lowe and Chukwuma Okorafor ) while drafting a right tackle to play left tackle ( Caedan Wallace ). There were signs all summer it wasn't going to work. The unit was badly outplayed throughout training camp. Yet the Patriots brass kept assuring everyone they would figure it out. They'd coach it better. Players would fall into the right roles. Things would look fine when the regular season arrived.

Instead, the offensive line is so bad the Patriots have no semblance of a passing game. Starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett , who was 12-of-18 passing for a meager 98 yards on Thursday, is constantly under pressure and taking massive hits while the team waits for rookie Drake Maye to be ready for something more than garbage time. Maybe they'll give Maye more reps, but at this point, it's hard to see what value that would provide since he, too, had Jets defenders lining him up on his lone drive Thursday.

. Will Brissett or Maye start next game?

"They just beat our a–," Brissett said, opting not to complain or throw his teammates under the bus.

Most expected the Patriots offense to struggle this season. But not the defense, and you could argue that unit's performance Thursday was even more concerning. The New England D missed 14 tackles against the Jets, whiffing constantly and allowing regular chunk plays as a result. Sure, the loss of linebacker Ja'Whaun Bentley hurts, but his absence doesn't excuse how poorly the defense played. Now the purported backbone of this team has to somehow rebound from getting shredded by Aaron Rodgers with a trip to San Francisco looming.

"Just gotta take it on the chin," linebacker Jahlani Tavai said.

Nothing the Jets did was all that surprising. The Patriots spent the short week of preparation emphasizing the importance of tackling soundly and keeping Rodgers contained. They did neither.

"We talked ad nauseam about keeping him in the pocket," Mayo said.

The first-year coach had just come off the field, his hat pulled low, stuck without answers during the game and set to face the toughest stretch of his short tenure.

The season can go one of two ways from here. Either the Patriots go back to playing the way they did the first two weeks: sound, responsible, competitive football (even if it's clear their talent will be overmatched most weeks). Or they'll have the kind of season many feared and be left to focus on their spot in the draft by Thanksgiving.

On Thursday, the latter team showed up. When you do little to meaningfully improve the roster after the greatest coach of all time only eked four wins out of last season, there's bound to be some concern.

And now after a couple weeks of relative optimism, the Patriots were inept against the Jets. You can't block like they did, whiff on tackles like they did, get beaten up and down the field like they did, and cling to competence.

"Look," Mayo said, "not good in any phase of the game."

The Patriots' talent deficiency has never been more obvious. Sure, you could tell the Bengals and Seahawks had better players, but the Pats played capably enough that those were still competitive games. This was different.

All those fears from three weeks ago about a three- or four-win season feel validated. The Patriots were exposed. Get an early lead on them, stop their run game and you can cruise to a win.

That's the problem when you're only built to have success one way. Their margin for error is so slim that an early deficit, like the 14-0 hole they faced before their third drive, feels insurmountable.

Those aren't problems that can be fixed in season, which is part of the concern. How can the Pats offensive line suddenly turn things around after three terrible weeks? And even if it did, do any of the team's wide receivers really scare defenses?

Maybe this ends up being just one bad loss, a disgusting early season blemish that doesn't really reflect how the remaining 14 games will go. Maybe all the concern that Thursday yielded won't end up mattering.

But just when things seemed they might be headed in the right direction, the Patriots offered credence to the worst fears about what the 2024 season might look like.

(Photo: Sarah Stier / )