Ugly loss to the Giants seals it: it’s over for Bill Belichick with the Patriots

Mac Jones was down after throwing an interception in the second quarter, his second of the game.

As if there were any doubts, Sunday’s loss sealed it: It’s over for Bill Belichick. The show is over. The magic is gone. The man has no answers.

Recent losses to the Commanders and Colts were bad, but this one was worse, losing to a terrible Giants team and undrafted rookie quarterback Tommy DeVito, who led the Giants to just 220 total yards.

Belichick had two weeks to prepare his team after the bye, and the Patriots came out flat, sloppy and unprepared, particularly on offense. The defense held its opponent to 10 points in consecutive games, and his team couldn’t win either game.

Belichick’s quarterback decisions have spectacularly backfired. Sticking with Mac Jones after the bye was a mistake, or at minimum showed how poorly he has constructed his QB depth chart. Sticking with Jones throughout the first half also was a mistake, almost as if Belichick wanted to prove a point to Jones and Robert Kraft. Jones’s second interception cost the Patriots 3 points and potentially the game.

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But the biggest mistake was splitting QB reps 50-50 during the week with Jones and Bailey Zappe, according to multiple reports before the game. After 49 years of coaching, one would think Belichick understands that the starting quarterback needs all the snaps in practice, particularly a QB struggling with his confidence like Jones. Instead, neither quarterback was prepared.

The Patriots fell to 2-9, and Belichick continues to push all the wrong buttons. Even his decision at kicker has been a disaster, with fourth-round pick Chad Ryland pushing his 35-yard field goal attempt wide left at the end of the game.

On the bright side, at least the Patriots are closer to getting the No. 1 draft pick. But it’s looking increasingly clear that someone other than Belichick will be making the pick.

Zappe finally got a decent opportunity, taking over at halftime and getting two full quarters instead of spot duty in mop-up time of blowouts. He did look a bit more decisive with the football, and opened the game going 6 for 6 and leading the Patriots to a touchdown. He also got them into range for the game-tying field goal attempt at the end.

Zappe clearly isn’t the answer, as he threw a bad interception into triple coverage and finished with just 54 yards passing. But he does show more savviness than Jones and doesn’t look like a deer in headlights.

It won’t be pretty with Zappe at quarterback, but it has been downright hideous with Jones. Belichick needs to give Zappe a week of full reps at practice and let him start next Sunday against the Chargers.

As for Jones, Sunday’s game confirmed what we already knew — he’s a broken, shell of a quarterback who is totally unfit to play on an NFL field right now. He was a total mess — sailing several throws over his receivers, losing track of the play clock, not reading the field, throwing a couple of slant passes that were almost picked, and twice throwing interceptions off his back foot. Jones was 12 for 21 for 89 yards, a sack and two picks, compiling a passer rating of 27.8. If he had simply thrown every pass directly into the ground and went 0 for 21, his rating would have been 39.6.

Jones’s first interception was an inexplicable throw off his back foot to Demario Douglas into triple coverage. His second interception was a back-breaker off his back foot to Giants linebacker Bobby Okereke just outside the red zone. It’s OK to make mistakes in the NFL, but it’s not OK to repeat mistakes, and Jones has thrown most of his 12 interceptions off his back foot.

Jones was finally replaced at halftime, the fourth time he has been benched rhis season. It has to be an NFL record for performance-based benchings.

Bill O’Brien didn’t help matters with his play-calling. The Giants entered the game with the 30th-ranked run defense (4.8 yards per carry) and were missing their best defensive lineman in Dexter Lawrence. The Patriots had a quarterback with no confidence and two solid running backs in Rhamondre Stevenson and Ezekiel Elliott.

So what do the Patriots do in the first half? Call 23 passes against 12 runs, of course. They ran the ball effectively, averaging 4.8 yards per attempt, but they put the ball in Jones’s hands and let him wreck the half with two interceptions.

O’Brien was brought in to get the most out of Jones and the offense, and instead he is getting the least.

Speaking of players that need to be benched, J.C. Jackson, back in the lineup after being left home for the game in Germany, hurt the Patriots whenever he was on the field. The entire NFL seems to knows Jackson is not himself after injuring his knee last year, and the Giants picked on him all day, with Jalin Hyatt going for 109 yards, including catches of 22 and 41 yards.

Ben Volin can be reached at .