Alec ShaneMon, November 24, 2025 at 5:30 PM UTC·10 min readHappy least productive week of the year, everyone!
Thanks for spending some of the time you’re killing at the office today and tomorrow with me as I break down the 10th Patriots win of the year. I’ve always found that braving the holiday traffic and Black Friday deals is a lot easier when it comes on the heels of a Patriots win, so I’m glad to be kicking off the holiday season the right way.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIf nothing else, this game hammered home just how much of a massive win the 2025 season is for the New England Patriots. This was a team we were all hoping would show some promise this year, maybe string together a few wins, go 9-8 – or if a ton goes right, 10-7 – and sneak into the playoffs as a Wild Card team. And maybe they’d get hot and upset the Texans or Ravens in the postseason before getting beaten down in the Divisional Round. August Alec would have been over the moon with the above scenario. So that November Alec, coming into a game that he had pegged as a definite L the moment the schedule came out, is upset over this one because they didn’t look all that great and there are clearly some glaring holes that could come back to bite them in the postseason, is simply incredible. We’re basically playing with house money at this point, and we’d all do well to remember that.
That said, I didn’t have one minute of fun from the opening whistle of that sloppy, slow, paceless, injury-infested game to the very last play. And in a weird way, I missed that feeling too.
The only thing that really matters today, and in the days to come, is the injury status of some key pieces along the offensive line. I don’t know how often very large men leave a football field on the back of a cart with a towel over their heads and return to action the same season, but I know it isn’t nearly as often as any of us would like it to be. The Patriots lost two-fifths of the offensive line yesterday, a line that was finally starting to come together and gel. And it would have been three-fifths, but luckily Morgan Moses’s illness was a temporary thing.
To that end, when a lineman takes a knee, walks briskly back to the locker room, spends some time in there, then comes back with everything back to normal, I think it’s safe to assume what went down. Dante was of the opinion that there are nine circles of hell. But he’s wrong. There’s a lesser-known tenth circle, spoken about only in terrified whispers, and reserved solely for those whose lives were so wicked that they have been sent back to earth, reincarnated as toilets, to be used by any number of 300 lb plus linemen who need to deal with that particular “illness.”
And it’s really the injuries that will be taking center stage from here on out. Early signs and reports are that both Will Campbell and Jared Wilson are dealing with sprains, not tears, which means both would be back in a few weeks. Absolutely massive if true. Hopefully we’ll get some good news to be thankful for this week.
I don’t know if the injuries would be putting as much of a damper on this win if the Patriots played better, but this was a pretty lousy game overall. Drake Maye made bad reads, bad throws, and bad decisions. The Patriots ran nine straight plays from inside Cincy’s five and came away with zero points. They gave up 100 yards to Chase Brown, even though he was their only real offensive weapon. They weren’t able to get anything going on the ground and looked completely lost on offense at times. I don’t know if they bought into their own hype, took the Bengals too lightly, got thrown off by the mini-bye, or what, but that game was almost an abject disaster.
On the plus side, I think that this team has enough discipline to put it behind them. They’re a very good team. This week’s slate of games further hammered home the point that every team in the AFC is deeply flawed in some capacity, so it’s not like the Pats got exposed as frauds or anything. They came out flat, had to win an ugly one on the road where they weren’t at their best, caught some bad injuries, but should be able to turn the page to head home for a Monday night game with an extra day’s rest before the bye. So there’s no need to dwell too much on all the stuff that went wrong.
Biggest plus from yesterday? The Bengals only marched down the field with ease on their opening possession for a field goal and not a touchdown. Sure, that FG attempt was the result of a very bad tee Higgins drop that would have moved the chains, but I’m not about to look at any kind of non-TD on the first drive sideways.
Man did we all take Tommy B’s ability to sneak forward for one yard so consistently for granted. In the same vein, I don’t know if there’s a feeling I dislike more than seeing the Patriots line up in shotgun on short yardage situations.
I think what that comes down to, though, is that this isn’t the kind of offensive line that can just bowl people over. They’re mobile. They’re able to pull and shift and chip and they’ve been rapidly improving at keeping the quarterback’s shirt clean. But if you need them to put a foot in the dirt and push some serious weight back, they’re more Tom Callahan than they are Bobby Boucher. I don’t know how often Josh McDaniels had to scheme his way to positive short yards, particularly at the goal line where there is such little real estate, but that’s something he’s going to need to focus on as the days continue to get shorter.
It also might be time for Jack Westover to hang up his fullback cleats. It was a good try, converting a TE into a FB, but I think we’re SOL on that and the idea was more or less DOA.
I think the biggest positive I’m taking away from this game is the way that Drake Maye bounced back after such a horrendous start. This one had all the elements of those “one of them days” the Patriots of Yore would have every once in a while; they’d travel to Cleveland or Tennessee or The Meadowlands and just sort of lay an egg against an inferior team, and we’d all spend the rest of the week avoiding the inevitable Brady is washed rhetoric. But he settled down, found his accuracy, and got his team in position to win. This game might have lost him some ground in the MVP race, but he had zero shot of winning that anyway, and it’s also a completely bogus award that automatically goes to a quarterback who also had a great season the year before. So who the hell cares about that.
I’m not sure I give Mack Hollins enough love. And I say that who is on here almost every week saying some version of “I’m not sure I give Mack Hollins enough love.” I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s the lynchpin of the entire offense, but I will say that he’s the most complete weapon the Patriots have. He has a deep route tree, he can make contested catches, he makes excellent use of the sidelines, and he’s a fantastic blocker. There are other more talented receivers on this team, but Hollins brings the most to the table.
Except for the ability to make a great catch, a sweet juke, sprint for 10 yards, and then fall down of your own accord. In that department, Pop Douglas reigns supreme.
I don’t want to knock Douglas. He’s always there in key moments and is good for one highlight reel play every game. But if there’s a wide receiver in the NFL who trips over his own feet as consistently as Douglas does, I don’t know who it is.
If Carlton Davis can play the way he played yesterday every week, this defense is going to go the rest of the year without surrendering more than 20 points.
That’s assuming that Milton Williams and Tonga are able to come back at full strength. Though I don’t know if you can really point to either of their absences as the reason the Bengals were able to run the ball so well yesterday, as much of Brown’s success came on stretch runs where New England couldn’t set the edge.
For the first time all season, I wasn’t at all confident that the Patriots would be able to keep the Bengals out of the end zone when they got the ball back down 20-26 with 1:51 to play. I had seen enough Joe Flacco underthrown-deep-balls-turned-DPI back during his Baltimore days to know what to expect. And that there were no DPI calls on that final drive is nothing short of amazing – not because of undisciplined play or anything like that, but that’s a penalty that gets called with more frequency and less consistency than any other call in the game. I was certain I was going to have to sweat out first and goal from the 12-yard line and hope for the best.
I can’t help but feel like Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase would have gotten Cincy over the top in this game. New England has looked way better in weeks past. But I guess we’ll never know. Looking forward to seeing Burrow fresh off his turf toe surgery and Chase fresh off his spitspension this Thursday night.
To that end, we really need a new name for Turf Toe. There simply isn’t a lamer sounding injury out there, especially in relation to how painful it is. The overstretching of the ligaments in the big toe and foot causes extreme, shooting pains up your entire leg every time you take a step, making walking, let alone playing, impossible. A good friend of mine played guard at URI in the early 2000s, he told me that of all the injuries he has ever sustained, turf tow is the absolute worst. So I’d like to move that we bring back a military term and refer to it as Trench Foot until we can come up with something better.
The Patriots are sitting at 10 wins. They’re one win away from reaching what most people had as their most optimistic ceiling for this year. They have a direct line to the One Seed. They don’t have to travel again for almost a full month and only have two games over the next 26 days. For once, this wildly late bye is a huge blessing. They can clinch a playoff spot with a win next week and some help around the league, and there’s also a shot the Patriots make the playoffs while they’re sitting at home enjoying their weekend off. Not too shabby.
And there’s a lot to be thankful for. I hope that you and yours all have the happiest of Thanksgivings. Wherever it is you’re traveling this week, be it to see family, friends, or simply the grocery store to absolutely crush a Hungry Man Microwave Turkey Dinner For One, my best wishes for a safe and enjoyable holiday.
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