Tedy Bruschi has not been complimentary of the New England Patriots this season. The retired linebacker recognizes the long odds for Bill Belichick’s team, which has struggled in just about every phase of the game in 2020. No doubt, the Patriots have had flashes of brilliance. But they’ve been too few and far between for New England to win games.
That makes them a long shot to make the playoffs this year, according to Bruschi, who discussed the Patriots’ prospects during an appearance on WEEI’s Greg Hill Show.
“They are 3-5 right now, I think winning [five games] is going to be very tough to do,” he said, via WEEI.com. “Out of nowhere you could still have a COVID distraction, you still have guys that are hurt. The linebacker position is what it is. You’ve got to think that this Ravens game is going to be very difficult for them to win. I know you’ve got the Jets on the schedule coming up, the Dolphins are coming up — I don’t specifically know what games they have coming — but to get to 8-8 I think is going to be difficult for this team.”
Quite difficult.
New England’s remaining schedule is vs. the Ravens, at the Texans, vs. the Cardinals, at the Chargers, at the Rams, at the Dolphins, vs. the Bills and vs. the Jets. Houston, L.A. and New York look like winnable games. The rest look of the games like extremely tough matchups. The Patriots will be seven-point underdogs in their matchup against the Ravens on Sunday.
“If this team fought back to get to that level,” Bruschi said, “it would not only be a great coaching job, which I have no doubt that they can do, but is Cam Newton going to turn into a quarterback that can take care of the football on a consistent basis? Because that really hasn’t been what we’ve seen from Cam, taking care of the football on a consistent basis because to play winning football with this type of team, the way that they are constructed, with the defensive players, the offensive players is that each unit has to play very well together. To get that type of consistency from all three units, that complementary football that they really want, that means all units have to play together over the course of an entire game.
“I don’t know if that’s possible to get those five victories to get to .500 again.”
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