The Patriots have one last job to do this terrible season. Please don’t screw it up by winning.
Just one more defeat in a season with 13 already in the column will lock up the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. Time to go to work and get it done.
Welcome to Season 13, Episode 17 of the Unconventional Preview, a serious yet lighthearted, nostalgia-tinted look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup …
We can’t necessarily call the Patriots’ pending circumstances an enviable spot, considering that they have proven to be an inconsistent, often clueless, and frequently terrible football team during this 3-win stumble to their season finale Sunday against the Bills.
But we can acknowledge that they find themselves in an uncommon circumstance. The Patriots, should they lose to the playoff-bound Bills, could be the rare team that is lousy enough to end up with the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, yet is already certain that its quarterback of the future is in place.
For a rebuilding team, it’s far from the worst situation. All they have to do is not completely mess this up.
The Patriots’ assignment Sunday is simple: Just lose, baby.
On the surface, that should be easy enough. The Patriots have lost 13 times already, including once to the Bills, a 24-21 defeat two weeks ago that duped some of us into thinking Jerod Mayo had this team aimed the right way. A 40-7 loss to the Chargers last Saturday served as a reminder of how far the Patriots have to go, even with rookie Drake Maye showing all the attributes of a franchise quarterback.
But the Bills, who have locked up the AFC’s No. 2 seed, will be resting several core players, including quarterback Josh Allen once he extends his consecutive starts streak to 115 games.
Mayo, whose job should be in jeopardy, has said the Patriots are trying to win, which might be best for him but is not best for the franchise’s future. Maye, who took multiple blows to the head last week against the Chargers, should not play at all — and if he does play, it had better not be for long.
The Patriots need to start fellow rookie QB Joe Milton III, who has lightning in his arm but is highly unlikely to catch lightning in a bottle.
Get that No. 1 pick — one of the most valuable assets a team can have — and get the competent pieces around Maye that he has had to go without as a rookie.
It’s a simple plan, an easy plan, and so obviously the right plan. It remains to be seen whether Mayo and the Patriots will follow it.
Kick it off, Slye, and let’s get this thing started …
Three players worth watching other than the quarterback
Kayshon Boutte: Once the math and all common sense confirmed that the Patriots were not going to be anywhere near a playoff team this season — somewhere around Week 5 — their big-picture priority became obvious, if it wasn’t already to begin the season: Develop Maye, and gather as much credible information as possible about which current teammates of his are capable of being real assets when this team is contending for the postseason again.
To be blunt, it’s not clear that a single wide receiver on this roster is worthy of such a keeper designation. Demario Douglas has a chance, but he’s 5-feet-8-inches, has 20 or fewer receiving yards in seven different games this season, and is one of the young players speaking somewhat out of turn about the need for changes.
Boutte, who like Douglas was a sixth-round pick in the 2023 draft, is another with a chance, which counts as progress considering he had just two receptions as a rookie. So far this season, he has 36 catches for 472 yards and a pair of touchdowns — which is hardly vintage Stanley Morgan-caliber production.
But he is trending the right way. The Louisiana State product has built some chemistry with Maye, most notably during the Patriots’ loss to the Bills two weeks ago, when he played by far the best game of his career so far.
Boutte had five catches for a career-high 95 yards in that one, including a 28-yard TD grab for the game’s first points, and a 31-yard catch-and-run just before halftime. Boutte was on the injury report with an illness Wednesday but returned for full participation Thursday.
If he can come close to matching his output the last time he played against the Bills, he will go into the offseason as one of the few players on this offense that fans can feel good about.
Keion White: The quick and large second-year defensive end should be one of the young Patriots to feel good about, and for a while this season that was the case.
White had 2½ sacks in the opening win against the Bengals (Joe Burrow and friends must really lament that one), and another 1½ sacks against the Seahawks the next week — a dominating performance that included seven tackles, a tackle for a loss, and a pair of QB hits.
He looked like he might be the Patriots’ next excellent pass rusher. Mystifyingly, he has done next to nothing since, picking up one sack over the last 14 games — that one coming in the 19-3 win in Week 10 over the hapless Bears, when the Patriots stacked up nine of their league-low 28 sacks on the season.
It’s fair to wonder, given White’s struggles to set the edge in the run game, whether he is as disciplined on the field as he needs to be. His comments this week suggesting that both he and the Patriots need to change something in the offseason were also vague and unsettling, and left Mayo trying to put out another brushfire of controversy.
White has the ability to be one of the cornerstones of the Patriots defense in the future. Too often lately, he has been invisible, at least on the field. Perhaps he can end the season the way he began it.
Brenden Schooler: The lone Patriot named to the Pro Bowl on Thursday, Schooler counts as one of the very few players on this roster who has noticeably improved this season.
Signed as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Texas before the 2022 season, he’s an excellent gunner and has been a core special teams player basically since his arrival.
The improvement for the first-time Pro Bowler has come in a couple of ways. He’s been more disciplined this year — a season ago, he tied guard Atonio Mafi for the team lead in penalties (five), including a personal foul in Week 6 against the Raiders that led to a semi-viral moment when multiple Patriots coaches berated him on the sideline.
This season, he has not committed a penalty, and would have to have a historically reckless day Sunday to tie Vederian Lowe and the long-gone Michael Jordan for the team lead with 10.
He’s also been a spot contributor to the defense, sometimes playing a spy role when the Patriots are facing a mobile quarterback. In his 24 defensive snaps, he has two sacks, in Week 10 against the Bears and Week 12 versus the Dolphins. So, yes, he has more sacks than White over the last 14 weeks.
Schooler deserves credit for committing to becoming a more disciplined player this season. Some of that credit should go to his mentor and special assistant to the head coach Matthew Slater, who made 10 Pro Bowls himself as a special-teams ace and will have a compelling Hall of Fame case when the time comes.
There’s no better player or person from which to learn the trade, and it is clear Schooler is listening.
The flashback
This is actually the third time in the last four seasons that the Patriots will end their season against the Bills.
In their 2021 wild-card, the Bills jumped to a 14-0 first quarter lead on a pair of Allen-to-Dawson Knox touchdown passes en route to a 47-17 throttling in what stands as the Patriots’ most recent playoff appearance.
The Bills ended the Patriots’ season the following season as well, winning the regular-season finale, 35-23. That was the game when Buffalo’s Nyheim Hines returned the opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown, then returned another 101 yards for a score in the second half.
If you remembered that DeVante Parker had two touchdown receptions for the Patriots — heck if you remember that DeVante Parker had any touchdown receptions for the Patriots, ever — you, my friend, are an excellent fan with a sterling memory for insignificant details.
– Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
Grievance of the week
Christian Gonzalez should have joined Schooler on the Pro Bowl team. The second-year cornerback has had a superb season, and it’s somewhat damning for Mayo and defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington that the defense collapsed this season (it ranks 26th in points allowed per game at 25.1 after finishing 15th at 21.5 per game last year) even with Gonzalez excelling after returning from a shoulder injury that limited to him to four games as a rookie.
Prediction, or how in the world did Mitchell Trubisky go eight picks before Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 Draft?
You know what? I’m going to ignore the creeping sense that the Patriots will somehow beat the Backup Bills come Sunday.
I imagine Mayo will ultimately turn the offense over from Maye to Milton at some point long before the game is decided, the sooner the better. Milton’s breathtaking arm strength will be fun to watch, even when he is firing rockets over the head of his running back in the flat. His talent will flash. His rawness will be obvious and constant. It’s almost the ideal scenario for a game that needs to be lost.
As for the Bills, they should take it on the run. James Cook, who ripped the Patriots for 100 yards on just 11 carries two weeks ago, is 19 yards shy of 1,000, so he’ll put in a cameo early before ceding his spot in the backfield to the more-than-competent Ray Davis and Tyler Johnson.
Hey, and don’t forget, Bills backup quarterback Mitchell Trubisky has had his moments — or moment, anyway, sort of — against the Patriots in the past. In the Patriots’ 38-31 win over Trubisky and the Chicago Bears in Week 7 of the 2018 season, he looked vaguely Josh Allen-like, throwing for 333 yards and 2 TDs, while running for another 81 yards and a score.
Perhaps that version of him shows up against the Patriots every six years. Bills 27, Patriots 13.
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