At least there's a final week with juice and other leftover Patriots thoughts

BOSTON -- Nobody's going to confuse the Patriots for Super Bowl contenders. I'd venture to guess there aren't even many -- or any -- people within the actual Patriots locker room who believe a Super Bowl is within reach for this year's team. The output over 17 weeks says a lot, and it speaks loudly.

But still, there is this: With one week remaining in the NFL season, the Patriots are still alive in the hunt to make the playoffs. In fact, they're technically still in control of making it to the postseason. 

That may not be everything, especially in a place like New England. But it's still something.

And for that, the effort and performance of Sunday was a significant one as it relates to the totality of the 2022 season for the New England Patriots. When they fell behind 14-7, four of their previous five possessions had ended in a punt -- three of which were three-and-outs. The one drive that didn't end in a punt was a lackluster push before halftime, with New England opting to just run the clock out rather than try to score.

Things were bad. And ugly.

And when the Patriots gained possession at their own 11-yard line with a 16-14 lead and 9:43 left in the game, they knew they needed to put together their longest drive of the game to put the score out of reach. That was a rather unrealistic expectation for that offense, yet the 89-yard game-sealing drive was executed.

And though things got tight at the end -- unnecessarily so, some would argue -- a fundamentally sound onside kick recovery officially ended the Dolphins' hopes in this game and officially kept alive the Patriots' playoff chances.

Understandably, nobody's going crazy about this playoff potential. There won't be lines outside local sporting good stores with fans eager to purchase "AFC WILD CARD 2022" T-shirts and hats. Nobody's booking flights and hotels for Arizona. It's not like that. Nobody's disillusioned.

Yet generally speaking, it's good when the football team is better than worse. And Sunday's win -- while far from perfect -- fits in line with that idea. And at the very least, it guarantees that the local football team won't be zombie-walking through this final week knowing their fate is sealed. At the very least, there's still some hope. At the very least, there's a chance.

Some may disagree, but the reality sure beats the alternative.

Let's hit some leftover thoughts from the Patriots' 23-21 win over the Dolphins.

--Well, despite that rosy outlook, I should note this: The Patriots have only really beaten backup quarterbacks this year. Outside of Jared Goff and the Lions, it's been the backup beatdown for 2022 with Mitchell Trubisky, Jacoby Brissett, Zach Wilson (twice), Sam Ehlinger, and Colt McCoy. The stretch continued with this win coming over Teddy Bridgewater and Skylar Thompson. (Why was Skylar Thompson drafted? What about his college stats screamed "Draft me?" I have some questions. For another day, I suppose.)

They've also won four games by one possession. Two of them featured a touchdown by the defense or special teams. One that featured no defensive or special teams scores did feature an opponent muffing a punt at their own 20-yard line, and the other one featured three Patriots interceptions.

That's not to say that such things are bad. It's just to point out that generally, to win close games, the Patriots have needed more than just their offense to score enough points. It's not a sustainable way to live, and it surely plays a factor in the lack of belief in this team making any sort of run.

--I still can't believe that Raheem Mostert was ruled to have had his forward progress stopped:

I also learned that forward progress plays can now be challenged? That's what Gene Steratore and the Football Zebras people said separately on Sunday. But Bill Belichick on Monday said that's not the case. And it's likely that's what he was told down on the field after the awful call was made.

I swear, the NFL is just making it up as it goes along.

That appeared to have been a call made by down judge Sarah Thomas, and she was involved on the play a few snaps later when Tyreek Hill was ruled to have been out of bounds when he caught a deep ball. That, too, was a bad call.

One foot:

Two foot:

Mike McDaniel, despite standing right there, might not have had a good enough look at it to decide to challenge. He did challenge Tyquan Thornton's catch a few minutes later, which was almost identical to that one, but lost. Womp womp.

Anyways. NFL officiating. Way to go.

--Devin McCourty played what might have been his final game at Gillette Stadium. Matthew Slater, too. That one kind of snuck up on me. They've obviously openly discussed their retirement contemplations in recent years, but with the Patriots still playing for the playoffs, their potential Foxboro curtain call didn't get much attention this week.

But then I realized ... isn't that always the case? We remember Tom Brady's last game at Gillette, and it was an ugly playoff loss that ended with a pick-six for the GOAT. We remember Rodney Harrison's, because he was carted off the field. But do you remember Tedy Bruschi's last game at Gillette? Troy Brown? Kevin Faulk? I don't.

In that sense, it was pretty telling that McCourty and Slater were central talking points in the locker room and at the podium after the game. They're kind of the last men standing from the old guard, two of the few players in the locker room who have actually won Super Bowls in New England.

--That being said! Devin dropped this gift-wrapped INT:

Ouch. Tough break to have the photographer so ready to capture that moment, too.

McCourty was asked if he had turned the wrong shoulder and got himself twisted.

"Oh no, that was just a -- excuse my language -- it was just a s----y play by me," an honest McCourty answered. "Just gotta catch the ball. And luckily we won today, because if not, that would've been all that I thought about in what was possibly my last game here at Gillette."

Fair enough!

--The Patriots only had two sacks, but one was pretty funny. New England rushed just three men: Christian Barmore and Deatrich Wise on the outside, and Carl Davis in the middle. They all got to the quarterback.

Watch Barmore just bully the right tackle backward for five yards. Watch slip past the center as both guards did nothing. And watch Wise speed around the left tackle, who ended up getting hurt on the play.

It's just rare that all three rushers end up on top of the quarterback on a three-man rush.

--Did you like this sequence?

Dolphins line up to go for it on fourth-and-1 but are a chaotic mess and have to call timeout.
Dolphins come out of timeout to go for it on fourth-and-1, but the right guard jumped early.
Now facing fourth-and-6, the Dolphins punt ... but Brenden Schooler runs into the kicker. Five-yard penalty.
Dolphins line up to go for it on fourth-and-1 for the third time, and convert.

That was all a bit much. It was huge, too, because that ended up being one of the Dolphins' few scoring drives of the day. Chalk it up to special teams hurting the Patriots once again.

--Speaking of special teams, did you know that the Patriots rank dead last in both punting average and punting net average this year? You probably did know that it's been bad, but worst in the league bad? For that to happen on Bill Belichick's watch is legitimately shocking.

They're also one of 10 teams to have allowed a blocked punt, they're tied for 20th in punts inside the 20, and they lead the league with 10 touchbacks. Very bad.

--The Patriots had Tae Hayes out there at cornerback, with Myles Bryant covering Tyreek Hill, and an injured Jonathan Jones running around as well. The Dolphins didn't even try to exploit any of that. And Mike McDaniel kind of admitted that!

"That was kind of going into the week, you play certain defenses, and the Patriots, I think, more than anything, have scored a lot of points on defense. And so trying to minimize the amount of time you put yourselves in situations where it plays to a defense's strength. It's something that I think is important in terms of how you approach a specific defense," McDaniel said. "Made some plays on third down, so kept giving us some opportunities. But ultimately, it only takes one, which our guys know, and it's hard to beat that team when they're able to score on offense and defense."

I know that I'm no universally beloved whiz kid coach, but I'd probably try to utilize my best players going against backups and not so much worry about the Patriots' ability to score on defense ... especially if I'm just going to let them score on defense anyway.

The Dolphins basically treated Teddy Bridgewater as if he was Skylar Thompson. It was foolish.

--I'm not keeping an exact list or anything, but these two throws were among the best that Mac Jones has thrown all year:

Both of them were dropped in place perfectly to a receiver working in the middle of three defenders. Neither got the receiver popped. And the Henry one came in the face of some heavy pressure. Perfectly done.

--There were some issues with the offensive play-calling. If you can believe it.

On second-and-2 from the 16 on the opening drive, the Patriots went for an end zone shot to Jakobi Meyers. It had no chance.

So on third-and-2 ... they tried another end zone shot. It failed, but a defensive holding penalty bailed them out and gave them a new set of downs.

Then they ran it for 3 yards, had to burn a timeout, ran it for 1 yard, then finally executed a pass to the end zone to Tyquan Thornton. It was a bit clunky overall.

There was also the decision to pass on third-and-1 after Rhamondre Stevenson's 18-yard gain. Jones was sacked. A field goal or a fourth-down play turned into a punt.

And there was also this monstrosity on fourth-and-4 late in the fourth quarter:

The Patriots could have kicked a field goal, or they could have run a play with a chance of success, or they could have had Mac Jones punt out of the shotgun formation. They could have done anything but ... that.

Questions about that play provided the only gruff moments of Belichick's postgame press conference.

"The thought process is try to pick up the first down. It was a long kick," Belichick said about the decision.

The coach was then asked if that was the play the team wanted in that spot.

"Was that the play we wanted? Yeah, we called the play," he said. 

Well. Next time, call a different one.

--There are still people out there who believe that Tom Brady's pass to Wes Welker in the Super Bowl was soooo bad that no professional pass catcher could have or should have been expected to simply catch it. Well...

Anyways. Shoutout to me for not bringing that up. Shows real growth that I didn't bring it up. 

--Do you know who had a crazy game? This guy:

Jabrill Peppers' willingness to stick his nose in the line of scrimmage and wrap up ball carriers was immense in preventing the Dolphins from ever getting their ground game going in this one.

"It was just energy that those kind of plays give us," Myles Bryant said, pointing out the fumble that wasn't and a huge hit on Bridgewater delivered by Peppers.

Belichick was clearly enthused by Peppers' play too, cutting off a reporter on the Monday morning Zoom conference to reiterate that Peppers had some big hits in this game. 

--I'll end on a bummer of a note. And that note is this: If the Patriots just had a league average offense, they'd be a legitimate team with an outside shot at making a run to a Super Bowl. Their defense is that good.

They didn't need to have the Chiefs' or the Bills' offense this year. They just needed to have last year's offense again. Last year, with Josh McDaniels driving the ship and rookie Mac Jones at QB, the offense ranked 15th in yards and sixth in scoring. If they had an offense executed by an experienced coach this season, you could easily see some losses -- Green Bay, Las Vegas, Cincinnati -- flipping to wins. You can see grind-it-out victories -- the 10-3 win over the Jets, the not-so-pretty win in Pittsburgh, Sunday's eking by of the Dolphins, etc. -- become a lot more comfortable.

Have an offense that is run properly, and we're talking about the team in a completely different light here in early January. Instead, we're saying, hey, maybe they'll make the playoffs, and they won't do anything there, but at least they'll make it.

It's feeling like the season is playing out more or less exactly like everybody expected. And that's a real shame.

--OK just kidding, that was too grim of a goodbye note. Here's a positive for you:

That was beautiful.

You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.