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Ranking the seven biggest regrets of the Patriots' season

Sports Final: What changes can we expect from Patriots this offseason?
Sports Final: What changes can we expect from Patriots this offseason? 04:06

BOSTON -- Any time a team comes up one win short of reaching the playoffs, there will always be individual moments that stand out as the moment that could have changed things. If only this had happened, if only the ball had bounced that way, everything would have been different.

The reality is that there's never one magic moment that proved to be the hinge point on which an entire season turned. Seasons are long, and generally speaking, teams prove their worthiness or lack thereof over the course of time.

Still, with the 2022 Patriots, there are a few moments from the past year that come up as regrettable. While there's few who believe a real postseason run was possible for this team, it's still fair to believe the 2022 Patriots had the talent in place to make the playoffs.

With that in mind, here are the seven moments that stand out as the most regrettable this season.

7. No-Show Vs. The Bears

Robert Quinn hits Mac Jones
Robert Quinn hits Mac Jones. Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images

While everyone was focused on the Mac Jones-Bailey Zappe drama, the Patriots were ... getting their hats handed to them by the worst team in football, in Foxboro, on national TV. It was embarrassing.

The Bears rolled to a 33-14 win over the Patriots that night in late October. The Bears then did not win a single game the rest of the year, and they're now owners of the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft.

Say whatever you want about the 2022 Patriots, but they had no business getting blown out at home on Monday Night Football by the worst team in the NFL. There's no real excuse for that one.

6. The Cole Strange Pick

GettyImages-1240314970.jpg
The Cole Strange pick is shown on the video board at the 2022 NFL Draft. (Photo by Jeff Speer/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Just as the analysis went after the draft, this isn't so much a criticism of Cole Strange the player but rather a look at the lost opportunity of the draft pick.

The Patriots owned the 21st overall pick, but traded it to the Chiefs for No. 29 overall plus third and fourth-round picks. The Patriots picked Strange at No. 29, filling a self-imposed hole at guard (from trading Shaq Mason) instead of adding a potential impact player at a more premium position. (Mike Onwenu has been an excellent guard for three seasons in New England. He was a sixth-round pick. Joe Thuney was a third-round pick, Mason was a fourth-round pick, David Andrews was an undrafted signing. Interior linement are not altogether difficult to find.)

The acquired picks went to good use -- one was used on Jack Jones, the other was traded away and netted Bailey Zappe and a 2023 pick -- so it wasn't a devastating decision by any means. But the decision to go with a guard in the first round for a team that had gone 17-16 over the previous two years definitely didn't provide much of a boost.

Strange himself also wasn't great. Wasn't bad. Had some moments. But definitely didn't stand out as a surefire, no-doubt-about-it, slam-dunk kind of pick.

5. Playing It Safe In Green Bay

Bailey Zappe in Green Bay
Bailey Zappe in Green Bay Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Sometimes, playing not to lose equates to playing to lose. And the cautious play-calling in overtime in Green Bay cost the Patriots their shot to pull off a pretty remarkable upset over Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in early October

After a 20-yard punt return by rookie Marcus Jones set the Patriots up with a first-and-10 at their own 49-yard line, the Patriots only needed 20 yards or so to get into Nick Folk's comfort zone for a game-winning field goal. But -- with Bailey Zappe in his first-ever NFL action -- the Patriots went with the predictable run-run-pass sequence that the Packers were expecting, resulting in the Patriots punting the ball away on fourth-and-5 from the Packers' side of the 50.

Of course, considering Zappe had never even been given a uniform on game day prior to that day, it's understandable that the Patriots weren't aggressive in their approach. But it's hard for a team to win in the NFL when that team doesn't really try to win in critical moments. This would have been a great opportunity to take a shot or two to win the game.

4. Special Teams

Nyheim Hines
Nyheim Hines returns a kickoff for a touchdown against the Patriots. Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

This one's a bit of a combination of moments, but the Patriots counteracted all of their positive special teams plays (recovering three muffed punts, Marcus Jones' game-winning punt return) with plays that absolutely sunk them.

In Minnesota on Thanksgiving night, the kickoff team gave up a 97-yard return from Kene Nwangwu just moments after seizing a 23-16 lead.

In Buffalo in Week 18, the Patriots allowed Nyheim Hines to return not one but two kickoffs for touchdowns in a game the Patriots lost by 12. 

Only six kickoffs were returned for touchdowns this season, and the Patriots allowed half of them.

The Patriots were also one of 10 teams to have allowed a blocked punt. They also committed three running into the kicker penalties when trying to block punts, two of which led to opponents driving for touchdowns with the additional possession.

Beyond that, the Patriots were simply bad in the third phase of the game. 

The duo of Jake Bailey and Michael Palardy combined to have the lowest punting average and the lowest punting net in the NFL. They were also tied for 21st in getting punts inside the opponents' 20-yard line, and they were tied for kicking the most touchbacks in the entire NFL. And without Bailey on kickoffs for half the year, the Patriots had the second-lowest touchback rate on kickoffs. That lack of leg power led to Nick Folk feebly kicking a squibber out of bounds against the Bills in Week 18, a sad sight for a team that used to always be as close to perfect as possible on special teams.

Understandably, that's not one moment. But the quality of Patriots special teams has been degrading over the past several years. For a team that needs to be exceptional in the margins, it's the type of performance that can turn potential wins into losses. 

3. The Double Lateral To Hell

There's not much to say about this one.

The reason it's not No. 1 on the list is that there was no guarantee that the Patriots were going to win that game in overtime. After dominating on defense all day against the Raiders, the Bill/Steve/Jerod/Brian defense allowed a fourth-and-10 conversion with massive cushions on the outside en route to the Raiders executing an 81-yard game-tying drive.

(You could take issue with the fact that Keelan Cole's foot was very clearly out of bounds on the game-tying touchdown, no doubt. But that catch was also made on second down. Given the way Vegas was driving down the field, there's a high probability that the Raiders would've scored that game-tying touchdown if given more chances after an overturn on replay.)

The Patriots' offense was also reliably unreliable that day, with six drives ending in punts (one of which was blocked) on a brutal 2-for-13 on third down day.

Jakobi Meyers' decision to chuck a football into the middle of the football field surely lost the Patriots the game that day. It's just difficult to deduce that the Patriots would have won had he simply ... not ... done that.

2. Christmas Eve Fumble

Bengals recover fumble
The Bengals react to recovering a Patriots fumble.  John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

A home game on an absolutely frigid day, on Christmas Eve, for a team that was coming off an unbelievable loss in Las Vegas? It was the recipe for some bad spirits at Gillette Stadium. And for the first 30 minutes against the Bengals, the bad vibes were ringing loudly. Any fans who headed for the exits at halftime can be forgiven.

But a funny thing happened in the second half, when the Patriots inched their way back from a 22-0 deficit to cut Cincinnati's lead to six points with six minutes left in the game. A few minutes later, Matthew Judon stripped Ja'Marr Chase, and the Patriots recovered, needing to drive 43 yards for the game-winning drive. 

A Christmas miracle was afoot.

That was, until the Patriots got to the 5-yard line. With New England seemingly unwilling to call anything other than Rhamondre Stevenson runs up the middle, the Bengals stuffed him in the backfield on his fourth straight carry up the gut. They pushed him backward, and officials could have blown the play dead after forward progress had been stopped, but they did not. Stevenson fumbled. Cincinnati recovered. That was that.

The Patriots did get the ball back with 41 seconds and no timeouts left, but that drive went nowhere, and the Patriots lost to the reigning AFC champs.

Maybe they had no business being in that game. But they were in that game. And they were five yards away from probably winning that game. But they fumbled it away.

1. Having Matt Patricia Run The Offense

Matt Patricia
Matt Patricia Chris Unger / Getty Images

Last year, whenever it was that the proposition of Matt Patricia running the offense was first put forth, it seemed like a very bad idea. When the offense looked non-functional in training camp, it seemed to still be a bad idea. When the results were poor in the preseason, it seemed like a bad idea. And when the offense never established anything at all throughout the whole season, it remained a bad idea.

This, more than anything, is the regret of the season for the Patriots, who kind of just wasted a year of their franchise for reasons unknown.

Similar to the Strange pick, the issue is less with Patricia himself than it is with the decision to cast him in a role in which he was not suited to perform. Being an assistant under Dante Scarnecchia for one season in 2005 does not properly prepare a coach to run an offense in 2022. And even if Belichick wasn't prepared to offer up a mea culpa on Monday morning, the results from the season were undeniable. This system was a failure.

The Patriots couldn't convert third downs, they couldn't reach the end zone on red zone trips, they couldn't sustain long possessions, and they couldn't win games if their opponent scored more than 21 points. They topped 30 points once. They scored fewer than 20 points six times. Only three of their eight wins came in games without a defensive or special teams touchdown.

They weren't good. And they need big changes. But that's for the future. When looking back at this year, there's really only one way it will be remembered: The Matt Patricia season.

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

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