The New England Patriots are the cause of their own demise as they lose another close game to the Washington Commanders 20-17 on Sunday afternoon.

Patriots quarterback Mac Jones had a chance to get his third career game-winning drive but failed to do so as his pass to receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster went off his hands, into those of Commanders safety Jartavius Martin to end the game.

“A lot of different guys each week… There’s guys out there who can make the plays, it’s my job to get the ball to them,” Jones said about his receivers.

In their first game without receiver Kendrick Bourne, the Patriots went 3-12 on third downs. In a game where it came down to one drive, Jones missed his go-to receiver, a pass that he perhaps would have hit to Bourne. The Patriots offense was a tale of one quarter and three abysmal ones. After being down 10-0 early in the first half, the Patriots responded with a touchdown to tight end Hunter Henry brought on by a turnover from linebacker Jahlani Tavai. The next Patriots drive, running back Rhamondre Stevenson had a 64-yard touchdown run giving the Patriots a 14-10 lead heading into halftime.

After tacking on a field goal to start the second half, the Patriots gave up 10 unanswered points to the Commanders. The Patriots had many chances to win the game or tack on more points, but disciplinary issues on special teams caused the Patriots to start further back on drives. Additionally, the lack of impact receivers on the team caused the offense to stall in the second half. An example is a deep pass from Jones to receiver Jalen Reagor early in the fourth quarter that went off of Reagor’s hands. 

While the offense didn’t do themselves any favors to win the game, the Patriots defense didn’t either. The Patriots did force an interception and three sacks out of Commanders quarterback Sam Howell, but he had his way on third down against the Patriots. Howell was 9-17 on third downs and had a big third down conversion on third-and-23 with a 24-yard run.

It really feels like déjà vu in every one-score game the Patriots have. Whether it was in week one, week two or week six it’s the same result as the Patriots fall short because they don’t have enough to close out games.

While the game against the Buffalo Bills built the belief that the Patriots can close out games – it might be an anomaly. Since Jones became quarterback the Patriots are 9-11 in one-score games, a stark contrast to Tom Brady’s last 10 seasons with the Patriots with a 52-28 record.

One may blame Jones for the majority of this as he simply isn’t good enough to deliver when he needs to most. However, if you look at the bigger picture Brady had clutch receivers in Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and Rob Gronkowski. Meanwhile the current Patriots team doesn’t have one player that emulates any of the players Brady had.

The problem is the Patriots have not replaced any of those players on offense for the past three years. This has been a team declining right in front of our eyes, but the Patriots have been doing a good job at covering it up until now. It’s time for head coach Bill Belichick to look himself in the mirror and realize his ways of running things are over. His old tricks don’t work in the modern NFL and as a result, the Patriots have fallen behind while other teams have flourished.

“When we need to be at our best in crucial moments, we’ve come up a little bit short,” said Patriots special teams captain Matthew Slater. “The buy-in, I think it’s there. The effort is there. The consistency is lacking.”

The number of draft mistakes, high-value special teams contracts and offensive neglect has made the Patriots a one-trick team. If everything goes their way, they will win, but any little obstacle in their way it’s over for them. 

Sitting at 2-7 the Patriots are fully in tanking mode, and while players might say otherwise, the way the team has been playing shows they are. The Patriots don’t have enough to win games let alone be competitive in games. When you look at the Commanders, a team that isn’t that good but still is competitive in every game and has an offense that can become explosive, it just shows how bad of a situation the Patriots are in. They rank in the bottom half of most offensive stats and have to rely on things going their way to win games. It’s coming to a point where it is just laughable, that the Patriots could have gotten worse after actually hiring an offensive coordinator.

While firing the coach, getting rid of the quarterback and changing the culture are all steps the could Patriots take. It’s not as simple as that because that only solves part of the problem not all of it. The scariest part is not knowing how to solve this, and that’s the challenge owner Robert Kraft has to deal with. How do you fix something that is already broken and seems unrepairable?

With the last eight games remaining in the season, most Patriots fans will hope they lose to secure a top draft pick and who can blame them. But, the real goal for the Patriots is to find their identity and to go into next season establishing what they need and who they are to try to build for a better future because this season has been dreadful.