Photo: AP Photo/Bill Kostroun
Entering the game this past Sunday, no one in their right mind thought Isaiah McKenzie would be the guy to torch the Patriots when Buffalo came to town.
Stefon Diggs was supposed to get held in check by JC Jackson, especially after Jackson was talking about naming an island for himself akin to Revis Island back in the day.
Instead, McKenzie had 11 catches for 125 yards and a touchdown while Diggs hauled in seven balls for 85 yards and a touchdown. The Pats’ defense had no answer for Josh Allen and have lost control of both the top seed in the AFC and in the division crown with two weeks left.
It’s been a peculiar two game stretch against the Colts and Bills following the bye week. The secondary and pass rush had been the biggest strength of this team over the last two months and now with a game against Jacksonville looming Sunday before the season finale in Miami, the defense – particularly on the back end – needs to figure it out before New England ends up watching the postseason from their couches.
For Jackson in particular, a large pay day could be on the horizon, but not if he puts on performances like the one he had against one of the league’s elite receivers.
“I left a lot of plays out there,” Jackson said this week. “I had a few opportunities to make plays and I didn’t, came up short. It was just disappointing watching the film.”
As a veteran now, Jackson knows he’s got to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
“As a defense, we know what we’ve got, we know what we’ve got to do and we know the mistakes that we’ve made,” he added. “We’re going to try to build off that and keep pushing, keep moving.”
Bryant is in a different spot than Jackson as a younger guy, but he too knows he needs to be better if the Patriots are going to be successful and have a shot at making a legitimate postseason run.
“It was a tough game,” said Bryant of the Bills loss. “Me personally, I just feel like I got outperformed. When that stuff happens, I believe you’ve got two decisions…you could react positively or react negatively. There were times where they made the play and I didn’t and you want to make the play to help your team win. At the end of the day that’s what we’re out there to do.
“At the end of the day, guys picked me up, guys in the locker room, and we’re just working hard and trying to get back on track. Coming off a two-game losing streak, we’re just trying to get back on track and get to playing Patriots football how we know we can.”
There’s been a lot of “we need to do this” and “we need to do that” coming from 1 Patriot Place lately, but to a man the entire locker room also knows it’s now put up or shut up time. There is no more “figuring it out” and a dominant win over Jacksonville on Sunday would go a long way to restoring the confidence and swagger this team had prior to the bye.
“It’s at the point in the season where you can ask me a question and I can tell you a bunch of stuff we need to go do, but if we don’t go out and do it, it doesn’t matter,” added Devin McCourty. “For the way we started the season, we talked about getting better every day, we talked about improving each day, we talked about the process…now there’s two games left. We don’t have time to gradually improve.
“We gotta go execute and figure out a way to win a game on Sunday. We’ve gotta know that we’ve put in enough work to figure out a way to win. Come Sunday, at some point in that game, however it looks, we’ve got to find a way to win.”