Midway through the third quarter of Sunday’s game between the Colts and the Patriots, a game we would generously describe as unwatchable, Myles Bryant intercepted a tipped pass which led the NFL Network crew to note that the Patriots have not had a negative turnover differential on the season since the tail end of the George W. Bush administration.
In the booth, longtime Bill Belichick–lieutenant Jason McCourty tried to quietly emphasize the fact that this team has accumulated more turnovers than they have lost every year for the past seventeen years. His voice emphasized the number as he did the same math we were all doing at home. It is an unbelievable testament to good coaching, and one of the few Tom Brady–proof records remaining on Belichick’s resume (while Brady certainly contributed to most of this run, it is noteworthy that the Patriots maintained a positive turnover margin through a year of Cam Newton, through Mac Jones’s rookie season, and through Jones’s steady spiral out of favor).
The moment was a very brief reprise amid this period of Belichick handwringing. At this point, most of the greater Boston area is ready to move on, or at least titillated enough by the idea of it to keep Belichick’s next destination as a major talking point. We have spent a great deal of time talking about the only man Belichick answers to, Robert Kraft, and his clear unhappiness with relation to the football product.
