The New England Patriots lost to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday in a play that is so stupid it has to be seen to be believed.
The Patriots and Raiders were tied at 24 with three seconds left in their Week 15 game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. New England had the ball at their 45 and either could have tried a Hail Mary to win it, or just kneeled on the ball to go to overtime.
Instead, they tried something in between, and it couldn’t have gone worse.
What just happened?? The @Raiders win on the final play!! #NEvsLV pic.twitter.com/cmKNUuab1k
— NFL (@NFL) December 19, 2022
New England gave an inside handoff to Rhamondre Stevenson, who ran to the Raiders 32. Rather than just go down and head to overtime, Stevenson tried to keep the play alive as if the Patriots were losing the game and this was their only shot. He pitched the ball back to Jakobi Meyers, who similarly forgot the situation and didn’t realize he too should have just gone down.
Meyers started running backwards. As he was nearing defenders, he tried to throw the ball backwards to Mac Jones. Instead, Chandler Jones intercepted it and ran it back for a winning touchdown.
The play gave the Raiders a 30-24 win.
There were so many dumb aspects of that play it’s hard to qualify them all.
1) Why didn’t the Patriots just kneel on the ball and go to overtime?
2) Why did Stevenson pitch the ball instead of just going down?
3) What in the heck was Meyers thinking?
4) Why didn’t anyone on the team know that they could have just gone to overtime??????
You might expect to see something like this from a Josh McDaniels team, which constantly blows leads. But to see this come from a Bill Belichick team, which is supposed to pride itself on playing smart, situational football, is a complete embarrassment.
