Things have to be really bad for the New England Patriots if even Christian Gonzalez is dropping a stinker. The All-Pro cornerback has been one of the most consistent players on a Pats team that has struggled to find consistency at other positions, but Sunday against the Green Bay Packers, Gonzalez was just like many of his teammates: overwhelmed and outmatched in a 45-27 loss that was functionally over by the third quarter.
This was the worst performance of Gonzalez's pro career since he entered the NFL in 2023. Against Green Bay's receiving duo of Matthew Golden and Christian Watson, the league's highest-paid cornerback was helpless, consistently getting beat on deep routes and losing one or both in coverage for touchdowns. According to Next Gen Stats, Gonzalez gave up a total of 10 catches for 187 receiving yards on Sunday, the most of his career and the third-most of any player this season. He had given up a total of 196 receiving yards across his first six games. On Green Bay's second TD of the day, Gonzalez and teammate Marcus Jones both covered Watson as he ran to the corner, leaving Golden wide open. Late in the third quarter, Gonzalez over-leveraged toward the outside against Watson, who just ran a skinny post and essentially walked into the end zone to make the score 40-14.
"I mean, they just got the best of me today,” Gonzalez said after the loss. “I mean, this is pro football. They got good receivers like every team. So, they got the best of me today. Move on from it and be ready for next week.” His head coach Mike Vrabel was a little more pointed in his postgame comments: "When your best players don’t play good, you don’t have much of a chance in this league. So, we expect a lot more. He expects a lot more. We need more from him and everybody else."
While yesterday was a nightmare for Gonzalez, that's more of an anomaly; the rest of the Pats could not bail him out. Green Bay's previously anemic rushing attack (last in the NFL) racked up 129 yards on the ground—almost double the team's season average—on top of Jordan Love's 372 yards through the air. The Packers quarterback, who threw for three TDs, had a rushing touchdown within the first two minutes of action; Green Bay capitalized on a vintage Drake Maye interception on his first pass of the game. The Patriots QB regressed to his early-season form in the first half. Maye threw plenty of dangerous passes, and it was by the grace of some higher power that he only had three picks. Green Bay cornerback Kamal Hadden dropped what could have been a pick-six inside the two-minute warning of the first half. Then again, when you're already down 14-0 halfway through the first quarter, the opposing defense has a sense that they're going to see a lot more balls in the air.
While Maye has been prone to turnovers this season, he's also not helped by the receivers available to him. After the WR room was a glaring issue even in the Pats' run to last year's Super Bowl, it somehow got worse this year. A.J. Brown has been injured or a non-factor since he was traded to New England, and Romeo Doubs is on injured reserve until Week 12 or possibly later. (He wasn't very good while healthy.) DeMario Douglas has been pretty decent, with five catches for 102 yards on Sunday, but otherwise Maye's targets are finding guys like Efton Chism III and the newly healthy Mack Hollins. Hell, the QB's best pass on Sunday didn't even involve a receiver: Maye dropped one into running back Rhamondre Stevenson's basket for New England's first touchdown. Then Stevenson suffered a knee injury in the third quarter, and was ruled out for the rest of the game. With RB TreVeyon Henderson already sidelined with "a series of unexplained neurological symptoms that required hospitalization," the next available player at the position would be Corey Kiner.
Even with all of that disastrous first-half play, New England only trailed 24-14 after two quarters, so there was some reason to hope that the Pats could keep it close enough to allow Maye to work some fourth-quarter magic. Then the Packers scored 18 more points in the third quarter, and the rest was a formality. Tom Brady might have been in the booth, but the Pats weren't coming back from this one. As the fourth quarter started, it was time to think of what was going to happen to them against the Detroit Lions in Munich next weekend.
For a minute there, it looked like the Pats had turned a corner after a 1-2 start, especially after Jacksonville clobbered them 35-6 in Week 3. The following week's road win against the Buffalo Bills was encouraging and legitimate, but in retrospect there shouldn't have been too much excitement from what followed: a blowout of the Raiders, a close win against the Jets, a close loss against the Bears, and a close win against the Dolphins. That's three wins against bad teams, and one loss against a good team. Against teams currently below .500, the Pats are a sterling 3-0; against teams above .500, they're 2-4. That's what this team is: It can beat anyone, but it will mostly beat up on the easier parts of the schedule, as it did last season.
It's also about to get much tougher: Starting with Week 10, the Pats play the Lions, Bills, Vikings, Chiefs, and Broncos between now and Week 17. Aside from a Week 11 bye, the only "breaks" come in the form of the catastrophic Chargers in Week 12, and the Jets in Week 16. (The Pats finish the season by hosting the Dolphins in Week 18.) There's still a path to a wild-card spot, but it'll take wins against quality opponents to get there. The plate of cupcakes is almost empty. Maye and Gonzalez are the keys to their respective sides of the ball, and as we saw on Sunday, if they aren't performing, the Patriots have no shot.
