Poll: The Patriots aren’t the worst team in football…are they?

The New England Patriots have officially entered dumpster fire territory.

The worst loss in Bill Belichick's tenure was followed up by the second-worst loss in Belichick's tenure, which as Tom E. Curran noted may be even more egregious than the worst loss because it immediately followed the worst loss, which one would have expected to prompt a response from the team.

Instead, a team devoid of talent is playing like one devoid of life.

The Pats have been outscored 72-3 in their last two games. It's only the ninth time since the league merger that a team has lost back-to-back games by 34+ points. It's the first time the team has faced 30-point deficits in back-to-back weeks since they were the Boston Patriots in 1970.

New England's -76 point differential is the worst mark in the AFC and the 2nd-worst in the NFL behind the Giants. The offense has gone 30 drives without scoring a TD and have just one red zone drive since Week 2 while averaging an NFL-low 11 points per game. Since the merger, just 10 other teams have been as futile as the Pats offensively, scoring 55-or-fewer points in their first five games of a season.

They have every marking of a bad football team. But are they the worst? Let's look at the other competitors...

The Panthers are the only winless team in the NFL at 0-5. Yet even Carolina averages a touchdown more than the Pats each week (18.2ppg). The Broncos are the only other AFC team at 1-4, while the Giants, Bears, Vikings and Cardinals all reside there in the NFC.

But as Andrew Callahan of The Boston Herald put it: "The Patriots have one of the NFL’s worst QBs and WR corps. They are the NFL’s worst pass-protectors. Defensively, down their 2 best players, they allowed New Orleans to score its first TD in 20 drives. Their special teams ran 32^nd by DVOA. This is a terrible football team."

What do you think? How close to the bottom do the Pats rank through five weeks of the 2023 NFL season?