New England Patriots: Positives and negatives from 2020 season
After a disappointing 2020 resulting in missing the playoffs, here are some positives and negatives for New England Patriots from the year.
The 2020 NFL season was an interesting one, to say the least, for the New England Patriots.
In one of the more newsworthy offseasons in recent history of the franchise, the perennial Super Bowl contending Patriots came into the new year this year seeing legendary quarterback Tom Brady move on from New England to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in free agency while seeing a plethora of new faces taking over key roles on the team.
With questions as to if the Patriots would be going through somewhat of a rebuilding year or if Bill Belichick would be able to work his magic and lead New England back to the postseason yet again, the Patriots ended the 2020 campaign with what ended up being a disappointing year while missing the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade.
Following the 16-game regular season schedule, New England finished the year with a record of 7-9 overall, finishing third in the AFC East behind the Buffalo Bills (13-3) and Miami Dolphins (10-6), while placing ahead of the New York Jets (2-14) in the standings.
Along with that 7-9 record, the Patriots concluded the season with a record of 5-3 at home in Foxborough, adding a record of 2-6 away from Gillette Stadium in road games.
With questions still remaining as to the future of New England and the direction the organization will go in multiple areas — specifically at quarterback — this offseason will be another interesting one for the Patriots and will be very telling as to where they go from here leading up to the 2021 season.
Now with the 2020 campaign in the books and the season over with for New England, let’s take a look back at the season that was and point out some positives and negatives that occurred throughout the year.
New England Patriots Negative: The Cam Newton experiment
Leading up to the 2020 season, the Patriots were on the search for a new quarterback leading the way for the offense under center following the departure of Tom Brady.
With quarterbacks Jarrett Stidham and Brian Hoyer filling the roster at the start of the offseason, New England went out and took a shot at signing veteran quarterback Cam Newton as a free agent following his departure from the Carolina Panthers.
As the new Patriots starting quarterback, Newton provided the offense with a dual-threat player that it hasn’t had in the past, being able to take advantage of defenses both in the passing game and on the ground.
By the end of the season, however, the Newton experiment didn’t work out quite how both he and the team had hoped, with the offense struggling for a majority of the year with Newton leading the way.
In 15 appearances in 2020, Newton completed a career-low 242 passes for an overall total of 2,657 yards passing, which is also a career-worst mark. He also threw for just eight touchdowns through the air while throwing 10 interceptions.
On the ground, Newton was able to have some success for New England, recording 137 rush attempts for 592 yards and 12 touchdowns, which is the highest total since his rookie season in 2011 (14 touchdowns).
Overall, the offense wasn’t really able to do much with Newton leading the charge and the experiment didn’t work out as well as everyone would have hoped in the Newton’s first season in Foxborough.