If you've spent most of your waking minutes since about 1:31 p.m. Sunday making fun of anyone who ever said a bad word about Sony Michel or the Patriots' season, take a breath.
Here's how it works: Every now and then things will look bleak for the Patriots. It isn't often, but it happens.
When it happens, there are people who will say the run is done and there are people who will say there's nothing to worry about.
Then when something like Sunday happens, the latter crowd gloats and takes every opportunity to laugh at anybody who was concerned in the slightest.
Everybody is wrong.
MORE PATRIOTS
When things look grim, you're allowed to say they look grim, even if you don't necessarily think the Pats are doomed. There were a lot of those people over the last week, and there should have been.
New England Patriots
Things did look grim for the Patriots after three games. Their defense stunk, their two best players were apparently frustrated and they were bereft of production from the skill positions. That's all bad.
But unless you're a major believer in the Chiefs or the Jaguars, there was still no world-beater in the AFC. Sunday's game was a big one for the Patriots' mission to win a 702nd consecutive AFC East title, but nobody thought the Dolphins were actually a great team.
So let's all fight the temptation to gloat. It was the Dolphins. And things are probably going to take another dip at some point (definitely not Thursday against this Colts team, though).
The Patriots' annual spot in the AFC championship was still realistic even at 1-2. If anyone was saying it wasn't, that was premature.
MORE PATRIOTS
But they could be worried. Why wouldn't they be? The Pats had just lost a gimme coming off a bad loss. It wouldn't have been unreasonable to doubt the Pats making a run, much like it's still not unreasonable to doubt the Pats making a run.
The Sony Michel thing has been hilarious. The Patriots tried everything they could in Weeks 2 and 3 to get him going despite subpar run-blocking, but it didn't work. So everyone (including me) made jokes. But it was correct to say he didn't look good through two games. Sunday was seemingly National Mock Tony Mazz Day, but was he really wrong for saying he hadn't seen anything yet that warranted the first-round selection?
Anyone who said Sony Michel was bad wasn't necessarily saying he'd be bad forever. They were saying, correctly, that Michel was bad. He was good on Sunday. Both things can be true, something made possible by the concept of time.
And maybe Michel will be bad again or Cordarrelle Patterson will fall down one too many times some other game or the Pats will suffer back-to-back losses again at some point. It's a long season and this isn't the strongest Pats team we've seen in this run.
So live in the moment. It's OK to call it as you see it along the way, even if there might be a little motion sickness along the way.