The betting trend highlights the Patriots' continued offensive ineptitude

Betting trend highlights Patriots' continued offensive ineptitude originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

If you like points, the New England Patriots' Week 5 game is not for you.

The Patriots, who have the NFL's worst scoring offense with 13.0 points per game, host the Miami Dolphins, who are without third-string quarterback Tyler Huntley and have scored 25 points in total in the last three games since losing Tua Tagovailoa to injury.

So it might not surprise you that the over/under for Patriots-Dolphins is set very low. In fact, Sunday's overall score of 35.5 is the lowest of any NFL game through the five weeks of the season.

Unfortunately for the Patriots, this is familiar territory.

New England Also had the worst-scoring offense in the NFL last season – tied with the Carolina Panthers at 13.9 points per game – but had a representative defense, which meant they played in a decent number of low-scoring games occurred.

Again, it shouldn't surprise you that the Patriots were in the game with the lowest projected over/unders of the 2023 season – and the second lowest, too. Here's a look at these competitions:

• Week 18: Patriots vs. Jets – 28.5 over/under (Score: Jets 17, Patriots 3)

• Week 14: Patriots at Steelers – 30.5 over/under (Score: Patriots 21, Steelers 18)

To recap: The Patriots played in the two games expected to produce the fewest points of the 2023 season. And According to predictions, the game in 2024 will bring the fewest points so far.

New England's defense deserves a small portion of the credit here, but this trend is more due to a Patriots offense that was inept in at least the final 21 games of the regular season. New England was one of only three teams that failed to score 30 points in a single game last season, in a league that saw 30 or more points scored in a total of 123 games.

In fact, the Patriots haven't scored 30 or more points since Week 6 of the 2022 season, a 32-game streak that's the longest in the NFL.

🔊 Patriots Talk Podcast: How do the Patriots get out of this downward spiral? | Listen and Subscribe | Watch on YouTube

When it comes to New England's ongoing offensive deficiencies, there's plenty of blame to go around, from Bill Belichick's misses in the NFL Draft to a revolving door of offensive coordinators since Josh McDaniel's departure to their failure to land top offensive talent in free agency.

However, the harsh reality is that since the start of the 2023 season, no team in the NFL has scored fewer points than the Patriots, which explains why they have the league's second-worst record (5-16) over that period.

It also explains why calls for rookie quarterback Drake Maye to start are getting louder. This team won't be relevant until it at least has a viable offense, and if the unit with Jacoby Brissett under center continues to underperform – the Patriots have scored a total of 16 points in their last two games – there's a strong argument as to why rookie can do regardless of what the offensive line looks like in front of him.

The Patriots-Dolphins take place at Gillette Stadium on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.