AP photo New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton, left, celebrates his touchdown during the first half of Monday night's 30-27 win over the New York Jets in the Meadowlands.

Let’s give Patriots Nation a clear dose of reality here as we have reached the halfway point of the 2020 pandemic season:

The New England Patriots struggled mightily to beat the New York Jets.

That should tell you of the current situation regarding this team, right?

The Patriots are obviously, as we’ve seen, just a shell of their former selves. But in this strange season, they and we all have to deal with it. While fairly strong on the offensive line, they are weak on the defensive line and at linebacker. And on Monday night, with Stephon Gilmore out, they were suspect in the secondary until J.C. Jackson’s big interception that led to the game-tying drive and spearheaded New England’s comeback. At least this time they were able to stop the run (65 yards) but the Jets’ running game is feeble anyway.

On the positive side, it was Cam Newton’s second straight game without any interceptions. He was 27 of 35 for 274 yards.

“Cam did a good job, hung in there, made some good reads, some good adjustments, good checks,” Belichick said.

“I’m more relieved not having the feeling of losing,” Newton said, “because there’s a lot of people in that locker room that deserve more than what we have been showing.

“A lot of our fans have been let down with the lackluster performances of myself amongst other people. But I can only speak for myself and I will. But this is a game we can build off of, and we will build off of it. And that’s a good thing.”

The problem is, the Baltimore quarterback who took the job of the former Ravens QB who torched them Monday night is next on the docket. No one is expecting Lamar Jackson to come into Gillette Stadium on Sunday night and stumble and bumble.

The Patriots also lack one thing that could give them advantages – like fans at Gillette. Loud fans disrupt the opposing team’s offense, cadence, etc. The numbers have shown this year in the NFL there is literally no home field advantage.

But there’s still some more good news. The other night the 3-5 Patriots have re-discovered their preseason rookie star of 2019, second year receiver Jacobi Meyers. He’s basically the lone wideout left right now from last season with N’Keal Harry and Julian Edelman out. And of course Newton, has known him since he was on the QB’s foundation All-Star team years ago when Meyers was a QB in high school. He trusts him implicitly, which is a vast difference from how it seemed Tom Brady felt about Meyers a year ago. Meyers had 12 catches in 14 targets for a whopping 169 yards.

“For him to be morphing into the player he is today, it’s the hard work paying off for him,” Newton said, adding Meyers learned a lot from Edelman. “Playing the quarterback position makes you intellectually sound (as a receiver), by default. You know what the quarterback is looking for.”

But, fans, this was against the New York Jets. Their fans were rooting openly for a loss. We’ve seen those kinds of teams time and time again blow leads in the fourth quarter.

A loss on Monday night would have ended the Patriots season at the halfway point. Every game for them right now is critical. Had they lost, they’d have sunk to 2-7 and been starting 2-8 in the face.

“I think it shows the character of this team, just battling, fighting,” Patriots running back Rex Burkhead said. “Grinding through it. That shows the strength that we have; we’re not going to quit, we’re not going to lay down. We’re going to continue to battle every single week and hopefully we can just keep building off of this.”

The problem is this is a team that will struggle against anyone. They will be facing three good young quarterbacks in the next three weeks – Jackson, Deshaun Watson, and Kyler Murray.

It may not be pretty if the secondary has a night like it had on Monday night. But it was a sign of how this team has been depleted. Belichick knows it; he knew it going into the season that the quality was at least a notch below past seasons. We knew that about the offense but what we didn’t know was that the Patriots would struggle defensively. They can’t afford injuries.

Yes, division game, they’re always usually tough. But it was clear after Monday night that the New England Patriots are in a different world than the one we’re used to.

Let’s see if they can use the fighting spirit Burkhead says they have to battle their way out of it.

THIS WEEK’S RANKINGS:

AFC: 1.Kansas City (8-1). 2. Pittsburgh (8-0). 3. Tennessee (6-2). 4. Baltimore (6-2). 5. Buffalo (7-2)

NFC: 1. Seattle (6-2). 2. New Orleans (6-2). 3. Green Bay (6-2). 4.Tampa Bay (6-3) . 5.Arizona (5-3).