Business is business.

About two weeks ago, Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce criticized soe of his players after a loss for making “business decisions.”

“So we’re going to some business decisions, too,” he said.

Well, the New England Patriots earlier this week, under the guise of a starting lineup switch, made a business decision.

Yes, swapping out Jacoby Brissette in favor of Drake Maye is as much about the $$ as it is about the Ws.

If you were at Gillette Stadium for last Sunday’s Dolphins Debacle, and looked at the stands – especially the upper section, the 300s – you know what we mean.

Sure, Patriots coach Jerod Mayo said in his Wednesday press conference that “it was soley my decision to make this choice.”

Don’t believe it, or believe it completely. Sure, it may be true in a football sense. But this is what happens with NFL and even other sports franchises: The business side of the operation, if they see the on-field product begin to slide and impact their sales and income in a negative way, will put pressure on the sports side to do something about it.

You can bet that the Krafts and their business side of the franchise were getting restless, especially after Sunday.

You can also bet that Mayo let the Krafts know this was happening. It’s probably not happening the way VP of Player Personnel Eliot Wolf or the veteran-leaning offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt had wanted, but those empty seats had to speak volumes.

“Eliot and ownership all of us were on board with the change,” Mayo said.

Look, this is a no-win situation. The Patriots clearly can’t protect a young quarterback the way he needs to be protected. Some stats show that Brissett was under duress – either hit, heavily pressured or sacked – 47 percent of the time he dropped back. Many in the meda are calling this a panic move.

Of course, the flip side is those same critics would be screaming if the offense played at the level this Sunday vs. Houston the way it has, and the cries for Maye would be louder. Mayo couldn’t win either way.

“Drake gives us the best chance to win now and going forward,” he said. “At the end of training camp he was trending at a very high rate, and that was continuing in the early part of the season. … I don’t think it’s a secret our offense wasn’t performing the way we all thought it would.”

The Patriots got Maye with a No. 3 overall pick because they were a bad football team in 2023. Now they have a bad team in 2024, which we all knew they would. So what’s the problem?

The fear is they stunt Maye’s development. No one is crashing into him and slamming him to the turf in practice. That will happen to him continuously behind the Patriots turnstile of an offensive line.

But, he had to play sometime. The right to Gillette for two regular season games has been like it would be for a preseason game. A breeze. Word is that the secondary ticket market has been extremely active for this Sunday’s game, and where you could get in for as low a $50 last weekend, that minimum price now is likely significantly higher.

“I don’t think there’s ever a perfect time,” Mayo said. “What I will say is this (Houston) defense, we’re familiar with this defense. We’ve seen it, (Maye’s) prepared for this defense as if he was the starter.

“I just felt like this was the right time to do it.”

The right football decision? Well, you can bet it’s the right business decision.

THIS WEEK’S PICKS

In any event, let’s hope we have a better week picking than last week’s sub-.500 performance:

TEXANS 24, PATRIOTS 17

Let’s face it, Houston is a better team up and down all the way across than the Patriots, with a secondary that may give Maye problems. Adrenalin gets the Pats 17 points and keeps them in the game.

JETS 27, BILLS 24

Momentum always happens when you change a coach. Monday Night magic for the Jets, an official slump for the Bills.

CHARGERS 17, BRONCOS 14

Good grief, this could be another low scoring affair; the Chargers under Jim Harbaugh are 3 yards and a cloud of dust or turf, but at some point they need to take the shackles off of Justin Herbert.

LIONS 30, COWBOYS 21

The Lions bite off some kneecaps and continue the Cowboys’ horrible luck at home. If Detroit wants to be a viable contender, they need to win road games like this one.

BUCS 33, SAINTS 30

Why do we feel these teams have met already? Probably because we’ve seen so much of them the first five weeks. Road favorite Baker Mayfield leads Bucs to a bounce-back win.

RAVENS 27, COMMANDERS 24

Wow, too bad this isn’t the Sunday night game, two QBs who some feel are mirror images except Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson is a little more well-built than stringbean Jayden Daniels, who has taken the league by storm. But experience wins out.

BENGALS 31, GIANTS 13

Daniel Jones in prime time? Puh-lease. Don’t care what happened in Seattle last week.

LAST WEEK: 3-4

SEASON: 21-14

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow King on X (@Telegraph_TomK).