In a match between the putrid Patriots and Christopher L. Gasper’s mixed metaphors, everybody loses.

I’ve written before about Boston Globe sportswriter Christopher L. Gasper’s penchant for mixed metaphors, as a way to illustrate how metaphor overload can interrupt the reader’s trance that makes great writing work.

But things here in New England pro football have gotten desperate. The New England Patriots, not to put too fine a point on it, suck.

So now we can behold the wonderment that springs from the keyboard of America’s most metaphorically promiscuous sportswriter, faced with the challenge of describing American football’s worst team.

How many ways can you describe a bad team?

Here’s Gasper’s conundrum: the Patriots’ offense is historically bad. The Globe’s Patriots beat reporter Ben Volin just called them “probably the worst team in the NFL.” And they have a decision to make. Their offensive line is woefully unable to protect their quarterback, who is in danger of getting sacked seconds after the start of every play. That quarterback right now is journeyman Jacoby Brissett, who’s done a barely passable job (pun intended) under difficult circumstances. Waiting on the sideline is rookie first-round draft pick Drake Maye, but to insert him into the offense now, when the line is borderline nonexistent, is to invite injury and demoralization. No one learns something as challenging as how NFL offenses and defenses work while being pummeled into submission on every play.

This situation calls for colorful superlatives. But instead, Gasper goes back to his grab-back of mixed metaphors to explain why putting Maye in now would make things even worse.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — You can’t willingly subject Drake Maye to this type of football unless the aim is to violate the Geneva Conventions.

Great start. But of course, Gasper can’t leave it there.

Dropping Maye into this firestorm of offensive futility voluntarily, not due to an inevitable injury to Jacoby Brissett, would be like dropping a toddler into a raging river overflowing its banks. It wouldn’t constitute a sink-or-swim baptism by fire. It would represent a deliberate drowning.

It’s not often that you get metaphors actually fighting with each other in paragraph two. We’ve got a firestorm and baptism by fire. We also have a toddler in a raging river overflowing its banks and drowning. Either would be vivid and evocative. But if you didn’t read “sink-or-swim baptism by fire” and at least chuckle, you aren’t paying close attention.

Changing quarterbacks, which is the fashionable choice of fans everywhere always, isn’t the answer. There’s no savior for the 1-3 Patriots. No one player capable of transmuting the water on a sinking ship into the sweet wine of winning. Maye would have to be able to walk on water at quarterback to keep his head above it with this group.

We’re back to water, which is fine. “Transmuting water into wine” and “walking on water” are nice ways to describe the required miracle. But “on a sinking ship?” Why do we need water-into-wine miracles on a sinking ship? That is a titanic distraction.

The last Patriots quarterback to possess messianic football qualities, Tom Brady, grew up a mere 25 miles from Levi’s Stadium. But the Patriots feel as far away from the days of Saint Thomas of San Mateo as Apple’s tech is from the appurtenances of the Paleolithic period following a not-that-close 30-13 loss Sunday to Brady’s boyhood team, the San Francisco 49ers.

Ah, yes. If a football writer is going to mention miracles in New England, he must bring up greatest-of-all-time Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. But just when the religious theme gets going, Apple computer and the Paleolithic appear.

If the powers that be at Patriot Place were still under any misguided misconception that the mere removal of [last year’s coach and quarterback] Bill Belichick and Mac Jones would reverse the rot, they’ve been disabused of that notion. They’re fielding a team featuring a dial-up modem offense. In four games, Brissett still hasn’t topped 200 yards passing. He finished with 168 on 19-of-32 passing with a touchdown and an interception against the 49ers, sacked six times and harassed a million more.

OK, as long as we’re talking tech, let’s bring in a dial-up modem. (I like this metaphor for slow and outdated thinking, but Gasper takes it up and then abandons it — he has no more loyalty to any individual metaphor than a randy good-looking 20-something swiping right on Tinder.) How many of Gasper’s reader’s even remember dial-up?

The article continues, bereft of much in the way of metaphors, but just when we thought Gasper had settled down, we encounter this gem:

Adding insult to Brissett’s first pick was the indignity of the QB crash-test dummy getting double-team blocked and buried in the end zone turf like a time capsule while trying to make the tackle. That play summed up the plight of Patriots’ passers in 2024.

I didn’t see the game. But I had to read this three times to figure it out. Apparently, after throwing an interception [pick], Jacoby Brissett, now playing defense, attempted a tackle and got stuffed. Did you get that from the first reading? Clarity first, folks. I have to also note Gasper’s penchant for alliteration, as in the “plight of Patriots’ passers” — trust me, that set of p-words in close proximity is no coincidence.

The rest of the article includes two metaphors I’d deem quite useful:

On the ensuing drive, George Kittle made a Gronk-like touchdown catch over three Patriots defenders, looking like a towering redwood next to saplings. It was 20-0, San Francisco. It felt like 200.

That’s a nice way to describe a tall guy revealing the ineffectiveness of the Patriots’ relative short defensive players. And finally:

There’s nothing wrong with being positive or optimistic. But the Patriots have to be realistic. There are certain games they’re going to be competitive in and others where they’re football cannon fodder.

No one is coming to save them, which is why they’re better off saving Maye for later this season.

Cannon fodder. That’s probably the most appropriate metaphor for the whole team right now. And it makes a pretty good case for not putting rookie Maye in until they get some blockers who will keep him from getting pancaked on every play.

That’s my metaphor, and I’m sticking with it.