Patriots Week 9 Report Card In 20-17 OT Loss to Tennessee
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The Patriots were coming off a win over the Jets and were playing one of the worst teams in the league, which had just been shellacked the week before. But once again, mistakes, costly turnovers, head-scratching coaching decisions, and being dominated at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball left them on the losing end of a 20-17 OT score.
Drake Maye committed three turnovers, and yet without him, the Patriots may have been blanked on the day. He was the best player on the field for the Patriots and arguably the game, as he single-handedly carried the Patriots to overtime.
His play at the end of regulation to score the game-tying TD is a screenshot of everything discussed when the Patriots drafted him in April. However, the team has to do better by him if he’s going to have the kind of success that he can achieve. The team has put far too much on his plate right now.
So, here are our grades this week for the Patriots-Titans game.
So, we have already been discussing Maye, so let’s dive right into his play. With a running game that was completely non-existent (except for his scrambles), Maye was forced to throw the ball 52 times.
For a rookie quarterback lacking weapons around him and an offensive line that was not run-blocking at all and was leaky in pass protection all day, it was far too much for a rookie to overcome. And he came through in the end to give his team a chance to win the game.
Maye completed 29 of 41 passes for 206 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. His first interception was his worst throw of the day. The strip-sack in the fourth quarter was bad too, but it seemed like Vederian Lowe stopped, but that was avoidable. The final interception was one he’d like back, throwing into the wind (more on that below) in a first down.
However, his positives far outweigh his negatives. Maye rushed (scrambled) for 95 yards, while the Patriots as a team rushed for 110. His play at the end of regulation was one of those moments that not every quarterback can do. The fact that it took 11.82 seconds was amazing.
“That’s young Josh Allen 2.0. He looks amazing. I love watching him on the sideline,” NT Davon Godchaux said to Patriots.com. “I tell the guys all the time that he plays like Josh Allen 2.0. I played Josh Allen in Miami in his rookie year, and he didn’t look that good. Josh Allen is a phenomenal player now. MVP-type player. Drake looks better than Josh did his rookie year.”
What I love about Maye is, despite the praise from his teammates and opponents, he’s stressing over the things that aren’t there yet. That means he’s learning how to win. This young kid is special.
Rhamondre Stevenson had ten carries for 16 yards (1.6 yards per carry). JaMycal Hasty rushed once for 0 yards, and Antonio Gibson rushed once for -1 yards. That isn’t getting it done.
Granted the offensive line was being pushed around, seemingly at will, but they have to start making something out of nothing to take the pressure off the QB. Gibson caught one pass for 12 yards, Hasty caught one pass for -3.
Stevenson did well in the passing game, catching five passes for 38 yards and the touchdown at the end of regulation. That saved the grade from being a total whitewash.
Demario Douglas had seven catches for just 35 yards. Kendrick Bourne had four catches for 41 yards. Bourne appears to be rounding into form after his ACL surgery. After a rough outing last week, he was holding himself accountable. Kayshon Boutte had two catches for 18 yards. Ja’Lynn Polk was targeted once. But he had two penalties in just nine snaps.
However, Javon Baker ran two open deep routes, but unfortunately Maye was pressured on both reps and could not find him deep. Granted, it wasn’t a lot to hang your hat on, but at this stage, we’ll take any hopes we can from this group.
Hunter Henry remains the Patriots’ most reliable receiver on the field. He continues his solid season and had seven catches for 56 yards on eight targets.
Austin Hooper was targeted once and had a catch for eight yards. Jaheim Bell was targeted once and had a catch for one yard.
The Patriots decided to tweak the offensive line again. Rookie Layden Robinson was back and got the start at right guard. Mike Onwenu kicked out to right tackle. It was a disaster, running the ball and in pass protection. Eventually, Robinson was benched and Onwenu moved back into RG and Trey Jacobs came on as the right tackle. But it wasn’t much better.
Jeffery Simmons was dominant, disrupting the passing game and destroying any run near him. Why the coaches switched the OL configuration again after last week was a legitimate question.
The numbers for the Patriots ground game are very misleading. Officially, they ran the ball 20 times for 110 yards (5.5 yards per carry) and a touchdown. Patriots running backs gained 15 yards on 12 carries, which averages 1.25 yards per carry. That is absolutely awful. Maye scrambled for 95 yards on eight carries for an average of 11.9 yards per rush. Those runs were the result of being forced to run from the pocket. He was sacked four times, hit nine more, and pressured on 38.5 percent of his dropbacks.
The Patriots’ defensive line did not carry over the improvements they made a week ago against the Jets. The Titans were dominating the line of scrimmage and they were averaging about five yards per rush. Right off the bat things didn’t look good when Tony Pollard broke a 32-yard run on the first series of the game.
Why the Titans didn’t stick more with a running game that was working caused them to punt more than they probably should have. Tennessee was running to the edge far too often. Even Anfernee Jennings, who is solid outside, got caught crashing down on a run play that broke for good yardage.
The run defense did get a few stops. Deatrich Wise had four tackles, a sack, a TFL, and two QB hits. However, in OT, on 13 plays the Titans ran, eight were runs, and the only reason Drake Maye even saw the ball was because Mason Rudolph bobbled the snap at the Patriots’ seven-yard line.
Jahlani Tavai had arguably his best game of the year. He had 11 tackles, a TFL, and a pass defensed. He showed tremendous awareness on a tipped pass in the end zone that he snagged for an interception.
Christian Ellis (6 tackles) and Jennings (5 tackles) weren’t as impactful as we’ve seen in the past few weeks.
The Patriots secondary wasn’t at their best on Sunday. Rudolph looked far too comfortable for most of the game in the pocket. The defense only got one sack and four QB hits. That meant that the secondary had to cover longer and Rudolph had time to go through his progressions.
He completed 20 of 33 for 240 yards with two TDs and one INT for a passer rating of 90.5. Christian Gonzalez was covering Calvin Ridley for much of the game and Ridley had three catches for 54 yards. Jonathan Jones was completely turned around on a touchdown grab by Nick Westbrook-Ikhine.
The Patriots played zone on about 40 percent of the snaps, and Rudolph, a career backup carved them up. When they played man coverage, they fared much better.
The ST units took advantage of a very leaky Titans coverage unit. Marcus Jones gathered a punt at the five-yard line and returned it 44 yards. Late in the fourth quarter, he returned another punt 25 yards to give the Patriots great field position when they went for the tying scoring drive. Jones is really cranking it up, and hopefully, that will continue.
Bryce Barringer shanked a punt very badly that went just 15 yards. But later in the game, he boomed a 60-yard punt that Jha’Quan Jackson fielded at the seven-yard line and rookie Marcellus Dial forced a fumble, but the Patriots couldn’t recover.
Joey Slye missed a 56-yard field goal wide right going into a pretty stiff wind; he later made a 52-yarder.
The coaching staff needs to revisit Bill Belichick’s years of practicing situational football. Because, frankly, they stink at it. At the end of the first half …again, the Patriots were trying to get something going before the half, the old double-score ditty, scoring at the end of the half, receiving the kickoff and going for another.
Drake Maye started off with a 14-yard pass to Kendrick Bourne. Then hit Bourne for nine more. There was 1:37 left in the half, and the Patriots had all three timeouts. But that’s when the wheels came off. They became obsessed with getting the first down (one yard needed) instead of attacking more down the field.
After not calling timeout, Hasty ran for no gain. As the clock continued to run, with 52 seconds remaining, Stevenson was stopped for a loss of one. This entire situational football/clock management area was painful to watch.
At the end of the regulation, as soon as Stevenson scored, I thought they HAVE TO go for two. And looking at it from a macro view, that would have been the correct decision. They had the Titans’ defense tired from chasing Maye all day. You can win the game right there. And if you fail, you fail while trying to win. You’re 2-6, it isn’t like playoff seeding is on the line.
And the other most important reason is that Tennessee was running the ball down your throat all game. Unless you win the coin toss, you won’t even see the football, which, other than a bobbled snap by Rudolph, they wouldn’t have.
Which brings us to overtime. You lose the toss and decide to give up the wind too? Why in the world wasn’t Cardona told, ‘if we lose the coin toss, we want to the wind at our back?’ That’s high school stuff. Inconceivable.
That wind played into Maye’s final interception. Maye corked it to Boutte from the Patriots 41, but it was intercepted at the 11. Boutte was behind coverage, but on the play, Bourne lost his footing, which allowed the safety to close in on the play. With the wind at his back…who knows?
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We’re on to Chicago and the Bears
Follow me on Twitter @SteveB7SFG or email me at [email protected].
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