The Patriots had a lot of things go right when you beat an opponent 42-13. And that goes for any opponent. After falling behind 6-0 on Carolina’s opening possession, the Patriots regrouped, and then got their act together and played some outstanding football in all three phases.
So complete was their beatdown of a bad Panthers team, they outscored Carolina 42-0 until a late garbage time touchdown with Andy Dalton in at QB for the Panthers. After the scripted plays of Carolina had success, the defense regrouped and shut them down.
The offense resembled a well-oiled machine with six different players scoring touchdowns and the team getting big chunk plays from all over the roster. They cruised to their first home win of the season, and it was a very good overall team effort.
The grades will reflect that, as always.
So, as we always do, let’s break it down by position
Quarterback: A
Drake Maye had another fantastic game. He had as many touchdowns (three, two passing and one rushing) as incompletions. For the third game in a row he completed more than 75 percent of his throws, which shows the command that he’s getting with the offense.
He completed 14 of 17 passes for 203 yards (11.9-yard average), with two touchdowns, no interceptions for a passer rating of 155.6. His completion percentage on Sunday was 82.4 percent.
I’m not going to nitpick the few throws that hit the ground (and neither should you). There was a guy here named Thomas Edward Brady who had off throws in games occasionally, but the other guys get paid too. This was a fantastic performance and he definitely seems like he’s on his way.
Running Backs: B
The running backs earned an “F” last week, but talk about a bounceback type of game. All three backs had nice chunk plays on the day. All three averaged more than four yards per carry on the day.
Rhamondre Stevenson led the group in reps and carries (9 carries 38 yards, 4.2-yard average with a long run of 22. TreVeyon Henderson had seven carries for 32 yards (4.6-yard average) with a long of 11 and scored his first NFL touchdown. Antonio Gibson had six carries for 27 yards, with a long of 21 and scored a touchdown.
What was even better about the effort is that the group was clean, no one put the ball on the ground. While no one’s stats blew you away, it was a very solid, group effort that did what they had to do. As a whole, the team ran for104 yards.
Wide Receivers: A-
Last week, we clamored for the team to move Stefon Diggs to the slot to open up the wide receivers’ production. Well, Diggs did move to the slot and had his first 100-yard game in two years, his first as a Patriot and the 37th of his career.
Diggs and Maye are getting their chemistry down and he looked like the guy the Patriots were signing for this spring. His two big chunk plays, a 33-yarder and a back shoulder 30-yarder from Maye to set up the Patriots final touchdown were beauties.
Mack Hollins scored his second touchdown of the season on a nicely designed play. Kayshon Boutte had only one catch for 18 yards. DeMario Douglas who barely played was singled out by Mike Vrabel for a good block that sprung Hunter Henry for a touchdown.
Tight Ends: A-
The Patriots’s tight ends are continuing their strong play. Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper are the most consistent, reliable players on the offense. Even though they were only targeted three times, they combined for three catches, 63 yards and a touchdown.
Henry scored a 31 yard touchdown when he rolled across the formation when Maye rolled out to his left. It was a fantastic play. Hooper added a 24-yard chunk play of his own.
Offensive Line:A-
The offensive line had one of its best games of the season. With Jared Wilson out with an injury, Ben Brown filled in nicely. The pass protection was very good, the run blocking was very good as well.
And how about this… no false starts, no holdings, no penalties at all. That’s a nice game for Doug Marrone’s players.
Defensive Line: B+
The defensive line, particularly Christian Barmore and Milton Williams have been outstanding this season. Vrabel mentioned how disruptive Barmore has been, despite not showing up on the stat sheet.
But the inside duo along with Harold Landry and K’Lavon Chaisson were very disruptive to Bryce Young and the Carolina passing game.
The run stopping was not as sharp this week as it has been for the first three weeks of the season. Give the Panthers’ backs some credit there, they made a couple of really nice runs. Chuba Hubbard had 49 yards on 10 carries, Trevor Ettiene had a nice 22-yard run as well.
But I also think from rewatching the tape, was that the Patriots had this one well in control and weren’t going to sweat too much allowing Carolina to run when they were down by several scores.
Linebackers: B
The linebackers were all around the ball again. Jack Gibbens replaced Christian Elliss and led the team with 12 tackles. Robert Spillane once again had a strong effort in the middle and had another 10 tackle game.
Elliss did rotate back in with Marte Mapu and had nine tackles of his own, but I believe that he’s lost his starting position to Gibbens. Something to keep an eye on this week, is that Jahlani Tavai is eligible to return to the lineup.
Secondary: B+
The Patriots secondary overall had a very strong game. Carolina scripted its first 15 or so plays and Young was off to a very hot start, (more to this below). Bryce Young started 6-6 for 71 yards and a touchdown.
After that, he was 12-24 for 79 yards for the rest of the game. That is an average of 3.29 yards per pass. They’ll take that all day long. With Christian Gonzalez back, the Patriots had their starters together for the first time this year. And it looked pretty good.
Tetairoa McMillan had four catches for 62 yards on eight targets. He’s an outstanding young receiver, but he wasn’t a big factor in the game. Rookie safety Craig Woodson had a couple of nice third down plays but was victimized on the Panther’s first touchdown when he fell victim to a pick play. Overall, the secondary had a fine effort on Sunday.
Special Teams: A
I don’t know that we’ve ever handed out an “A+” on these positional report cards, maybe during the Brady years, but I was close to doing so here this week.
Marcus Jones gets player of the week honors with three outstanding punt returns. The first, an 87-yard touchdown, completely flipped momentum in the game to the Patriots. He later added a 61-yard return that was stopped when the punter got him by a shoelace. He added a 19-yard return in the fourth quarter.
His 167return yards set a new Patriot record, breaking the Michael Haynes 156 yards set in 1976.
Bryce Barringer averaged 51.9 yards per punt with a long of 59, but his 56-yard punt which was caught at the Carolina three-yard line by Ettiene, who was then tackled for a two-yard loss by Brendan Schooler. That’s how you draw stuff up.
Coaches: A-
Mike Vrabel has to be thrilled with the effort this week. The team was dominant in all three phases of the game. That’s the kind of complementary football that he is looking for. Vrabel did mention that the team has to do a better job of defending the scripted plays at the beginning of games. And rest assured that will be a big topic of coaching this week.
Zak Kuhr made the necessary adjustments to the defense after a slow start. Josh McDaniels called a great game and had the offense getting production out of everyone. Was it perfect? Nope, but this was the type of game that they can build off of moving forward.
That’s it for the Panthers week, now the Patriots are traveling to Buffalo to take on the 4-0 Bills. They will have a much tougher task this week.
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A former US Army Special Forces NCO and Officer, Steve has been following the Patriots since their days at Fenway Park. Steve has worked in the film industry and wrote as an Military Editor at SpecialOperations.com, 1945.com as a reporter for the Millbury Daily Voice, Millbury-Sutton Chronicle, and the Grafton News. He's also a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA)
Bills are the proverbial “Litmus test” but this game is a tad early to cast judgements in stone. One team is stable as hell in their program, offensive and D systems are solidly in place. Coaches, QB, o-line are mostly all together for years. The Pats are a work-in-progress. The Pats are trying to play ball and absorb new systems and learn to play together as a unit. The Bills are purely executing. Good “gauge” game none the less.