Happy Hump Day from your 1st place New England Patriots. Yes, it is a technicality, but the Patriots hold the tiebreaker in the AFC East because they beat Buffalo. Both teams are 4-2 at this early point of the season.
Brutal Officiating
Adrian Hill is a 7th-year NFL Referee who led the crew that officiated the game on Sunday. He doesn’t make the calls, but his name is associated with this group of officials. They were very bad, and the League needs to do something about this.
They are flag-happy throwing 20 flags in the game, 6th most in the league this year. ‘This is the Official report from the Referee after the game, as told to Mike Reiss, the pool reporter who got to meet with Adrian Hill after the game.
“On that play, we ruled blocking downfield by number eight [Diggs], early during the play,” Hill explained. “So, if there is a situation where a player blocks downfield, it’s not a foul until a pass is thrown, so you kind of put that in the bank. And then the pass was thrown downfield later, which created the offensive pass interference.” That is flat-out bulls**t, covering up for an official who made a bad call. Diggs was not blocking.
Wide receivers are not allowed to start blocking downfield on a pass play before the ball is thrown. However, that assumes the contact between Diggs and Saints cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry is ruled a block and not a wide receiver and cornerback engaging at the top of the route – an act that is common throughout a football game – which appears to be the case as McKinstry reaches out towards Diggs. The fact is that McKinstry initiated the contact at 5 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. When you look at the video, at the point of contact, Diggs turns back to the QB. He is not blocking.
Perhaps more importantly, there’s the matter of the flag being thrown so late. Hill addressed that as well.
“The official was processing the play and then he came to me over the O20 [official-to-official communications system],” Hill says. “Because it was a long-developing play, he had to rewind back to what happened at the beginning of the play, and process that.”
Wrong … He can throw the flag when it happens and pick it up and wave off the penalty if it wasn’t blocking or OPI. This is a cop out of a coward.
As Hill mentions in his first answer, offensive pass interference for blocking does not become a penalty until the pass is thrown, so the flag may not come out immediately. However, replays show the flag still hasn’t been thrown well after Douglas already has the ball downfield, much later than would typically be the case. Again, a cop out.
“It was a really late call. We were almost on the sideline. I was about to sit down,” Maye recalled after the game. Douglas also shared he’d already gotten to the sideline.
Alex Barth had a cute tweet after the game saying something to the effect that at 8:30, the Patriots’ plane was approaching Providence, but Adrian Hill’s crew was still on the field throwing flags.
Another suggestion for a rule change is that if a team has two successful challenges in a game, they get to pick which official gets immediately bounced from the game.
Drake Maye saw a league-high single-season safety rate. Maye was 11-17 for 190 yards & 3 TDs vs. single-high safety in NOLA. Will defenses adjust, and in turn, does that open up the run game? If I’m a defensive coordinator, I’m giving the Patriots the run because they are so bad at it and drop everyone in coverage. Perhaps simulated pressure and then a drop in passing lanes.
PFF Offensive Line Grades
| Season | New Orleans Game | |||||||
| Overall | Offense | Pass Blck | Run Blck | Sacks | QB Hits | Hurries | Pressure | |
| Campbell | 69.1 (26) | 71.6 | 72 | 77.3 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 13 |
| Wilson | 46.7 (93) | 41.2 | 35.8 | 44 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 13 |
| Bradbury | 59.9 (31) | 53.4 | 73 | 46.6 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Onwenu | 73.1 (10) | 69.1 | 83.3 | 61.3 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 9 |
| Moses | 66.4 (39) | 69.9 | 77.3 | 71.2 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 10 |
This is the only grading system readily available to the public. After 6 games we see some interesting trends. Will Campbell is much better than anyone expected. I was worried after the Training Camp and Joint Practices that Campbell was going to give up a sack a game. Officially he has surrendered just one. The two rookies are having trouble with pressure, but that was to be expected. Starting two rookies next to each other doesn’t work. Wilson has struggled, moving from Center back to Guard. He is really a very inexperienced Offensive Lineman. The Patriots under Belichick wanted Olinemen with 24 or more starts in college. Wilson played at Georgia and had to wait his turn to play. He only started 11 Games in the SEC as a Junior and then declared for the Draft. As you can see from his grades, he is not having a good year. Garrett Bradbury has been better than expected in Pass Blocking. He gave up the most sacks of any Center in the league (10) last year. The biggest surprise to me is the overall poor run blocking. I would have expected the run game to be better after 6 games. Campbell led the team in both Run Blocking and Pass Blocking against New Orleans.
This what PFF said about the rookie LT “Campbell earned at least a 70.0 PFF overall grade for the third straight week. His pass protection, in particular, has helped New England win all three of those games. Campbell has now gone five straight outings without allowing a sack. Though the yardage totals may not display an excellent day on the ground for the Patriots, Campbell did his part by tallying five positively graded blocks in the run game”.
I thought Craig Woodson had a fine game also. His overall grade from PFF is 66.4 which would give him a true rank of 43rd amongst all Safeties. For the game versus New Orleans, he had an overall grade of 77.1 which is his highest graded game this year. His Run Defense was 71.6, Tackling 81.4, Pass Rush 56.1 (he isn’t asked to pass rush) and Coverage grade of 71.4. He is coming on and getting better every game.
Stats Only a Football Nerd Would Love
Drake Maye on throws of 20+ yards per PFF
99.9 Grade
75% Adjusted Completion Rate
8 Big Time Throws
0 Turnover Worthy Plays
Patriots have seen the highest percentage of Single High Safety in the League. Teams are loading the box to stop the run. Maye is 2nd only to Jared Goff in completions against Single High Safety looks.
Maye joined Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott and Dan Marino as the only quarterbacks with 200+ pass yards and a 100+ passer rating – at age 23 or younger, in 5 consecutive games. This from a QB that has barely played the equivalent of one full season (17 Games). He got knocked out of the NY Jets game early last year and played one series against the Bills backups in the meaningless final game of the year. That’s 10 last year and 6 this year, not even a full season.
Snap Counts
Christian Gonzalez missed some time in practice and was listed as Limited on the Injury Report. Some in the media suggested that he re-aggravated or had a set back from his Hamstring Injury. He played 55 of 56 Defensive snaps in the game. Milton Williams was reported to be sick with a fever which required some electrolyte treatment before the game. Williams didn’t play nearly as much as usual but still managed to play 33 of 56 Defensive snaps. He really showed his will to win and force himself out there for his teammates.
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Merrimack Valley native and lifelong fan of the New England Patriots. My earliest memories of the Patriots were attending as a child with my dad, the off-season practice at Phillips Academy. I was at the Patriots game at Harvard Stadium in 1970 where Bob “Harpo” Gladieux was called out of the stands by the stadium announcer over the PA to play in the game. Analyzing the draft since ESPN first started to televise it in 1980 and former writer for the Lowell Sun Newspaper.
The Pats must think Jared Wilson has a higher ceiling than Ben Brown, but right now Wilson is not close to that. I think we’d get a better result from Ben Brown in the next few games. I believe PFF scores Brown higher than Wilson.