Sunday’s win certainly made a statement, with the Patriots going down to MetLife Stadium and delivering a 42-10 knockout blow to a Jets team that continues limping into what will likely be another long offseason.
Drake Maye went out and threw five touchdowns and dominated a Jets defense that was facing a pretty depleted New England offense. The Patriots were without wideouts Mack Hollins and Kayshon Boutte, with guard Jared Wilson also sitting this one out. That saw Ben Brown step in again at guard, with rookies Kyle Williams and Efton Chism seeing more playing time on Sunday.
Still, Maye and company didn’t miss a beat. New England had one of its best offensive performances of the season, scoring touchdowns on the Patriots’ first six possessions of the football game.
Maye came out on fire to start this one off. He was a perfect 11-of-11 through most of the first half, with his first incompletion finally coming with 1:44 left in the second quarter after a drop by Kyle Williams. But Maye followed that up by going 6-of-7 on their final drive before halftime, which ended with a 13-yard scoring strike to Hunter Henry and sent the Patriots into the locker room up 35-3 through just two quarters of football.
Maye was an impressive 17-of-19 (89.5%) for 229 yards and four touchdowns as they walked off the field at halftime, with the Jets unable to find an answer against a Patriots team that wasn’t even anywhere close to at its best.
The second-year quarterback then started the third quarter and led them down the field on a 6-play, 47-yard drive that ended in Efton Chism’s first career touchdown reception. That put New England up 42-3, with backup quarterback Josh Dobbs then stepping in for a little mop-up duty as he finished the game.
“Coach said, ‘Unfinished business.’ You want to go 8-0 on the road,” said Maye after the game. “That’d be something that we thought would be pretty cool. In this league, it’s hard to win on the road, and we accomplished that today.”
After getting up 21-0 against the Bills and not finishing things off, it was clear that the Patriots were determined to leave no doubt on Sunday.
As things wound down after the defense got the Jets off the field late in the second quarter, it seemed like New England might have been happy to go into the locker room up 28-3. Instead, frustration by the Jets seemed to turn things, and those plans then appeared to change.
It started with a scuffle as the defense left the field after stopping New York’s drive, where a Jets defender apparently took what Christian Barmore felt was a cheap shot. That was then followed up with a forearm to the face of Maye, firing up the players as the Jets were hit with a roughing the passer penalty.
From there, head coach Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels put the ball in Maye’s hands and the foot back on the gas over the final 90 seconds ahead of halftime.
After a fairly conservative start to the drive, the Patriots kicked it into gear. Maye went to work and marched them down the field, with a 26-yard pass by Stefon Diggs helping get them deep into Jets territory.
Five plays later, they were back in the end zone.
“Yeah, probably,” said Vrabel when asked if that penalty changed things. “Being smart with the football and get the first first down and get into the drive. Then that created a good enough field position to keep going. I thought they did a really good job of going down there with the time, and the timeouts, and the moving parts. Once you get in a two-minute and you only have a couple of receivers, you kind of get creative. We had two backs in there at times. We had two tight ends in there at times. So I thought that was really good.”
That drive seemed to make a statement, leaving the Jets looking pretty demoralized as they left the field. It was also a big enough dagger that the majority of Jets fans then appeared to leave at halftime, with the stadium looking pretty empty over the final two quarters.
Overall, Maye finished Sunday’s contest 19-of-21 (90%) for 256 yards and 5 touchdowns, all of which went to five different receivers. That performance made him the first player in NFL history to throw five touchdowns and finish with a completion percentage of over 90%.
“Just proud of the guys,” said Maye. “We came out here, started fast, and didn’t stop from there. So just proud of the guys. That was a good one to get under our belt, and we still got another week next week to get back at it.”
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
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