Some final thoughts ahead of Sunday’s AFC Championship Game:
1) It looks like the Patriots will be down a pass rusher this weekend, as linebacker Harold Landry was officially ruled out on Friday as he continues dealing with a knee injury.
Landry first suffered the injury in Week 11 against the Jets and he’s been on the injury report ever since. He played in the next four games, before sitting out the final two regular season games against both the Jets and Dolphins.
The veteran finally returned against the Chargers and was in on 43% of the snaps (26 of 60 plays) in that game, but saw limited action against the Texans. Landry played just 11 of the team’s 75 defensive snaps against Houston, with the club clearly trying to limit him out there as they looked to advance to the AFC Championship Game.
Unfortunately, out in Denver this weekend, they’ll have to hope his teammates can get it done to give him one more shot at potentially playing in two weeks.
2) Mack Hollins was out at practice again on Friday as a full participant, which is another positive sign that we might see him out there in Denver.
He’s been a spark with that group, bringing the energy and firing up a group who has talked about what a terrific teammate he’s been in the locker room this year.
But on the field, his presence has also made an impact. When Hollins has been on the field, it has led to other players around him having increased success, especially on third down.
While Hollins himself hasn’t had much success on third down in terms of catch percentage (7-for-15 [46.7%] with 6 first downs), he’s someone other teams have certainly been mindful of, and it’s opened up things for the guys around him.
Player totals with/without Hollins on the Field (Regular Season / 3rd Down)
*Click image to enlarge
Kayshon Boutte, Demario Douglas, and Hunter Henry – Drake Maye’s favorite targets on third down this season – have all seen an increase both in their catch % and yards per reception when Hollins is out there. The latter stat is thanks to how good Hollins is at blocking, which has created opportunities for his teammates to pick up additional yards after the catch.
Seeing him back out there would definitely give the offense a lift, and it feels like he might get that opportunity.
3) One other bit of good news is that it looks like Patriots cornerback Carlton Davis will be back this week.
Davis left last Sunday’s game with a concussion and has been listed on the injury report this week as being in the protocol. Like Christian Gonzalez the previous week, Davis was limited to begin the week, but was a full participant on Friday and wasn’t given a designation (he’s not “Questionable”), which is definitely a positive sign.
The veteran has been solid opposite Gonzalez, with the two bringing back memories of seasons where they had players like Ty Law and Otis Smith, or Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner. While he led the team in penalties this season, it doesn’t change the fact that overall, he’s been among some of the key offseason moves that have gotten them to this point.
Both he and Gonzalez have made life tough on opposing offenses, and with the pass rush being what it’s been the last two weeks, the hope is that success will carry over out in Denver Sunday.
4) Obviously, there’s been a lot of talk about Sean Payton’s comments when it came to him telling the fans, “they’re going to have plenty of rest after this one, two weeks.”
Some are saying the comment was taken out of context, but after having transcribed that press conference earlier this week, the comment came right after he was asked about them, with his follow-up comment not really undoing any of the damage.
Here’s the full snippet:
On the fact the past month, he’s had a message to fans every single week about noise, and if he has a message for them this week with it being the final game [in Denver for this year]:
“Well, they’re going to have plenty of rest after this one, two weeks. I can’t … This is a team at the line of scrimmage that does a lot. Josh is fantastic at putting together good plans offensively. There’s alerts, there’s kills.”
“Look, let’s go. Again, I keep emphasizing, just as the huddle begins until the ball’s snapped.”
Drake Maye talked about the fact the silent cadence is something they’ve already used throughout the season, and they’re prepared to use it again on Sunday.
“We use the silent count every road game,” said Maye this week. “Really, I think, really every road game this season we’ve used it. I think the loudness of the stadium for this week will be different than what we’ve kind of heard just because of the AFC Championship at a road opponent that has had history of winning Super Bowls and playing in playoff games and has a great team.”
“So the magnitude of the noise will be probably something we haven’t seen this year yet, but the silent count is something we’ve been working all year. We’ve been in Buffalo and Baltimore. We’ve used it in silent counts where it’s tough to hear in the huddle and tough for the O-line to hear me. So we just go in silent, and we’ve done a good job.”
5) Jarrett Stidham’s time in New England remains a bit of a mystery, especially given how quickly things seem to turn with him during that offseason back in 2020.
There were whispers internally of the confidence the Patriots had in their young quarterback ahead of that season, who they had taken in the fourth round just a year earlier in 2019.
But something happened that spring that saw Stidham seemingly fall out of favor as the club ended up bringing in Cam Newton, who ultimately went on to start and play the majority of games that season.
Stidham never seemed to put up much of a fight that summer in training camp, and after that disappointing 7-9 finish, the club eventually used its first-round pick the next offseason to take Mac Jones with the 15th overall selection.
It sounds like there’s still a little bit of a chip on his shoulder about that situation. While he praised the club for the opportunity, his comments gave the impression that he’s looking for a little redemption this weekend.
“Yeah, look, I think at the end of the day, obviously, I’m very appreciative of New England for giving me a shot in this league, drafting me,” said Stidham. “Obviously, Bill [Belichick]’s not there anymore, but I know there’s still front office guys there that were there when I was there. Nick Caserio is down in Houston now, the GM. He was a big part of that, too.”
“Josh McDaniels, who obviously was my play-caller. I mean, I’ve only had two play callers in my life, Sean and Josh. So super appreciative of them for sure, but really just fired up for the opportunity for these guys in this locker room. And we’re looking forward to Sunday and getting out there and seeing what we got.”
6) It’s hard not to feel like this is a New England Patriots team on the verge of taking another step in what’s certainly been an incredibly special season.
While they’re favored against the Broncos, the overall consensus this week still seems to be that they’ve been a little lucky over this run, as well as having made it this far thanks to the level of competition on their way to get here.
The argument was made that they beat a banged up Chargers club and a Houston team where last week’s performance has C.J. Stroud’s future at quarterback there in question.
As they say, you can only play who is on the schedule. And it’s not their fault Broncos QB Bo Nix got hurt in that wild ending against Buffalo and will be just a spectator this weekend.
Meanwhile, what’s crazy is that neither the Rams nor Seahawks are teams that the Patriots wouldn’t be able to hang with should they be fortunate to get that far, especially in a neutral setting.
It’s obviously pretty amazing that they’re even in this position. Looking back, one thing that’s gotten lost has been the coaching staff managing the injuries they’ve dealt with this year, and the front office for making sure they had the role players to weather it. Mike Vrabel and his staff also haven’t been afraid to give guys the opportunity to prove themselves.
They’ve given plenty of playing time for players like Joshua Farmer, Corey Durden, and others, who all grew quite a bit as the season went on. That was big, because it gave injured veterans like Milton Williams and Khyris Tonga a chance to get healthy, and now each of those other guys are battle tested through two weeks of playoff football.
Mike Reiss talked about the difference getting Robert Spillane and Williams back, and we’ve definitely seen their impact so far this postseason.
“I’ll give you one stat just to start to build off what you were talking about. They have allowed just one touchdown in their first two playoff games. They’re the first team since the 2006 Colts to do that,” said Reiss on Monday during an appearance on Toucher & Hardy on 98.5. “So it gives you a little historical perspective on what they’re doing defensively.”
“I’m going to say in building off this last game, they’ve gotten back to stopping the run, like they did in the first nine games of the year. So we’ll see if this sort of plays out as I go back and study the game. But first nine games the year, they were one of the best or the best run defense in the league. Do you remember we were saying no running back had over 50 yards against them in the first nine games? And then Milton Williams went out, Robert Spillane went out, and they pieced it together, and they lost a little bit of that edge against the run.”
“Now they got all those guys back, and they’re stopping the run again. So they’re making the other team one-dimensional, and they’re able to tee off in the passing game and create some pressure with some of ‘get them in obvious passing situations and go after them.'”
Right now, they’re healthy for the most part at the right time, and the results have been impressive. We’ve seen two-straight weeks where they’ve made life difficult on both opponents, which bought Drake Maye enough time to do his part on that side of the ball to put up enough points and put them in this position.
Overall, this is a team good enough to finish the job, and they’re good enough to hang with a Denver team that everyone expects to end this latest Patriots run. Now it’s up to Vrabel’s team to hopefully prove those doubters wrong and take another step forward when they hit the field in Denver on Sunday.
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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.
