MORSE: Good, Bad, and Ugly as Patriots Cinderella Season Comes to a Crashing End

The clock struck midnight, and Drake Maye and the Cinderella Patriots turned back into handmaidens and pumpkins. Maye and the Offense could not handle the pressure from the Seahawks defense in the 29-13 Super Bowl loss. The Patriots had a great year and a bad Super Bowl. Both items can be true. I said before the game that the Seattle Defense was the real deal. Their Defense was better than the Patriots Defense.

The Good

The Defense kept the Patriots in the game in the first half, giving up just 3 Field Goals.
Christian Gonzalez was outstanding in coverage with 3 PBUs. He held NFL Offensive Player of the Year Jaxon Smith-Njigba to 4 catches and only 27 yards, with only 1 catch for 4 yards in the 1st half.
Craig Woodson had a very good game with 10 tackles and 2 Pass Breakups. He also got sucked up by play action on the AJ Barner TD. In the 1^st half, he was the best player on Defense.
The Defense held Seattle to 1 for 4 in the Red Zone. However, all 4 of those resulted in Field Goals.
TD catches by Mack Hollins and Rhamondre Stevenson were great receptions.
Pop Douglas had 5 Catches on 7 Targets

The Bad

The Patriots couldn’t prevent Kenneth Walker from running the wide stretch runs. He ran 27 times for 135 yards and a 5.0 average. The Patriots knew this was their bread and butter and they couldn’t stop it.
Sam Darnold was stopped several times in the backfield, and the Patriots’ defenders couldn’t tackle him. They missed at least 4 sacks.
Drake Maye’s 3 turnovers were a huge factor. The strip sack/INT for a pick six broke the Patriots back. Maye’s fumble gave Seattle their 1^st TD on a short field. Maye looked like a 2^nd year, inexperienced player.
Maye was 27 of 43 (62.7%) for 295 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs, and a Fumble. He padded his stats late when the game was already decided.
Maye was sacked 6 times, but a few of those were on Drake Maye. Seattle blitzed more often than they had all season. One was a double CB blitz. Neither Maye nor his receivers picked this up and made the hot read. Maye missed several blitzes. He also held onto the ball too long and was indecisive. That is something that comes with young, inexperienced QBs.
Drake Maye confirmed that he took a pain injection for his shoulder before the game. Perhaps his injury is more serious than we were led to believe.
What happened to the Jumbo formation? They only used Thayer Munford once, and they passed out of that formation. The Patriots abandoned the run.
Drake Maye was the Patriots’ leading rusher with 5 carries for 37 yards. However, the Patriots had 4.4 yards per carry, the same as the Seahawks.
Stephon Diggs had just 3 Catches on 3 Targets.
The Patriots’ tackling against Seattle was pretty bad, letting Darnold get away and Walker get extra yards.

The Ugly

The Patriots started Will Campbell and Jared Wilson, two rookies on the blind side of the 2^nd year QB. No team has ever started two rookies on the Offensive line in the Super Bowl. The Patriots were able to cover up their deficiencies all season, and they all rose to the surface in the Super Bowl. I had a bad feeling about Campbell coming out of camp because of the number of sacks he was giving up. That was a terrible game by Campbell. We have all off-season to talk about Campbell. Wilson wasn’t much better.
Next Gen Stats attributed 14 QB Pressures Allowed to Will Campbell in Super Bowl LX – the most pressures allowed by any player in a game this season (including playoffs). He reportedly left immediately and did not speak with the media after the game.
Josh McDaniels playcalling was awful all night. Was he trying to compensate for Maye’s shoulder issue? Maye was late or behind his targets.
The lack of a call for a Personal Foul late hit by Seattle’s Joshua Jobe on Stefon Diggs away from the play and after the whistle was egregious by the Officials. Jobe even threw a punch at Diggs, and there was no flag with an Official standing right there. I felt Seattle took advantage of this Officiating crew that was not throwing any flags. Part of the reason their stretch runs were working was that they were holding the Edge players, no calls.
Drake Maye panicked and threw a prayer of a pass that was picked off. This was the worst game by Maye all year.
Maye was the 1^st QB to be sacked 5 times or more in 4 straight playoff games.
Mike Vrabel not challenging the Cooper Kupp bobbled reception in the 1^st Quarter was a bad decision. That “catch” put the Seahawks in Field Goal position.
The Patriots set a new record for Super Bowl losses with 6.
This from Joe Haggerty on X: “Drake Maye taking sacks while Diggs is waving at him because he’s so wide open. U-G-L-Y”.

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About Mark Morse

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.

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