The New England Patriots will look to keep their winning streak alive as they travel to Tampa Bay for a matchup with the Buccaneers. Despite the Bucs dealing with injuries even coming off the bye, the matchup will provide
New England their toughest task since Buffalo.
So before the action continues, let’s get right into this week’s #PostPulpit Mailbag.
Does Drake Maye hold the ball too long? Does this account for many of his too-many sacks? – Jack Usage
“A lot of the sacks I have taken have been my fault, me holding the football,” Maye said himself on Wednesday.
Through nine games this season Maye has been sacked 34 times, the second-most in football trialing just Cam Ward (38). There are some qualifiers within those numbers, as a handful of the sacks have come with Maye running bounds near the line of scrimmage and New England is near the top of the league in yards lost per sacks.
But, as we broke down in this week’s Maye’s Plays, the quarterback is holding the football too long at times and passing up potential plays through the air. Entering Week 9, Maye ranks seventh-worst in slowest time to throw while New England as a whole ranks fourth-best in slowest time to pressure. The pass protection could certainly be better at times, but the numbers back up the Maye is holding the ball.
Speaking on Thursday, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels noted how they do not want to “over coach” Maye when it comes to leaving the pocket due to his playmaking ability, however. With some of the sacks also limiting the opportunities to turn the ball over, McDaniels added they’ll continue to try and find the sweet spot when it comes to Maye in the pocket.
Looking at the stats, the pats play zone coverage like 70-75% of the time. One of the higher rates in the league. Yet our secondary with the corners we have is basically built to play man coverage.
So the question is, why do we play so much zone which would seem to be going against our players strengths? Especially since our current pass defense isn’t exactly lock down. We’re only like 19th in passing yards per game despite the resources (both monetary and draft) we have dedicated to our secondary, especially our CBS. – Felkey
To start, it’s very rare for a team to play over 50 percent of their defensive snaps in man coverage — opposing teams are too good and the athletes are too talented. The New York Giants lead the league playing man coverage 44 percent of the time while the Patriots rank 13th at 28.5 percent. Now, I did expect that number to be higher after Mike Vrabel originally mentioned play cat coverage with Christian Gonzalez and Carlton Davis back in March.
As we’ve discussed over the past few weeks New England has also struggled in man coverage throughout the year due to different schematic reasons. Things may be starting to trend in a more positive direction in the Atlanta game, however, as Christian Gonzalez traveled with Drake London at times — as did Marcus Jones with Bijian Robinson — while they also showed more middle of the field support for their corners.
They will have a good week to build on that this week, as Baker Mayfield ranks 31st in EPA per drop-back (-0.36) vs. man coverage.
Why did the Patriots do nothing at the Trade Deadline to boost their roster for their Playoff/Super Bowl push? – For Pats Sake
Taking a long-term approach in year one of this program was noted multiple times by Mike Vrabel leading up the deadline, making it unlikely they were willing to move off of any high draft capital. At that point, any minor depth addition may not have been worth disrupting any chemistry inside the locker room.
How good is the Buccaneers defense? Do they have a big-name scary pass rusher? The last two games have been brutal for the o-line, but facing #1 and #2 defensive talent. Do they get a chance to reset against the Bucs or will there be another standout rusher to terrorize them?
Until the last two games the o-line was playing middling well, certainly well enough to enable Maye to take off like a rocket. Now that he’s been thumped to earth a few times, will he speed up his processing clock and learn to take the checkdowns? – CanuckYaz
While different schematically, the Bucs defense is similar to the Falcons in the fact they’ll heat up opposing QBs with unique pressure packages and disguises. Up front, that’s led by nose tackle Vita Vea — a powerful veteran who will challenge the smaller Jared Wilson and Garrett Bradbury — and edge rusher Yaya Diaby, who leads the team with 28 pressures and has one of the fastest get-offs in football.
Maye will be under pressure again in this game, so watching how he handles things after a poor second-half last week will be at the top of our watchlist. Tampa Bay also ranks sixth in DVOA against the run to make things more challenging, but plays could be had through the air for TreVeyon Henderson.
Can the Bucs run the ball against Patriots #1 ranked Run Defense without Bucky Irving? – For Pats Sake
Tampa Bay has averaged just 98.1 rushing yards per game (28th) and that number has dropped to just 77.7 in their last three games without Bucky Irving. As the top back looks set to be sidelined yet again, I don’t see that success flipping against a Patriots front that has still not allowed 50 yards on the ground to a running back this year.
Now that the Jets are tanking and Miami playing out the string coming in for a winter Foxboro matchup, the rest of the schedule looks very favorable, so what do you think is the over/under for Pats wins this season? – wrw921
I would set the line at 11.5 for now. That would cover losses against Buffalo and Baltimore while leaving room to decide whether they get beaten one or two more times.
Wilson seems to be having his share of struggles with the left guard position. There’s talk of needing to draft a left guard this spring. My question is, how is Cole Strange doing in Miami? He is starting, but is he grading out well? Hindsight is 20/20, but should we have kept him on the roster? – SoDak605PatsFan
Unless Wilson adds more power to his frame this offseason, his best long-term fit still remains at center. And with Mike Onwenu struggling this season, I’d expect New England to be in the guard market this upcoming offseason. As for Cole Strange down in Miami, it hasn’t been pretty. To sum it up with the PFF numbers: 12 pressures in six games with a 44.7 total grade (28.0 pass blocking).
That’s all for this week’s #PostPulpit mailbag. If you have questions you’d liked to be answered next week, submit them online in our weekly submission post or on Twitter using #PostPulpit. Make sure to be following @iambrianhines and @PatsPulpit as well.
