Following a turnover-heavy Week 3 loss, the New England Patriots have turned their attention to an out-of-conference matchup with the Carolina Panthers. It will provide a prime opportunity for the Patriots to get back to .500 and win their first game at Gillette Stadium this season.
Here on Pats Pulpit, our focus this week both wrapped up the loss to Pittsburgh and prepared for the Panthers. For anything else not covered previously, let’s clean out the notebook. Welcome to this week’s edition of our Sunday
Patriots Notes.
Confidence in Mondre
As the New England Patriots offense takes the field Sunday against the Carolina Panthers, they may do so with running back Rhamondre Stevenson in the backfield.
Despite a pair of costly fumbles in a one score loss last week, head coach Mike Vrabel indicated Stevenson will not face any discipline in terms of playing time.
“We have different packages. I don’t know what the first package is, but if you’re asking me if Rhamondre [Stevenson] is on some sort of discipline, no. The discipline is we need our best players to play in a game and do their job and take care of football. And we all have to do that. Drake [Maye] had an interception and a fumble, we’re not going to play Josh [Dobbs] right now.
While Stevenson has now put the ball on the ground nine times dating back to last season — including a league-high seven fumbles in 2024 — he has been New England’s most productive back to start the year.
That was evident in a career game in Week 2 against the Dolphins, where Stevenson totaled 142 yards behind 88 receiving yards. Stevenson is also the only Patriots back to force more than two missed tackles this season while his 17 rushing yards over expected rank 14th among 40 qualified backs league wide.
Stevenson, who leads the Patriots running backs playing 55 percent of the offensive snaps, also remains their best option in pass protection on third-down.
The production led to Vrabel quickly stating after his two fumble game that they “need” Stevenson moving forward. The head coach was also quick to point out this week that turnovers are not just an individual stat, perhaps referencing two missed blocks on both of Stevenson’s fumbles against the Steelers.
“We have to fix those things, the people around them have to be better and I’m confident that we will,” Vrabel said. “I’m not going to talk about the alternative. I’ll go down that road later, but those are things that we have to get fixed, but we also have to do good things with the football, make people miss, make yards and catch it and block when they blitz.”
While Stevenson appreciates the confidence from his head coach, he knows it doesn’t matter unless he holds onto the ball.
“The main thing is still the main thing. I still have to take care of the ball,” Stevenson said. “I’m glad he still trusts me in a way. My teammates trust me in a way. But it’s up to me to have 100 percent ball security from here on out.”
Dirty kicks
As Mike Vrabel sat down Tuesday night to watch the Panthers, he found himself glued to their kickoff unit for two hours. With the new kickoff format, Carolina has been one of the few teams around the league to use a knuckleball style kick — one Vrabel and special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer call “dirty kicks”.
“One that’s on the ground in between the 20 and the goal line,” Vrabel described. “Sometimes it one hops and they can return it, sometimes it kicks and goes sideways and we’ll have to be prepared for that wherever they kick it.”
The Panthers have been one of the more successful units in football at the dirty kicks, as opponents have the worst starting field position in the league at their own 21-yard line on average.
New England has also experimented with these kicks themselves this year, but the unpredictability of the football’s movement showed in Miami as Andy Borregales both pinned the Dolphins inside the 20 and was penalized for landing a kick short of the landing zone on consecutive attempts.
Young receivers
It’s been a quiet start to the season for rookie wide receivers Kyle Williams and Efton Chism III. Through three games, Williams has played just 26 snaps while Chism has found himself on the inactive list each week.
That’s a familiar story for Stefon Diggs, who spent the first three weeks of his rookie year inactive despite have a strong training camp himself. Diggs has since made sure to encourage and remind the duo of his start.
I was telling them I had a good camp and let that be just that. You had a good camp, go and roll into the season with the same mindset of working equally as hard,” Diggs said.
I kind of give them my little gems of just staying at it each and every day. Kind of don’t get lost in it because you don’t never know when your opportunity is. So I give them the information that I got. And I’ve been in a hard spot like that before where you’re not playing, you want to play. Those guys are hungry and they work their ass off.”
Blacked out
For a brief moment when NFL free Agency opened in March, it appeared defensive tackle Milton Williams was set to be a Carolina Panther. That was until New England came in a four-year, $104 million offer to secure the star pass rusher.
When that moment occurred, Patriots defensive line coach Clint McMillan recalled he blacked out for a moment due to excitement. Through three games, McMillan’s excitement has proved correct as Williams has been well worth the investment with nine total pressures and two sacks — including the game sealing take down in Miami.
Maye’s memories
Growing up in Huntersville, North Carolina, Drake Maye found himself rooting for the hometown Panthers growing up. The quarterback was drawn to watching Cam Newton during his childhood and was in the building for the 2015 NFC Championship Game during the Panthers 15-1 season.
Maye will now get ready to take on his hometown team for the first time in regular season action, and gave a nod to Carolina long snapper J.J. Jansen as being the only player still with the team from when he watched as a fan growing up.
“Going back to Charlotte would have been different, but going against the team that I grew up watching, grew up cheering for. A lot of great memories in that stadium back at Bank of America. So yeah, it’s a little different, but at the same time, it’s still just another week. Another week in the NFL, and none of the same players that I grew up rooting for besides the long snapper are still there.”
Canales’ comments
During his Wednesday press conference, Panthers head coach Dave Canales had a rather blunt summary of Mike Vrabel’s Patriots: “They don’t do a lot. What they do, they do really well.”
Canales added: “If [Vrabel] can get his guys in position when they know what to do, then they can fly around and play physical and make plays. What I see on film, that is happening for that group on both sides. They are not trying to reinvent the wheel, they have some wrinkles, but it’s pretty good just clean football and guys playing hard.”
With no flea-flicker or trick play dialed up by Josh McDaniels so far this season, it would not be a surprise to see the coordinator dial up a new “wrinkle” for Canales’ squad this week. We’ll call our shot: Drake Maye gets on the stat sheet with a reception.
Home struggles
The Patriots struggles at Gillette Stadium in recent years have been well documented. Since 2023, they are a league worst 3-16 on their home turf. They now welcome a Panthers team who is 2-17 on the road in that span, however.
Week ahead
After two straight home games, the Patriots will head to Buffalo for their first of three straight road games. Ahead of their first primetime game of the season, they will likely maintain their typical in-season schedule in Week 5:
- Monday, Sept. 29: Mike Vrabel media availability, player media availability
- Tuesday, Sept. 30: Day off
- Wednesday, Oct. 1: Practice, Mike Vrabel media availability, player media availability, injury report
- Thursday, Oct. 2: Practice, player media availability, injury report
- Friday, Oct. 3: Practice, player media availability, injury report
- Saturday, Oct. 4: Pre-game walkthrough, practice squad elevations, travel to Buffalo
- Sunday, Oct. 5: Game day vs. Carolina Panthers at Gillette Stadium (1 p.m. ET)
