Fan Notes from the Patri0ts 45-17 win 0ver the Raiders

Beatdowns like this one almost make me feel sorry for the opposing team.

Almost.

The Patriots took the Raiders behind the woodshed yesterday in one of the more statementiest statement wins in a while. You’d have to go all the way back to last Sunday to find another win that shut the folks who wrote this team off up. And while it’s still to early to officially say “we’re back,” things are really starting to come into shape right as the season really starts to gain some steam/

I feel like I have opened several Fan Notes with some version of “it was gross and rainy out yesterday, I’m sure glad I was home watching this game on TV.” Which would suck if we weren’t on a pretty solid hot streak of gorgeous Saturdays to precede them. Spending a beautiful autumn Saturday outside doing cool things and then spending a rainy Sunday afternoon watching the Patriots stuff the Raiders in a locker represents an absolutely perfect weekend if I’m being honest.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: October is the best month of the year and it isn’t even close. It’s warm and sunny during the day and then gets crisp and cool at night. The air smells like leaves and chimney smoke. It’s Spooky Season for us horror nerds, with tons of scary movies on all month long. It’s also the best month on the sports calendar; the NFL is in full swing, college football is dominating Saturdays, the baseball playoffs are ramping up, and the NBA and NHL are back. There’s pumpkin everything for those who celebrate. And if there’s a better month for beer, I don’t know what it is. Hoppy IPAs. Nut Brown Ales. Oktoberfests. Marzens. Sipping good bourbon in front of the fire or woodstove. Plus, I can put on extra layers to hide all of the pudge that keeps accumulating in very weird places as I get older.
These are my favorite kinds of regular season Patriots games. Sure, they don’t have the staying power of last-minute field goals or Kenbrell Thompkins end-zone catches with three seconds on the clock. But when the game is well in hand by halftime and I spend the second half as relaxed as they come, already soaking in the win, it maximizes the enjoyment and does wonders for the ol’ ticker.
Because as far as dominating performances go, this was the most complete Patriots game in recent memory. All three phases looked great. Drake Maye had his best game as a pro. Depth guys all across the roster stepped up to compensate for a wildly depleted starting corps. And even without everyone’s favorite Christian since Marilyn Manson, the secondary had themselves a day. The 45-17 score makes this game seem closer than it actually was and at no point did Vegas look threatening.
And this is a Raiders team that started the season 3-0 and took the Chiefs to the wire last week. It just goes to show that the first four weeks of the season don’t make any sense at all and nobody has a damn clue what they’re talking about.
There’s no way I can’t start with Drake Maye, who was about as flawless as they get yesterday. I’m trying to think of my favorite throw and I’m having a tough time. The one that keeps popping up is that wheel route to Eli Raridon about halfway through the third quarter. Hit him in stride right between two Raiders DBs. It was his first read and he stared Raridon down the whole time, didn’t even try to disguise the throw. Hit him right on the numbers for 31 yards. The drive would end with Maye’s lone rushing touchdown of the day.
Lone rushing TD to go with four through the air, to household names like Pop Douglas and Kyle Williams. Mack Hollins has been Maye’s saftey blanket through the early part of the season and you wouldn’t even know he was gone. Plus, AJ Brown is eligible to come back next week.
And a lot of Maye’s day starts up front. He only took one sack for three yards and had all day to throw back there. I’m sure that there are plenty of people spinzoning this Raiders defense as terrible right now. But they came into yesterday’s game ranked 8th against the pass and 11th in points allowed. Their real weakness was supposed to be in the running game. But 539 total yards allowed to go with the six touchdowns they surrendered is more than anyone has put up on them this season. That’s a whooping.
Actually, I think the best term here is “whoopin’.” And it’s very important to really emphasize the WH when you say it.
I don’t know what they put in the water in and around Gillette Stadium, or how long the Patriots will be able to find the Efton Chisms of the world. Chism seems poised to be the latest in a long, proud lineage of short white receivers that nobody can cover.
Maybe that’s why the team signed Kindle Vildor. When he isn’t shutting down receivers and earning game balls from the coach, he’s in the woods behind the practice facilities using the magic he learned in Middle Earth to sprout guys like Chism from the enchanted soil.
All Tolkien jokes aside, though, good for Vildor. The Patriots are his sixth team, and he has stepped up in way more ways than representing New England proudly on the all-time name team.
I feel like that’s a great transition to start extolling the defense, but I don’t think I’ve done the offense justice yet. Because pretty much everything they tried worked. McDaniels was dialed in on his playcalling, They took advantage of a very fierce and urgent pass rush with delayed draws and misdirections, which forced Vegas to drop more back into coverage. That gave Drake Maye all day to light them up through the air. A classic “if you do this, then I’l just do that. Oh you’re doing that? Now I’ll just do this” type of game.
If I try and think about Kyle Williams career highlights, I remember that crosser he took to the house against Tampa Bay, and pretty much every other play is more or less identical to yesterday’s touchdown. Quick hitch and go, perfect throw, back shoulder, sideline catch. That’s his route, Maye knows it, and he just places it perfectly every single time.
That Maye-to-Williams back shoulder deep ball is very similar to how Joe Flacco earned his contract when he had Torrey Smith. The only small difference is that May leads Williams and hits him perfectly in stride, whereas Flacco would wildly underthrow Smith, he’d have to stop mid-route to try and adjust, the DB would crash into him by accident, and he’d draw a DPI flag. Six of one.
Speaking of flags…good lord. That’s one real negative from yesterday. Over 100 yards of penalty yards for the Patriots, 20 accepted penalties between the two teams. I legit can’t remember watching a game with more flags. It completely screwed the flow of the game. If there was a decent “flags as laundry” joke, I’d tell it here. But they’re all terrible.
Oh what the hell. Here are a few.
These refs must run a laundry mat in the offseason with all the clothes they’re throwing around!
Jeez, refs, just spring for a washing machine already!
There were so many flags thrown yesterday, they may have to change the penalty from “excessive holding” to “excessive flogging!”
There was so much laundry on the field, the ref started sorting their flags into lights and darks!
The only other real negative from yesterday is how riddled with injury this team is, with Will Campbell and TreVeyon Henderson now both expected to miss some time. Lomu filled in for Campbell so well that I completely forgot he was even there, but it’s insane how banged up this team is.
I really wish “I completely forgot you were even there” worked as a compliment anywhere other than when talking about an offensive lineman.
I mean the only real negative play on offense came when a third string RB coughed the ball up. But the Raiders came away with no points from the turnover and the Patriots scored a TD on the next drive to more or less put the game away. And that RB had 52 yards rushing on six carries, good for over an 8 yards per carry average.
I could talk about the offense all day. I feel like I haven’t even really done that much of a deep dive into how this team was able to attack Vegas on every level, from the short screens to the middle crossers to the deep shots. But I’m 25 notes in and I need to get on with my day. So let’s move to the defense.
Brock Bowers is an absolute animal. The focus seemed to be on limiting his production, and he still came away with 110 yards and a TD on eight grabs. That used to be the stat line of the third-string WR that the Patriots would force you to beat them with because they shut down the primary read. But Bowers showed why he’s the best TE in the game right now. Cap tip.
Just as the Patriots offense attacked the Raiders from all over the field, nobody on the Raiders offense was safe. New England only notched three sacks, but they were in the backfield all afternoon and won the trench battle handily.
Which technically allowed them to compensate for such a depleted secondary, as the heavy pressure and disguised blitz packages forced a lot of bad Cousins throws. But I don’t think that’s giving this secondary, down FOUR corners, the opportunity to stand on its own merit, which it 100% did.
Gabe Jacas is becoming a real problem. I don’t know if he has any pass rush moves beyond “plow big man over and hit smaller man with ball,” but as he continues to grow as a player and develops spin moves and rips, he’s going to be even more dangerous. It’s so wild, because he was downright awful in the preseason. Not even a “not really making an impact” type of thing, he was straight-up terrible. Overcommitting, misreading which gap to crash, getting bundled at the line. Whatever he did between then and now—perhaps harnessing his inner Lattimer—it sure as hell is working
The only downside: I was hoping that there would be a cool anagram for Gabriel Jacas that would make for a good nickname, but the only thing I could come up with was A Sea Crab Jig. Not really fitting; nobody gets intimidated by a guy named A Sea Crab Jig. Feel free to figure out some better ones. Like Rage Jail Scab.
But everyone on defense stepped up. Dre’Mont Jones was sniffing out reverses. Elijah Ponder was collapsing the line. Milton Williams blew up the middle. And Zak Kuhr was disguising his coverages so well I stopped even trying to figure out what package they were in. Loaded boxes became soft Cover-2. Cover-2 morphed into Quarters. Cover zeroes off of Big Nickels.
I don’t want to draw yet another flag for excessive celebration, so I better wrap this up. But before I do:
Yes, this win was awesome. But it wasn’t as awesome as seeing that 2001 squad come out of the tunnel as a team as the Patriots celebrated the 25th anniversary of the team’s first championship run. There will never be another season like that 2001 season, and no Super Bowl has ever, or will ever, ring as sweet. That was a really cool moment, and pretty fitting that it happened during a Raiders game.
And for the millionth time: the refs got The Tuck Rule call right. The rulebook at the time explicitly stated that Tom Brady’s arm motion on that play constituted a forward throwing motion, and it was thus an incomplete pass. It was an absurd rule, and one that they have since changed. If that exact play happened in 2026, it would be a fumble. But at the time, given the rules, it was the right call. It’s insane that there are still people out there dying on this hill
35 is a nice round number, so I’m ending here. But I have nothing else to say. Go Pats.