Ahead of his first training camp as Patriots head coach in 2025, Mike Vrabel explained that he was judging his team’s performances by three distinct categories: the good, the bad, and the s—t that gets you beat. If Vrabel looks at his team through those specific categorizations, we shall follow his lead.
The New England Patriots headed to Germany with big expectations and a desire to bounce back after a blowout loss to the Packers the previous week. Well, that didn’t go as planned: the Patriots lost
quarterback Drake Maye in the first quarter, and eventually the game as a whole in lopsided fashion.
With that said, let’s dive into our breakdown of the good and the not-so-good from the 35-10 defeat in Munich.
The good: The interceptions, I guess
When you lose by 25 points, there really is not a lot that went right. That obviously is true for this game. But, look for positives we must, and so we go the two interceptions the Patriots caught off of Lions quarterback Jared Goff.
The first came courtesy of Christian Gonzalez, who undercut a pass intended for Amon-Ra St. Brown to register his first pick of the year. Later in the first half, Kevin Byard was able to get Goff a second time in the back of the end zone. On a bad day of defensive football, and Patriots football as a whole, those were two encouraging moments — the only two.
The bad: Tackling
The Patriots defense was bad across the board against the Lions, and tackling was one of its biggest issues against the Lions. According to Pro Football Focus, the unit missed 10 tackle attempts before the backups took over late in the fourth quarter.
It wasn’t just the number of missed tackles, but the quality of them.
On Detroit’s very first touchdown of the day, Christian Gonzalez had a chance to tackle Amon-Ra St. Brown short of the sticks to force a Lions punt. Instead, he came in too hot and allowed St. Brown to side-step him for a conversation, and more: St. Brown took the short pass all the way for a 56-yard touchdown because Craig Woodson also took a questionable angle to the ball and Marcus Jones failed to get him to the ground either.
On St. Brown’s second touchdown of the day, there was more subpar tackling. Christian Elliss, Kevin Byard and Woodson all had a shot at bringing him down, but couldn’t do it. That very much was the theme of the day for the Patriots on the defensive side of the ball.
The s—t that gets you beat: Losing Drake Maye
Typically, we avoid mentioning injuries in this breakdown. That said, if it is as substantial as this one we would be remiss to leave it unmentioned.
The Patriots looked good moving the ball on their first drive of the game, before back-to-back penalties in the red zone knocked them back. As if those weren’t bad enough, Drake Maye was sacked on third down to force a field goal. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he also suffered an ankle injury that ultimately forced him out of the game.
There is no sugar-coating it: this is bad. Even though he has had a hit-or-miss season so far, Maye is still the Patriots’ most important player and somebody who has the most impact on the Patriots’ fortunes. We saw it first-hand on Sunday.
While Maye not getting injured would not have guaranteed a victory either — the Patriots’ issues went beyond one player, even if that player is their starting quarterback — they likely would have been more competitive on offense than they ultimately were. And in case Maye is forced to miss time beyond just the majority of this game, their competitiveness as a whole is very much in question.
