The New England Patriots played one of the worst games you’ll see a team play on Sunday. They out-gained the Steelers, had more first downs, had a significantly higher time of possession, but turned the ball over give times and ended up losing 21-14 to the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers.
Let’s get into the lessons learned from Sunday.
The Patriots keep failing the assignment
Mike Vrabel had said from the very beginning of his tenure as Patriots head coach that he wanted his team to take advantage of bad football. Well, it’s tough to do that when
you’re playing bad football yourself.
The Patriots turned the ball over five times, including twice from the Steelers’ 2-yard line. You just simply cannot do that and expect to win in the NFL, as Vrabel himself said after the game.
“We don’t need to learn a lesson. We don’t need to lose a football game to know that turnovers are very hard to overcome,” he said. “They erase all the good things that you do. They take away momentum. They take away points, give them field position. We didn’t need to turn it over as many times as we did to learn a lesson. I think we knew that before. It was very unfortunate.”
The Patriots have to clean that up quickly, because this was a game that they very well could have won. They didn’t because they repeatedly kept shooting themselves in the foot, and as a consequence failed to meet Vrabel’s goal of taking advantage of the opponents’ miscues (and there were plenty of those, too).
The running back room is a mess
While we are on the subject of turnovers…
Obviously, Rhamondre Stevenson had an abysmal game on Sunday, but he wasn’t the only back to have a bad day. Antonio Gibson did not fare much better, with a fumble of his own, and only 28 yards on seven carries. TreVeyon Henderson, meanwhile, does not look at all like the dynamic playmaker he was in preseason; in fact, he looks lost on more plays than not (the one that sticks out to me the most is a run to the left where he had a blocker in front of him and one defender. Instead of waiting for the block to set up, or cutting inside, he just ran right into the defender for a 2-yard gain).
Henderson has real speed, but we haven’t seen it in a regular season game yet, because he hasn’t been able to get into the open field. When he has, he hasn’t been able to shake any defenders coming to tackle him. If the Patriots, who are trying to be a running team, can’t get better play out of their backs, it’s going to be an awfully long season.
DeMario Douglas needs a reset
Third-year wide receiver DeMario Douglas was targeted five times on Sunday, and finished with two receptions for 7 yards to bring his season total to five catches, 13 yards, and one touchdown. Three weeks into the season, him and Drake Maye just don’t seem to be on the same page.
He had Douglas open on the final drive and threw it behind him (it looked like Maye thought he was going to sit down, but not sure why he would have thought that). Then, he seemingly had the first down at the end of the game but went backwards instead of just extending a bit to have the ball touch the plane.
In general, awareness and play speed seems to be a problem for Douglas in his first year under coordinator Josh McDaniels. Maybe Efton Chism is ready for the big time, or maybe the Patriots could roll with Stefon Diggs in the slot and Kayshon Boutte and Kyle Williams outside, but something needs to change for the offense and DeMario Douglas.
The O-line takes a step back
After a solid game in their first win last week, the offensive line had a rough outing on Sunday. Drake Maye was sacked five times and was under pressure all day long.
They also had a hard time opening any running lanes for their running backs as well. The Steelers had allowed over 30 points in both of their first two games, and had been terrible against the run as well. The Patriots, however, would only end with 14 points and had a hard time getting anything going on the ground even though the final stat line did not look all that bad.
That 29-carry, 119-yard, 4.1-yard average outing is deceptive, though. If we remove Drake Maye scrambles, the Patriots gained only 77 yards at 3.2 yards per run with three fumbles.
The offensive line isn’t as bad as it was last year, but Sunday was a reminder that it still has a ways to go.
Drake Maye outplayed Aaron Rodgers
The Patriots are hoping that Drake Maye can grow into an elite quarterback in this league, and it looks like he’s started his journey there. He made some fantastic throws on Sunday, and did some damage with his feet as well.
Of course, his interception in the end zone (yes, it was tipped, but I think he should have put more air on it anyway), and his fumble were crushing mistakes, but he’s going to make those. The fumble was simply him trying to do too much.
Overall, though he did a good job of taking what the defense gave him, and even checked it down at times to give his receivers a chance to make a play, which is a very important ability for a young QB. He also had the bad miss to DeMario Douglas in the flat, but you are not going to make every throw. Of course, when you turn the ball over as much as the Patriots did as a team on Sunday, those missed opportunities can get overly scrutinized.
Overall, Maye had a solid game, and was pretty clearly the better quarterback on Sunday. Now, he needs to be able to limit his mistakes and, hopefully, that will turn into more wins for the Patriots moving forward.
Hunter Henry is reliability personified
Hunter Henry remains the Patriots’ most reliable receiving option, and he showed again on Sunday. He finished the day with 90 yards on eight catches and scored both of his team’s touchdowns versus Pittsburgh
He was Drake Maye’s favorite target last year, and was consistently open against the Steelers and fought for every yard when he had the opportunity. Ideally, some of the other receivers would get more targets, because Henry had 11 and the only other Patriot to have more than three was DeMario Douglas, who we already spoke about. If Maye is comfortable with Henry, however, he should keep throwing his way and maybe that will open up some of the windows for his other receivers.
Of course, as productive as Henry is as a pass catcher, the Patriots might have to stop having him block edge defenders by himself. He’s just not that good at it.
Officiating was bad (but didn’t make a difference in the end)
The officiating on Sunday was downright dreadful.
For starters, the low block on Marcus Jones was just a deeply strange call; he’s diving to try to make a tackle on the ball carrier and gets hit when he does it, and that’s somehow a penalty. The DPI call on Carlton Davis falls into the same category, and even was commented on by Mike Vrabel post-game.
“You’d have to tell me that that penalty on Carlton Davis is actually defensive pass interference. That’s new for me,” he remarked.
The defensive holding call on Alex Austin on the second drive might be the worst call of the day, though. Third down, strip sack by Milton Williams, and it’s wiped off the board because Austin touches the receiver coming off the line.
Of course, the Patriots and Steelers both got away with some plays that should have been called, and the Patriots got bailed out by a phantom illegal contact call on the Steelers on the first drive. Ultimately, they lost because of their own ineptitude, but the league has an officiating problem, and it was evident in Foxboro on Sunday.
They shouldn’t overthink the coin toss
The Patriots won the coin toss before the game and elected to receive, meaning that they would kick off to start the second half. This made little sense given how they looked so far this season, and — as it turns out — on Sunday as well: they were sluggish at best were bailed out by a questionable third down call (more on that later). For a game that looked like it was going to be a rock fight, choosing to receive was a rather bizarre choice. Not sure if it was a miscommunication with the captains, but little things like that can end up making a difference.
The defense plays better overall
After giving up what felt like an unlimited amount of big plays the first two weeks of the season, the Patriots defense only gave up one play over 20 yards on Sunday. Now, Alex Austin was benched in favor of Charles Woods, which is not great, but the defense, overall, played a little better this week than they did last week.
Robert Spillane, who had, rightfully, been the target of a lot of criticism, had an interception and 15 total tackle; Joshua Farmer saw some extended work at defensive tackle, looked very good, and should continue to be part of the rotation; Harold Landry had another solid game rushing the passer, even though he didn’t have a sack.
It wasn’t perfect, but, after the first two drives, the defense was significantly better in than it was the first two weeks of the season. Ideally, they can build off it and show more progress moving forward.
Getting Christian Gonzalez back would help with that as well.
Carolina comes to town
When the season started, the Panthers coming into town looked like an easy win, and it might have even looked that way the first two weeks. This week, however, the Panthers blanked the Falcons 30-0, and they showed signs of a solid football team.
As we know, anything can happen on any given Sunday, but the difference in how the two teams presented themselves in Week 3 could be a little bit of a concern. If the Patriots can eliminate the turnovers and play consistent football, they should be able to win, but the prior confidence might need to be scaled back a bit.
