It’s been a long wait in between the New England Patriots season-opening loss and their home opener on Sunday, where they will look to get into the win column against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
So, let’s get into this week’s #PostPulpit Mailbag.
What happened to the deep-ball/explosive-play game vs. Seattle? My impression was that Seattle did a really good job taking away the deep ball, and I’ve seen some All-22 guys say the same. Is that what you saw, or was Maye also missing open guys? If so, why?
More broadly, I suspect we’ll see a lot more teams try to replicate Seattle’s approach against Maye/Pats. Which upcoming opponents are best equipped to do it? My understanding of Seattle’s formula is four-man pressure/stunts + strong run defense despite the light front, versatile second-level defenders, and especially split-safety/quarters-Cover 6 structures designed to take away explosives, with CBs good enough to hold up.
Pittsburgh has the pass rush. Can they replicate the other pieces of Seattle’s formula that gave Maye problems? – Maye The Force Be With You
This is now the blueprint against Drake Maye: Take away the deep ball and force him to take the profits underneath in order to string together long drives.
In last year’s playoffs, teams played two-high safeties against Maye 51% of the time. Against Seattle on Wednesday night, the quarterback faced split-safety coverages at a 57% clip. For three quarters, Maye played the effective but rather boring brand of football he needed to, living in the underneath area of the field to build a 10-0 lead.
Then, he admittedly lost his patience and started throwing downfield, which led to three interceptions and a blown lead.
“You can’t get bored taking what they give you, and that goes for everybody,” Mike Vrabel said.
As Vrabel said, beating these defenses moving forward will start with Maye being comfortable playing boring football. The Patriots also need to straight-up run the football better against lighter boxes, which would force defenses to move the second safety down into the box and open things up downfield for Maye.
They’ll get an immediate test again with the Steelers, as they played every dropback in zone in Week 1 while defensive coordinator Patrick Graham ran a similar strategy against the Patriots last season when he was with the Raiders.
Who takes Brown role while he’s out – XGhost-PepperX
There isn’t a 1-for-1 replacement when it comes to a player like A.J. Brown. It will be a group effort, with the Patriots utilizing multiple players and their versatility.
The biggest two are Romeo Doubs and Mack Hollins. From a production standpoint, Doubs simply needs to be better than his debut in Week 1 (0 catches, 3 targets), while Hollins has already proven his chemistry with Drake Maye. From a skill-set standpoint, both players have the ability to play Brown’s primary X spot, with the other working off of them at the Z spot. Hollins filling in at the X spot could also open the door for Efton Chism III to see the field in a blocking role.
Behind them, Kyle Williams will factor more into the mix due to his ability to play on the outside as well. The Patriots’ offense needs an injection of Williams’ speed, especially now in Brown’s absence.
When Gonzalez covered JSN, he had 1 catch for 5 yards; not covered by CG? 7 receptions for 117 yards & a TD. Even without the 45 yard TD, it was 6 receptions for 72. Should CG have been on JSN more, especially given that Drew Lock focused on JSN for half of his passes and 2/3rds of his yards? – PatsFanFromNH
Having your No. 1 cornerback follow the opposition’s No. 1 wide receiver all game sounds nice in theory. But it’s much more difficult to execute.
Beyond tipping your hand when you’re playing man coverage by having Gonzalez follow JSN across the formation, there is a domino effect in zone coverages when moving your secondary around. Gonzalez would then need to know the zone assignments from wherever he ends up on the field, which would force the other defensive backs to play in different spots and then adjust based on the original movement.
That creates a tall task for everyone when playing a team like Seattle, which moves JSN around the offense quite a bit. Perhaps it’s more doable against a team like Pittsburgh this week, which largely staples D.K. Metcalf to the outside.
Do we think Maye’s shoulder injury is 100% healed? In Week 1, a lot of his deep attempts came out like ducks very similar to how they did in last year’s playoffs. The flea flicker to Brown was particularly egregious – Brown had him beat by a decent margin and that ball was significantly under thrown. Even some of the shorter throws to check downs in the flat came out pretty weak. – Prontocosmo215
Any noticable change to Maye’s throwing mechanics from last year regular season, to post season, to week one this season? Obviously there’s injury claims floating around – Leoa888
I believe he’s healthy and have noticed nothing on the mechanics. I think the biggest issues for the velocity was just Maye playing his first game in seven months and a lack of decisiveness on some of the throws. The flea flicker falls more in the bucket of timing, as Brown takes off downfield before Stevenson flips the ball back to Maye, who then is rushed and does not want to overthrow Brown as the receiver is running out of room vertically.
Hey Brian. Do you think we see a more even distribution of snaps with the running backs this week, considering Henderson seems to be trending towards playing and Rhamondre’s heavy workload last week? – Pat In Agawam
Yes, I would expect it to be more balanced. Stevenson playing 85 percent of the snaps in unattainable moving forward. The Patriots also could Henderson’s big-play ability and just overall speed on the offense
Last year’s team had great chemistry. Why on Earth would they not try harder to resign Gibbens, Chaisson, & Tonga? All 3 positions lacked depth going into the season. You can’t build chemistry with 1 year rentals every season. And every draft pick they made on Day 3 is garbage. That’s why our depth will be our downfall this season. – VinnieBoombatz71
Tonga got priced out in Kansas City for the Patriots liking. Chaisson wasn’t a fit for what they were looking for off of the field. Gibbens was an interesting choice due to his value and history with Mike Vrabel, but did struggle a bit down the stretch. We’ll see if the depth ultimately improves or costs them.
What are some of the things to be excited about the next week? – sumeetw
Football is back in Foxboro, that’s worthy being excited about. But seriously, a bounce back Drake Maye game would be huge and while A.J. Brown’s injury is a tough loss, I am excited to see who steps up in the wide receiver room (Kyle Williams?).
Will we win a single game this season? Some fans think we’re heading towards 0-17! – tsarsyrup1215
I believe they can. In fact, I’m picking them to do just that this Sunday.
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 on the Feed. Make sure to follow @iambrianhines and @PatsPulpit as well.
