Everything you need to know from the Patriots’ season-opening loss to the Eagles in quickie form, with BSJ insight and analysis:
HEADLINES
Frustrating finish to the game will haunt the Patriots: With 9:39 left, trailing by 8 points faceing 4th and 3 at the Philly 17-yard line, Bill Belichick elected not to kick a field goal and the conversion was not succcessful. The Eagles then kicked a field goal to go up 11 with 5:38 left. Trailing by 5 with 2:24 left, Patriots went for it on 4th and 12 from the Eagles 43 — rookie K Chad Ryland had a big leg — and after a delay of game penalty, a 4th and 17 conversion was no good. In any event, the Patriots had the ball at the Philly 36 and 20 on two different drives in the last 3 minutes of the game trailing by 5 points and could not push it through for the go-ahead score. Frustrating.
"It's not very very good," Mac Jones said. "Not good by me. They gave me the ball twice to win the game and I couldn't do it. As a quarterback that hurts, right, you get a chance to win the game twice and can't do it."
Mac Jones, offense shoots self in foot early: On successive plays in the first quarter, Mac Jones threw high to Kendrick Bourne into the arms of Darius Slay for a pick-six to trail 10-0, and then Ezekiel Elliott fumbled at the New England 26 and that led to another score to put the Eagles up 16-0 about 12 minutes into the game. Ultimately, it was too big a hole.
"Obviously a disappointing finish here today," Belichick said. "We had our chances today. Got off to a slow start. Made it competitive, but just couldn't make enough plays here, or the ones we needed to make."
Defense more than does its job: The Patriots allowed the vaunted Eagles' offense to gain more than 50 yards on only the opening drive, which yielded just a field goal. After that drive, the Eagles to 195 yards on 47 plays, just 4.14 yards per play. Now, the Eagles were breaking in a new offensive coordinator who seemed to forget he had AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith and, especially Dallas Goedert (1 target, zero catches) at times and I'm sure the Eagles left pretty unhappy with their offense, but the Patriots' defense did a great job in this one.
Revamped offensive line does a decent job: Before the game, Cole Strange and Mike Onwenu were declared inactive, meaning rookies Atonio Mafi (LG) and Sidy Sow (RG) had to start along with Calvin Anderson at RT. Anderson didn't practice all summer. Sow only practiced at RT after playing guard in college. It wasn't perfect and the gameplan by Bill O'Brien seemed focused on getting the ball out quickly, but it was certainly good enough to win the game.
SECOND GUESS
Not kicking the field goal on 4th and 3. There's a lot of ballgame left. Even if Chad Ryland misses, it's not a disaster and the game is still winnable. Would be nice to get him a FG attempt before, say the game came down to a kick in the closing seconds.
"Made the best decision we could at the time," Belichick said. "Didn't know we would be down there multiple times. Six minutes to go in the game. I don't know. If we had kicked it, I'm sure you would be asking why didn't we go for it."
THREE UP
Hunter Henry: Was dominant at times with five catches for 56 yards and a touchdown. Made a sick one-handed catch.
Kendrick Bourne: Six catches for 64 yards and two touchdowns.
Rookies: A ton played a huge role — not only Mafi and Sow, but Christian Gonzalez, Keion White, Marte Mapu, both kickers — and they all seemed to do a very nice job and had an impact, especially White. Film review should be kind to him.
THREE DOWN
Ezekiel Elliott: Had the huge fumble and just seemed like the Patriots tried too hard to make him a factor in this game when he really didn't need to be with Rhamondre Stevenson and Ty Montgomery much more explosive.
Juju Smith-Schuster: Had just 4 catches for 33 yards and not only wasn't that much of a factor, but he wasn't on the field late in the game. Meanwhile, Jakobi Meyers caught 9 of 10 passes for 81 yards and two touchdowns in the Raiders' win at Denver.
Mac Jones: He had chances to be better in this game and he was not consistent enough. Caught fire for a while, and that was promising, but at other points he didn't play with enough toughness in the pocket.
INJURIES
None reported.
ONE TAKE BEDARD WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER
It's OK to take this as a moral victory, but I wouldn't go too nuts about it. The offense did not play well but there were a lot of good things to take from this (more on that later). And the defense did its job vs. the Eagles. But the rule is never to read too much into Week 1 in the NFL. The Eagles were obviously not a well-oiled machine with two new coordinators and the rain and the quick 16-0 lead seemed to lead them to playing more conservatively — they definitely weren't aggressive in the air until the second half. Did the Patriots look better than expected? Yes. Could they be better than we think? Yes. But we don't definitely know that yet, not off Week 1.