Bedard's Breakdown: Decision to start Drake Maye after coaches cost team vs. Miami doesn't sit well

The decision made Tuesday by the Patriots to bench Jacoby Brissett in favor of Drake Maye was completely justifiable based on the film and just about any analytic/stat you can find.

For the second straight week, Brissett was my lowest-graded offensive player in Sunday's 15-10 loss to the Dolphins. I said a week ago that Brissett's terrible performance against the 49ers, in which for the first time he was a detriment to the Patriots' chance at victory, had started on the clock on Maye Watch. Another stinker against the Dolphins, and the decision would be justified.

Brissett was not good against the Dolphins but ... he was not to blame for the Patriots losing a game they had no business losing to the bumbling Dolphins and Tyler Huntley.

That would go squarely on the coaches, starting with Jerod Mayo. The Patriots lost that game due to a horribly conceived offensive gameplan that was never adjusted despite leading the entire game, multiple game management issues (again) by Mayo, a terrible performance by the special teams, a defense getting run-on and handing the Dolphins six points, and an undisciplined team with 12 penalties for 105 yards.

Despite all that, despite his own struggles while taking another 14 hits in the game, Brissett was able to drive the team in position to win the game before more terrible playcalling and a rookie receiver did not get his second foot down on a potential game-winning touchdown.

Put it to you this way: if Ja'Lynn Polk got his foot down and the Patriots won the game, does anyone think this change would have been made?

Of course not, and I don't really care when the Patriots predictably push against that. This was not part of the famous "plan" for Maye. But this is par for the course so far for the Mayo regime.

Maye has been inserted to distract the masses from the fact that the Patriots have devolved into a mess, it's getting worse by the week and the responsibility for all that falls on the head coach, just like it did Bill Belichick the previous few seasons.

Mayo has spoken often about laying the foundation for his program this season, and lately, as the losses have piled up - one seemingly worse than the last - he's added something along the line of while "taking their lumps."

Five games into his coaching career ... can anyone lay out exactly what the foundation is? What does the program stand for? Not actual words: the product that you see on the field.

Week 1 was a great start and the vision, to me and everyone else, was clear. Mayo his deserved flowers.

Bedard: Thanks to his defense, Jerod Mayo's vision for the Patriots was near-perfect in upset of Bengals

With the lead and the ball at the Seattle 25 with 6 minutes left, I was ready to pen something about how Mayo had this all figured out, he knew what he was doing, kudos to Mayo, long live the new king of Foxborough.

Since then, it's gone completely downhill and Mayo looks helpless to stop it.

Enter Maye. The savior. 

We're now five games into this thing. Extended preseason is over. I know they have new coaching staffs, but we should start, at this point, to see the roots start to take hold. The Patriots should be starting on the upswing. That has not happened, and injuries are not an excuse. They're not an excuse to be non-competitive against the Jets (who just fired their coach) and 49ers. And injuries are certainly no excuse to lose to a terrible Dolphins team that tried multiple times to hand you the game and had journeyman like Huntley at quarterback.

Sunday's loss was 100 percent the fault of the coaching staff and Mayo.

"I thought we played well enough defensively and on special teams to win the football game," Mayo told reporters this week.

Seriously? What game was he watching?

His defense allowed Miami running backs (they lost De'Von Achane early by the way) to rush 35 times for 184 yards (5.3 average), including seven straight times to take the lead with their only touchdown. Just the previous week, the Dolphins couldn't leak drop rushing against the Titans with 22 carries for 66 yards. The Dolphins and Huntley scored on all three second-half possessions against this vaunted defense.

The defense and coordinator DeMarcus Covington also handed the Dolphins two field goals with absurdly conservative playcalls. At the end of the first drive, on 3rd and 17 from the NE 49, the Patriots played way off and conceded a 13-yard pass to Jonnu Smith. Jason Sanders hit the 54-yarder. Near the end of the third quarter, on 3rd and 13 at the NE 40, Christian Gonzalez was asked to play well off Jaylen Waddle and his easy 11-yard reception led to a 47-yard field goal.

The special teams were good? Brenden Schooler had a great punt block, but Joey Slye missed a 33-yard field goal, Bryce Baringer had three touchbacks that affected field position, and a shanked net punt of 31 yards that gave Miami the ball at the New England 44 with 55 seconds before halftime. Luckily for the Patriots, in a theme the entire day New England couldn't take advantage of, the Dolphins vomited on themselves with a groundball snap on the field goal.

And Mayo thinks that's good? They were "good enough"?

If we're judging on Mayo's sliding scale, you know who was good enough? Brissett ... except Polk decided to scissor kick on a perfectly catchable touchdown pass to cost the Patriots a much-needed (not necessarily deserved) victory.

It was just like the Seattle game — when Mayo's management at the end of the first gifted Seattle three points, the Patriots burned two timeouts early in the second half and didn't have enough to help at the end, Mayo took the ball in overtime and predictably punted after being stuffed on 3rd and 1.

If the Patriots had a head coach and a coaching staff capable of solving problems and finding solutions, the Patriots are now 3-2 and no one is talking about Maye.

But now they're 1-4 and guess who's being inserted into the lineup? I'm sure we'll hear about how Maye is "ready" and this was all part of the plan.

Please, does anyone actually believe that? Let's also mention that Maye's ascension was leaked to the media on a day when most players are off - five weeks after Mayo said it was important for him to announce the season's starting quarterback to the entire team.

"We have decided - or I have decided - that Jacoby Brissett will be our starting quarterback this season," he said at the time.

... unless we're 1-4 and the coaches need someone to bail them out.

Because that's what's going on.

We haven't even touched on another horrendous offensive gameplan hatched by Alex Van Pelt against the Dolphins (the decision to throw early and often against the Jets ... also not great).

It is the responsibility of the head coach to have a clear vision of how to win the game that week, communicate that to the coordinators and make sure they set the gameplans accordingly.

This is what Mayo should have told Van Pelt going into this game: "We're breaking in a new offensive line. Let's go run-heavy, at least to start this game, to get their feet under them. Miami's run defense is not very good, they're 26th in DVOA. They are scoring 11 points a game. Tyler Huntley is their quarterback. They are very mistake-prone. We shouldn't have to do much offensively to win this game. Control the ball, play field position, and don't turn it over. If we do what we did against the Bengals, that should be good enough. I want a 65-35 run/pass split. I don't care if we don't throw 10 passes in this game. The Dolphins are soft. Let's be physical with them, pound them and see how the game goes."

Guess what happened?

The Patriots ran for 7 yards on the first play of the game, then went sack, sack.

In the first half, the Patriots dropped back 17 times, including penalties. They rushed seven times. Not even Rhamondre Stevenson's 33-yard touchdown run, which was blocked like a Picasso (and gave New England a 7-3 for the rest of the half), caused Mayo or anyone else to say, "Let's just pound the ball." Patriots also didn't run the ball with a minute left in the first half, and threw four passes from the 12-yard with 1:30 left in the game with all three timeouts left.

That's on the head coach.

We also haven't mentioned the Dolphins had a missed FG, punt blocked, Jonnu Smith drop on a potential big play deep in NE territory (that looked familiar), an early snap for 22-yard loss that took them out of field goal range, and two Waddle drops.

There was also Keion White's continued undisciplined play. After being tabbed selfish by teammates for his rushes, he had the horsecollar tackle (fine, it happens), a vicious roughing the passer penalty on third down that would have gotten him thrown out of a college game for targeting.

He also easily could have been penalized (and will likely be fined) for slamming Huntley to the turf on the two-point conversion.

And Christian Elliss had a completely unnecessary pass interference penalty on third and long where letting Raheem Mostert catch the ball would have probably led to a punt or long field goal. Dolphins scored the go-ahead touchdown seven plays later.

Of course, there's also the very serious off-field matter involving Jabrill Peppers, a captain, on early Saturday morning.

Does any of this sound like an organization dialed in and following some masterplan?

This is the kind of stuff you get when your head coach doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't have clear plans laid out for years about what his program looks like, who he wants on his coaching staff, and how he wants to play on all sides of the ball. We know Mayo didn't have any of those things laid out because he didn't have to interview for the Patriots. This is the result you get when you don't have a clear vision for your program.

This looks like a team that has an untrained, not-ready CEO coach at the front delgating everything to his coordinators and coaching staff, which is exponentially larger than years past. I mean, what the heck is he doing all week? If you ask me, he's not doing much, likely walking around the building talking to people, thinking up the next mean-nothing corporate jargon he loves to spew, or whatever he's going to stick into the squad meeting, like a mirror slide.

They better hope Drake Maye is the savior type. We know they need it.

Here are my real-time observations about the offense in the second half as I evaluated the tape (again, sorry for the f-bombs):

Here are the positional ratings against the Dolphins:

OFFENSE

Quarterback (1 out of 5)

Brissett was not good in this one again. I charged him with two of his 12 knockdowns in this game, but not the two sacks on the first drive of the game. He has seven minus decisions, and five poor throws. Five plus plays, all of them were completions under pressure. ... The most egregious misses were on the deep shot to Demario Douglas (credit to AVP for scheming up the blocking) and the sideline throw to Ja'Lynn Polk that was much too late. Douglas had the corner turned, Brissett just needs to flatten him out and it's at least first and goal. ... That being said, this offense is a mess. There were at least three plays where players either ran the wrong route, or didn't know they were supposed to be receivers and were setting up to block. Kendrick Bourne ran the wrong route at 6:30 3Q third down (Hunter Henry was motioning for him to clear out), which caused Brissett to throw to Stevenson for -1. ... The 3rd and 15 draw to Stevenson that went for 1 yard was actually a good check by Brissett, but half the guys didn't know it was a running play, certainly not Polk who just ran a half-ass route instead of blocking the safety that made the tackle (it might have been a TD if he did). ... On the final desperation drive, the first play appeared to be designed for someone (likely Antonio Gibson) to come on a low crosser with blockers and then out of bounds. Gibson ran into the flat. The final pass that went to Henry was supposed to go to Douglas on drag out of bounds but Brissett didn't throw it for some reason. ... Douglas had a big drop because he slowed down coming out of his break. Polk had two drops, including the touchdown. ... AVP's route combinations continue to be uninspired but I did appreciate the increase of trips, they're just very rudimentary.

Running backs (3 out of 5)

Rhamondre Stevenson was terrific and one would think that 33-yard touchdown (and the fact he run blocking allowed just three stuffed runs) would have gotten AVP to go more to the ground, but that was not the case and a serious error in this game. ... Antonio Gibson continues to look good with the ball in his hand, but he was terrible in pass protection with a half sack and knockdown allowed. They might need to play Ja'Mychal Hasty more in that role.

Receivers (1 out of 5)

You know what's sad? The Patriots receivers and tight ends might have done their best work run blocking (in a game they didn't run enough). Kayshon Boutte was great on the TD and had a terrific route for 13 yards. Austin Hooper also had two standout run blocks but screwed up on the final play of the game not blocking the inside rusher, which didn't give Brissett a chance. ... Bourne had two bad routes, which has been a constant theme since he's been here. ... Polk was not good in this game, aside from the drops. He had a stuff run, hurry, holding penalty and a bad route.

Offensive line (1.5 out of 5)

Was it better? Yes, and there's some hope this group can settle down and be solid with more work together. The left side of the line stood out, especially Michael Jordan who you could make the argument for being the Patriots' best lineman this season with David Andrews out. ... That's not a great comment on Mike Onwenu, who continues to underachieve despite going back to his more natural right guard. Hopefully he was knocking some rust off there. ... Demontrey Jacobs had three standout run blocks and struggled a bit in pass pro. He is promising. ... Nick Leverett was not good in this game, but he wasn't as bad as the PFF numbers of like 10 pressures. I had him for 2.5.

DEFENSE

Defensive line (3 out of 5)

You know what the funny thing is? If you take out Keion White's two mindless penalties and the fact that Davon Godchaux really wore down in the second half playing 54 snaps (this is going to continue to be a problem I expect teams to exploit due to NE's lack of interior depth), this was actually a good performance for this group in terms of taking care of their business. Just not a whole lot of impact plays, especially with an anemic pass rush that only had a 30% pressure rate and a quarter of that pressure was generated by Huntley himself. The Patriots are 23rd in the league in pressure rate (32.8%), and I think that's being generous. They are 28th in sack rate (5.9%). ... Godchaux and Marte Mapu were responsible for the rushing touchdown.

Linebackers (1.5 out of 5)

This is where most of the issues were in the run game, specifically with Raekwon McMillan, who was awful and factored heavily in on plays of 20, 12, 10, 12, 17 and 16 yards. They need Sione Takitaki back badly. ... Jahlani Tavai had a nice bounceback game. 

Secondary (x out of 5)

Patriots played 32% man against the Dolphins, but it felt like more. ... This could have been worse if Huntley was any good, but Christian Gonzalez and Marte Mapu both had some really good plays, but they also had their share of struggles. ... Gonzalez's interception was a terrific read. His end zone breakup shouldn't have happened - Huntley had another receiver open but he threw up a prayer. Gonzalez looked really good in man against Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. ... Mapu was very active on all three levels and looked very good with his quickness and smarts. Needs to knock off some rust.

THREE UP

Rhamondre Stevenson: Great TD run and pickup of a key third down before that. Hung onto the ball.

Kayshon Boutte: Not a whole lot great in this game overall, but Boutte's run block and catch were both very nice plays.

Chrisitan Gonzalez: Hard to judge with Huntley at QB, but he was very sticky in coverage all game.

(Honorable mention: Michael Jordan, Anfernee Jennings, Jahlani Tavai, Marte Mapu.)

THREE DOWN

The coaching staff: They screwed the pooch on this game.

Raekwon McMillan: Was late and overpowered in the run game.

Nick Leverett: Really struggled with power in this game.

(Dishonorable mention: Jacoby Brissett, Demontrey Jacobs, Ja'Lynn Polk, Hunter Henry, Kendrick Bourne, Keion White, Christian Eliss, Dell Pettus.)