FOXBOROUGH — Since his first day since being hired as Patriots head coach, Mike Vrabel said everything was going to be about the players, especially the team's success.
Sometimes those players need a lot of help from their coaches, and that was the case in New England's 16-3 wild-card playoff victory over the Chargers on Sunday night.
One happened during the week. The other happened during the game. But the result was the same — advantage Patriots — and it might be the advantage that winds up propelling them to a Super Bowl appearance in a couple of weeks.
You get to this stage in the playoffs, every team has its share of great players. Sometimes you can get a dead heat there. The teams that keep advancing often have the better coaches (uh, Matt LaFleur, Nick Sirriani). I mean, the Patriots' dynasty was basically built on that. We know Tom Brady was responsible for a lot, but he still needed coaches like Bill Belichick, Charlie Weis, Josh McDaniels, Dante Scarnecchia, Ivan Fears, Scotty O'Brien ... (I could keep going) ... to do their part to put the team over the top, sometimes in the middle of a game.
This was the first playoff game for Vrabel and his Patriots coaching staff. If this were any indication, Patriots 2.0 seems to be in very good hands.
Let's start with the defense. I don't know who was responsible for it. It could be Vrabel, interim defensive coordinator Zak Kuhr, maybe sideline defensive coordinator Terrell Williams was working away on his own for weeks, or one of the assistant coaches. I don't know, and we won't know for a while — maybe this staff's version of Do Your Job, or Four Games to Glory. All I know is the game plan the Patriots coaches came out with against the Chargers had Los Angeles and quarterback Justin Herbert completely befuddled.
“Zak [Kuhr] has been great all year. He keeps the dial spinning. He keeps offenses guessing. All year, he has been doing that," said Robert Spillane. "You know, just after the game, talking to a few of the guys on the other team, they had no clue what we were doing. And they came up and said that: ‘We had no clue what you guys were in all game.’ So for him just to be able to build those packages throughout the week, our back-end players to know how to disguise the different defenses, really keeps quarterbacks guessing.”
I don't know if I've ever heard a quote like that. If I'm Kuhr, I'm putting that in 50-point font at the top of my coaching resume. As a coach, it simply doesn't get better than that. It is the highest of compliments, and absolutely the probable nail in the coffin of the opposing coordinator. In this case, it was Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman. Even Jim Harbaugh couldn't give him a vote of confidence after the game when asked if Roman was the right person to be coordinating this offense.
"Right now I don’t have the answers," Harbaugh said. "We’re going to look at that – at everything."
Pity Herbert. No weapons. No offensive line. And absolutely no help from the coaching staff.
We've been talking all season — often in regards to Christian Gonzalez's future value to this team — about how the Patriots had the potential to become a good man-to-man team with corners like Gonzalez, Carlton Davis and Marcus Jones. Vrabel even talked about the potential "cat" coverage — I've got that cat, you've got that cat — when the top-line free agent additions were introduced. Yet the Patriots, even though they increased man rate over the last month, never really saw that out of them.
Until Sunday night.
It started before the very first snap. There were the three corners, standing near Spillane, waiting to see which receivers went where out of the Chargers' huddle. Gonzalez went with Quentin Johnston, Jones with Ladd McConkey, and Davis followed either Tre Harris or Keenan Allen. On third down, Gonzalez often went with Allen, who had by far the most third-down targets on the Chargers (53 to McConkey's 29).
The advanced analytics will tell you the Patriots played almost the exact same man coverage as their season average (about 29%). But that's not true. It might have been "zone", but the Patriots were matching. Tightly. And the Chargers had no clue what to do about it, because the Patriots had not shown that potential all season. It was a master coaching class by the Patriots' defensive coaches, who completely pantsed Roman. He's always, from the 49ers to the Ravens and now the Chargers, has always struggled with the passing game (his run game is pretty good). And it's like the Patriots went into this one and said, "If we show Roman something he wasn't prepared for, he's not going to be able to adjust." Mission accomplished.
"I mean, I’m not going to give you the secret sauce, so I would never do that," said Davis. "But we did have a good feel for what they wanted to do."
You could see it in the way Herbert played. When he understood what the Patriots were in, he was fine. On quick attempts under 2.5 seconds, he completed 11 of his 14 attempts for 87 yards. When he was running for his life or confused by the coverage, he held onto the ball and was 8 of 17 for 72 yards on dropbacks over 2.5 seconds. In all, Herbert averaged a 3.24-second time to throw, his third-longest in a game in his career. That's not being provided answers by his coordinator/playcaller. Kuhr TKO'd Roman.
"I would tell you this means a lot to (Kuhr). These players mean a lot to him," Vrabel said. "I think that they want to do well for Zak and for the entire staff that put a lot into it. I’m proud of Zak for not only the performance, calling the game, but the preparation and what goes into it. He’s earned every bit of recognition that he’s getting and should get. Again, it takes everybody. There’s great communication from upstairs, getting it to the players. They certainly respond. All the credit has to go to them. But Zak was able to change up some calls there at the end. I felt like that mixed the pressure in because that’s what we felt like we needed."
(Adam Richins for BSJ)
The Patriots also had their highest blitz rate of the season (45.5%) and sent their most six-man rushes since Week 1 (15.9%). The Patriots sent six rushers on 23% in the second half, by far their most of the season, which helped boost the pass rush in the second half. The Patriots basically unleashed hell on Herbert in the second, as he was 1 of 7 for 0 net passing yards until it was 16-3, and sacked him four times with two strip sacks.
The Patriots blitzed and got pressure on Herbert 39% in the first half, with most of it coming late. This is where the pressure came from in the first half:
The second half pressure rate was 54% and they blitzed 50% of the time, and the big dogs ate more in the second half:
Speaking of Gonzalez. I don't think we need to question his value. Before being ruled out of the game with a concussion, he was All-Pro Gonzalez again. From NextGenStats: Christian Gonzalez was targeted three times across his 13 matchups against Quentin Johnston (5 in man coverage), forcing one tight window and not allowing a single reception. Gonzalez also did not allow any receptions on his two other targets across his other 13 coverage snaps.
Luckily for Drake Maye, he doesn't have Roman. He has McDaniels, who can actually provide his quarterback with answers. There's no one who is better at in-game adjustments than McDaniels. After Maye struggled in the first half (6 of 15, 95 yards, INT, 34.0 passer rating) with 17 dropbacks (two sacks) compared to just eight carries for the two running backs, you thought McDaniels would rein it back in and go bully ball on the ground, like I thought he would do from the outset.
Nope. The Patriots had a 67-33 pass-run split in the third quarter when Maye was 7 of 10 for 118 yards and a 109.6 passer rating as they found their footing with drives of 58 (fumble), 64 (field goal), and 80 yards (touchdown) to grab control of the game.
"It wasn’t my best tonight," Maye said. "But that’s why you have teammates, those guys picked me up. Never lost confidence. Was still slinging it around. Kayshon [Boutte] made some big plays. Came after the ball twice on some big plays. That’s the thing about us, we spread it around, can do a lot of things."
I'm not exactly sure how McDaniels did it because the two stats sites I rely on have differing numbers on this — one says they killed them in 21 and 13 personnel, the other says 11 and 12 personnel — but my live recollection was McDaniels alternated between throwing out of the heavier formations, and spreading the Chargers out so they couldn't get to the famous post-snap looks.
The result was McDaniels eventually winning the tighter matchup with Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter. It might have been a little easier had the players cashed in on McDaniels' schemed-up plays earlier — Efton Chism missing a wide-open Maye on WR pass, Maye overthrowing Austin Hooper for a touchdown targeting safety Elijah Molden — but it finally came together on Maye's 28-yard touchdown pass to Henry with 9:45 left, when maligned blocker TreVeyon Henderson made the key blitz pickup.
“It was honestly just great scheme and great design by Josh [McDaniels]," said Henry. "Good timing. It’s something we work on and obviously they’re a very predominantly zone team. They played zone and we just caught them. Drake [Maye] obviously threw a great ball. It took all guys and they blitzed a guy I just saw up the middle. TreVeyon [Henderson] made a big-time block up the middle right there to give Drake a little extra time. It takes all 11 guys. Kyle [Williams’] speed out there is a threat and guys have to really respect him. [Kyle Williams] ran a great route and they have to respect him. It takes all 11 guys and we were just able to execute in a big moment.”
It wasn't pretty at all, but the Patriots eventually got the job done. The players did it on the field, but they got a huge assist from their coaches, namely Kuhr and McDaniels.
They both won their matchups, which allowed the Patriots to win theirs.