That wasn’t a vintage Patriots performance offensively on Sunday night. They were loose with the football - two fumbles (one lost) and one interception - and got bogged down repeatedly in the red area, failing to score touchdowns on all three trips inside the 20-yard line.
Generally, that’s a recipe to get you beat. But with the defense putting Justin Herbert in the torture chamber - how sore is he today? - the offense was able to work through some of its issues, hit paydirt late and live to see another day. Will that be good enough this weekend against either Pittsburgh or Houston? Drake Maye would rather not find out.
“Just got to be better, whether it's accuracy or ball placement or little things, making decisions faster,” he said post-game after his 17-of-29 performance. “Held onto the ball a little bit ... Finally got one in the end (the TD to Hunter Henry). I missed Hoop on a touchdown. Feel like I missed Pop (Douglas) on a third down low. It wasn't my best ... 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.”
Make no mistake: the Chargers defense made life hard for Maye and company. As Josh McDaniels accurately predicted several days prior, defensive coordinator Jesse Minter presented a slew of pre-snap looks designed to slow Maye’s decision-making down, even if for just a beat or two longer. That contributed to the quarterback holding the ball too long on occasion (as he mentioned). But it was also what was happening up front that exposed Maye to five sacks and several other hits.
Four of those sacks were on the left side of the offensive line. Rookies Will Campbell and Jared Wilson were given fits by the length and power of that LA defensive line. As I highlighted in this past weekend’s Notebook, this was going to be a problem for Campbell in particular when longer defenders can get their hands into his chest plate and control him.
Sacks:
- Khalil Mack gets chipped by Henry, and Campbell leaves too long a runway for the veteran edge rusher. He explodes into Campbell’s chest plate and drives him back toward the outside shoulder of Maye. The QB realizes he’s got to step up, but Odafe Oweh is waiting for him and cleans up for the sack.
- The Chargers run a game. Big DT Da’Shawn Hand essentially picks Wilson while Garrett Bradbury is riding him to the outside. Tuli Tuipulotu starts on Wilson, but swims to the inside and has a clear pathway to Maye.
- Oweh stormed the castle on this one. He attacked Campbell's outside shoulder, got leverage, bending by him at the top of the rush to get his outside hand chopping across the football. Maye looked like he might be able to pull away, but instead, Oweh maintained control of the QB and got the ball out on his second crack. Bad play by both LT and the passer. The Chargers recovered the fumble.
- Teair Tart drives off the outside shoulder of Wilson and just overpowers him. Maye was just getting set. That’s how fast that happened.
- The last sack is all Maye. The play design was to get it out quickly, and both tackles throw cut blocks. Morgan Moses doesn’t get Oweh to the ground, but Maye is operating like he still has time to go into create mode. He does not and fumbles to boot. He’s lucky Wilson had his head on a swivel.
“Some good plays. There are some plays they'd like to have back,” observed Mike Vrabel of his left side of the line on Monday morning. “Can't get pushed back in and... if we’re cutting the guy, we're trying to get rid of the ball, so we got to get rid of the ball. Drake knows that. So that's how it goes. You know, we just put a 65-70 plays out there. There's going to be some good ones, there's going to be some bad ones, and hopefully there's not too many of them that get you beat.”
But to the Pats' credit, they found enough answers to control the clock and eventually make enough plays. They leaned into bigger personnel to improve protection (a little later than I would have liked fwiw), and then had some of their best and most explosive plays out of those groupings.
The 42-yard toss to Kayshon Boutte came with Thayer Munford Jr. in the game as a 6th offensive lineman, and he handled interior DL Justin Eboigbe without any issue. That flipped the field and set up Andy Borregales’ third field goal for a 9-3 lead.
Munford was on the field again for the game’s only touchdown, the 28-yarder from Maye to Henry. Lining up as a tight end on the right side, he was unoccupied. TreVeyon Henderson handled a blitzing linebacker, cutting him (I think they’d prefer he stay on his feet there and meet power with power), and while Daiyan Henley pirouetted a couple times in pursuit of Maye thereafter, he had enough time to layer that gorgeous throw on a corner route to his favorite tight end. That play ended up with Kyle Williams running a post-corner, and Henry sliding under his deeper route with a corner route of his own. Derwin James would normally be occupied by someone in the flat, but wasn’t. Still, he was unable to get enough depth on the throw.
“I think that being able to mix up the personnel groups is something that we've tried to do, that other teams try to do,” Vrabel noted. “So, being able to mix personnel and staying balanced out of each personnel, I think, is critical.”
Overall, the Pats’ passing offense had a +3.93 EPA operating out of 13 personnel (RB, 3 TEs, WR), with Maye going 4-of-5 for 44 yards, had +2.16 EPA in 21 personnel (2 RB, TE, 2 WR), and ate in their jumbo package (+5.47 EPA, 3-of-3, 74 yards).
As for the run game, the case continues to mount for Rhamondre Stevenson to get more carries (10 for 53); however, he did an exceptional job of sorting out who was rushing and who wasn’t, and of not allowing himself to be preoccupied. It was that intelligence that contributed to a couple of big plays as the checkdown option (48-yarder after the Chargers red-zone turnover on downs, a 10-yarder to open the second half, and a 17-yard gain on a drive that ultimately ended with a Maye fumble)
“We were able to stay balanced,” Vrabel said. “Some of those checkdowns, I felt like, were part of the idea. These guys are going to take some of this stuff away. I give Drake credit. We get one tip there. Try to get it to a back that gets intercepted. We come back the very next drive on the two-yard line, and he's doing that thing from his end zone, and they don't cover the back, they blitz, don't cover the back, don't cover Rhamondre. So to me, that's like a long hand off, and that was a huge play in the game.”
The Patriots have shown they are capable of winning in different ways, and perhaps this was the most unique. That it came in week 19 of the football season tells you how far they’ve come, and maybe, how much further they can go.