Did anyone have fun today?
Maybe if you stuffed your face with bratwurst and washed it down with a dozen German pilsners…
Otherwise, the only good thing about the Patriots' lopsided loss to the Lions Sunday morning is that we have the rest of the day to recover, and we don’t have to see this team play again for a couple of weeks.
“This is professional football,’ Mike Vrabel said. “Do your job. Line up. Block ‘em. Tackle them. Hit them. Knock the ball loose. Cover them. Get open. There's no magic formula. There's no pep talk I can go in there and give them right now that in a week we're gonna, all of a sudden, just be better. Get back to work, and you got to do it together."
It looked like we might have a good, old-fashioned shootout after the opening possession, except for one thing: Drake Maye got his ankle rolled up on after a third-down Aidan Hutchinson sack (who also hurt himself celebrating). Initially, it looked like that might have been an illegal hip-drop tackle by Hutchinson, though there was no call on the field. Rules analyst Mike Pereira, however, said it didn’t meet the criteria (there are multiple). After a brief time on the sideline, including a conversation with his head coach, Maye headed to the locker room and never returned.
“He couldn't function,’ Vrabel said of the decision to rule Maye out. “Couldn't play. Couldn't run. Couldn't do whatever he needed to do to play quarterback, to protect himself, to execute, or function at that level. Again, I know that it was a lower-leg injury. I don't know the exact details of it, but I know he couldn't go back in.”
Maye will receive further testing upon a return to Foxborough. Meanwhile, if you had any doubt that the third-year pro is the engine that makes that offense run, I present to you a unit that cratered without its playmaking signal caller.
It wasn’t until Tommy DeVito and the offense’s 9th possession (one was a kneel-down to end the half) that they eclipsed the yards Maye led them to in the first series. That didn’t happen until the 4th quarter. Here’s what it looked like:
- 5 plays, 29 yards, and the lone first down came via a 30-yard defensive pass interference call. Punt.
- 3 plays, 1 yard. Punt.
- 3 plays, -4 yards. Punt.
- 3 plays, 1 yard. Punt.
- 5 plays, 3 yards. One first down. Interception.
- 1 play, -1 yard. Kneel-down.
- (3rd Quarter) 3 plays, -2 yards. Punt.
- 3 plays, 6 yards. Punt.
- (4th Quarter) 13 plays, 87 yards, touchdown. It’s a miracle.
Jahmyr Gibbs outgained the Pats all by himself running the football, 153-151. Never mind the 99 yards he added as a receiver (yeah, the same guy that the Pats built their game plan around stopping, by the way. How’d that work out?). DeVito finished with 81 passing yards and got sacked four times.
“Not good enough,” DeVito said. “Offensively, just never really got going. Not able to get into a rhythm, really get drives going. Too many three-and-outs; we kind of just hurt ourselves. You know, even on the one drive that resulted in a touchdown, it took 16 plays, and there were still errors on that that happened. We just need to do better at that and sustain drives.”
"This league doesn't care what happened last week, the week before," Rhamondre Stevenson said. "It's just something we've got to fix ourselves. We've got to look at the film, see what we're doing well, but something's gotta be fixed because we've lost two games in a row."
Oh, did I mention that A.J. Brown