Notes, musings, and observations from the Patriots’ 20-17 loss to the Tennessee Titans.
If ever there was a game that is custom-made for the 1 p.m. ET slot in the middle of the season, yesterday’s matchup between the New England Patriots and Tennessee Titans was it. In fact, after being subjected to this game the NFL might want to start flexing certain matchups to the Friday night slot; that way, if fans need a reminder of what competent football looks like, they have a number of high school games they can check out instead.
Two bottom of the barrel teams each tried to show the world who was the biggest poop chunk on the side of the toilet bowl, and the only real winner is the fact that the game is now in the rear view.
1. There are no moral victories in the NFL. The season is too short and every game matters too much for the phrase to really have any meaning. And a loss to an awful Titans team most certainly can’t fall anywhere into the realm of moral victory. The Patriots may have solidified themselves as the worst team in the NFL with this latest loss, particularly given what took place around the league yesterday. This team is absolutely atrocious and there’s no sugarcoating that. I need to get all that out of the way first, because it’s about to get way more positive than it has any business being for a good chunk of these Fan Notes and I don’t want anyone to think that I’ve finally lost what few marbles I have left rolling around in the Todash Darkness that is my brain.
2. Because I may be feeling more optimistic this morning than I have all season, and that includes the Week 1 Bengals win where I briefly deluded myself into thinking that the Patriots might not be as bad as I thought they’d be. And that optimism mainly has to do with a 22-year-old kid who bears more than a passing physical resemblance to Nelson Muntz.
3. And it wasn’t just the way that the game ended, with Drake Maye making what would be in the running for play of the year had it happened for a relevant team playing against another relevant team; I’ll get to all that in a minute. But oddly enough, my optimism this morning stems from the fact that yesterday represented the first game of Maye’s career where he made some classic rookie mistakes. New England turned the ball over three times, and all three were on him. His first pick was a terrible throw and read. He should have sensed the pressure better and paid more attention to his internal clock on that strip sack. And he misdiagnosed the coverage on the game-sealing interception, thinking there was a single high safety over Cover 2.
4. In other words, he did a number of things you’d expect a rookie to do early on in his career. And he responded to all of them with strong play during other parts of the game and full accountability after the game. There was no death spiral or immediate drop in confidence that we started to see with another quarterback who will remain nameless but whose name rhymes with “Whack Bones.” He was a rookie doing the rookie things that virtually every rookie who has ever suited up does early on in their career, but for the most part it was all erased by what else he was able to do.
5. This is a team devoid of top-tier talent. Their play calling is questionable at best. There are rapidly growing questions about whether the current head coach has what it takes to succeed at the most scrutinized and difficult job in professional sports. But in spite of all that, Drake Maye continues to show, much more than New England quarterbacks not named Tom Brady or Drew Bledsoe ever have, that he may very well be our guy for the future.
6. The obvious Maye highlight was the last play in regulation, which capped off an 11-play drive aided by a huge Marcus Jones punt return. Maye scrambled around for almost 12 full seconds, eluding four different defenders before making the throw. But even before that, Maye was more or less the entire New England offense. He rushed for almost 100 yards. He faced pressure on almost half of his dropbacks and still threw for 206 yards. He overcame New England’s bread-and-butter pre-snap penalties and big-play negating holding calls to still generate positive yardage. These are all exactly the kind of things you want to see each and every week, and that Drake Maye is doing it all in spite of this team and not because of it has to leave you feeling good.
7. I also can’t help but wonder if, should this continue, other players around the league will see what New England has in a young quarterback and be enticed to come here in order to build something.
8. I’m also starting to see with much more clarity which players represent the future of this team. Hunter Henry is one of the better tight ends in the NFL (although that’s more an indictment of the position as a whole than it is any kind of glowing praise) and is a consistently reliable receiving threat. Pop Douglas is coming back into his own and his route tree is expanding – not to mention his catch radius. That one-hander he made along the sidelines is a level of athleticism we haven’t seen in a while from the receiver position. Kayshon Boutte makes plays at every level of the offense despite limited looks. Rhamondre Stevenson seems to have addressed his fumbling problem and will be a weapon as soon as he gets some competent run blocking. We’re going to have a solid group of players to build around for 2025 and beyond, and that’s all this season has been about.
9. Now I know we’re New Englanders, and pessimism is as ingrained into our systems as drinking IPAs and complaining about construction on 84 East. Plus Daylight Savings Time just ended (or started, I can never remember) and we’re staring down the barrel of five months of 3PM sunsets. So as to not lose any more readers with all this positivity, I should recalibrate things a bit.
10. The 2024 New England Patriots are simply incapable of stopping the run. They just can’t do it. I don’t know why any team would even bother throwing against team going forward unless they want to rest their running back for games that matter. If I’m New England’s opponent, I’m doing a Google search for “Patriots vs. Bills 2021 Monday Night Football Offensive Game Plan” and just doing that every week.
11. Honestly, at this point I feel like opposing QBs could straight-up give New England their play, tell the defense exactly where to line up, run the ball right at an 11-man box, and still average four yards per carry.
12. And when you need a stop to maintain momentum or protect a rare and precious New England lead, knowing that thirteen-play, nine-minute, 78-yard scoring drives in which the running back averages 5 yards per carry are more the rule than the exception kind of has you welcoming the incoming pitch blackness before the late afternoon games even kick off.
13. Which also leads to a defense that’s just gassed late and then gives up big plays.
14. Which is one of the main reasons I really wanted the Patriots to go for two after that Maye-to-Mondre touchdown. I had no confidence that the Patriots could stop Mason Rudolph (what a horrible, horrible thing to write), and I didn’t think that Maye could pull out that kind of magic on back-to-back-drives.
15. I also really didn’t want to have to subject myself and the world to another quarter of this game. But oh well.
16. There isn’t a word, phrase, sentence, emotion, or facial expression that exists that can accurately describe the depth and expanse of my unfathomable, all-consuming loathing for the delayed handoff out of shotgun play call. Every time a team calls that play, a puppy somewhere doesn’t get adopted. Every time a team calls that play, a kid learns that they’re all out of his favorite ice cream flavor. Every time a team calls that play, a clown dies. Every time a team calls that play, six more political texts appear on your phone.
17. And a special thank you to New England for running that play so frequently on second and long. Nothing like a delayed handoff right up behind a terrible offensive line on 2nd-and-9 to set up 3rd-and-13 to keep momentum going and enhance my enjoyment of the sport.
18. That seems like a good a transition as any to wonder what in the name of Tebow the overall offensive strategy was yesterday in terms of gameflow and playcalling consistency. I’m trying to stay positive here, so I’m going to go ahead and jump to the conclusion that AVP and company used this game as a great chance to give Drake Maye the opportunity to have to gain and lose momentum on every other play. They see the kid getting comfortable and lacing it downfield, so they call a few runs for losses just to settle things down.
19. The best example of this brilliant learning experience came just before halftime, when Maye hit Kendrick Bourne for 14 yards and then Bourne again for nine more to get the ball from the 15 to the 38 with 1:37 left to play — plenty of time to get into FG range at the very least. It was the perfect time to call a delayed handoff out of shotgun to JaMycal Hasty for no gain, then let the clock run down, then run Mondre again for a loss of one. By calling those two runs, it eliminated any chance of Maye engineering a scoring drive right before halftime and giving him the kind of false confidence that can completely derail a career.
20. To be fair, a lot of the limitations in scheme are talent-related. The cupboard is fairly bare, so there are really only so many plays you can whip up.
21. But at the same time, I thought the line played fairly well last week. Which is probably why the coaches decided to try a new combination yesterday. Really turning the whole “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” adage and instead adopting the slightly more controversial “if you fix it, break it again” approach.
22. The real plus, from a long-term perspective at least, is that this game is very likely to factor in come Draft season. New England, Tennessee, and Carolina are going to be scratching and clawing for the top three picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, and with this loss, the Patriots just got a big leg up. As of this morning, New England now holds the No. 1 overall pick. The Titans, with the win, dropped all the way down to ninth overall. There are nine two-win teams right now, which means that the draft order is going to be a much more exciting race than the 2024 playoffs.
The Patriots are going to win a few more games this season, of this I’m fairly confident. But I have no idea which games they’ll be, and I’m not sure I want to know. Just give me more Drake Maye doing Drake Maye things, and I’m going to be just fine.