Our offseason countdown continues with the No. 7 Best Patriots Moment of 2024.
We’re about to jump head-first into all things NFL Draft, so before we do that I want to get another item checked off on our countdown of the Top 10 Patriots Moments of 2024.
The list so far:
10. Jerod Mayo out, Mike Vrabel in.
9. Drake Maye hits Austin Hooper for a 38-yard TD on 4th-and-15 against the Miami Dolphins.
8. Joey Slye nails a 63-yard field goal to close out the half against the San Francisco 49ers.
I imagine you’re all starting to see a recurring theme with all of these moments, which is my concerted efforts to find small diamonds in the massive piles of dog turds that was the entire season. These moments are mostly about hope and optimism for the future, and that’s very much the case when we look at Number 7,
7. A free play gets DeMario Douglas into the end zone vs. the Los Angeles Chargers.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
The 2024 Patriots were a terrible, terrible football team.
So terrible were the Patriots, in fact, that a team that they used to beat up on even during the down years was able to come into Gillette Stadium and blow the brakes off of them in a 40-7 rout that was almost a shutout, if not for one unique play that completely encapsulates how excited and optimistic Patriots fans are for 2025 and beyond.
Staring down the barrel of a 17-0 deficit with just over two minutes left in the half, Drake Maye and company needed to get something, anything, going if this team was going to have any shot of playing spoiler for LA’s postseason bid. The Chargers had strip-sacked Maye on the previous possession and converted it into points, and up until that point in the game the Patriots had only managed a single first down. Playing for pride matters, and the hope was that the Patriots would at least go out swinging.
Maye was able to take his last possession of the first half from the NE 27 to the LAC 36, mainly through an 18-yard completion to Kendrick Bourne and a 12-yard scramble of his own. On the play following that scramble, 1st-and-10 from the 36, Chargers lineman Bud Dupree jumped offsides before the snap, giving the Patriots a free play. Seeing the flag, Drake Maye set his feet and hucked it downfield toward what looked to be a triple-covered Demario Douglas. Douglas somehow made an adjustment, caught the ball while falling down, and rolled into the endzone for a 36-yard score. Chargers 17, Patriots 7.
It would be the last points the team would score that day, and this game was (like so many others in 2024) highly forgettable. But this play remains one of my favorites of the entire season for two main reasons.
One, it shows yet again that Drake Maye showed flashes of wise-beyond-his-years awareness, judgment, and situational understanding when it came to the throws he made and the decisions he acted on. It would have been very easy to just run the play as called or for him to take off or any number of other things, but he knew he had a free play, so he took a shot into the end zone despite taking a big hit in the process. It was also an excellent throw, right into a small soft spot in the triple coverage.
And two, it was an excellent adjustment by Pop Douglas and a great catch. I don’t know if Douglas broke off his designated route and just took off for the end zone once that flag was thrown, but honestly I’d bet that he did; Douglas isn’t really a deep threat and thrives in the short/under routes as a slot receiver. So him just running a deep post and coming down with the catch shows excellent awareness and two players who saw the exact same thing and acted accordingly.
The hope is that Maye and Douglas will both grow into stars and strong contributors to a postseason run in the coming seasons. And even though this is yet another good play surrounded by epic levels of suckitude, I’m very much hoping its indicative of what we have to look forward to in 2025 and beyond. So here’s to the first of many Maye-to-Douglas moments, making this year’s list at Number 7.