There was a lot to like about the Patriots in their home opener against the Seahawks – just not enough.
In the 23-20 overtime loss, New England mostly stuck to the identity head coach Jerod Mayo promised at the beginning of the season: a stout running game and advanced defense, but against a team boasting offensive weapons like DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigma, the Patriots grazed their fingertips against their talent ceiling.
“This isn’t a fancy team,” Mayo said postgame.
No kidding. This team is no-frills. Not a single one. And when they’re not squeaky clean, they’ll come up short against teams who are just okay, like Seattle.
Credit the Patriots defense. They weren’t perfect. A miscommunication between cornerback Christian Gonzalez and safety Kyle Dugger opened up a 56-yard pass from Geno Smith to Metcalf, resulting in Seattle’s first touchdown.
But Gonzalez made sure he didn’t repeat the mistake in the third quarter as he blanketed Metcalf on a similar deep route. The defense picked up steam as the game rolled on, halting Seattle in bend-don’t-break moments.
Unfortunately, that’s when the offense stalled out. Jacoby Brissett was impressively evasive in the first half. His instincts and vision looked on point. He scrambled and extended multiple plays by finding tight end Hunter Henry, who had a career receiving day. After half time, the combination of the eroding pass protection and predictable targets in Henry and running back Rhamondre Stevenson slowed the offense to a crawl. A wildcat touchdown wasn’t enough cushion when a late blocked field goal doomed the Patriots in regulation.
The loss showed the narrowness of the team’s margin of error, even against a mediocre team. Because when the Patriots are offensively sound, they plod down the field and hope for at least a field goal, making a scoring drive look like a lot of work. They can’t afford mistakes, flukes, or bad timing anywhere in any other part of the team.
It’s a tough way to survive in the NFL.
Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt said he intended to add different calls back into his play sheet after sticking heavily to Stevenson’s running game in last week, but whether it was his scheme or Brissett’s judgement, New England looked even more obvious than they did against the Bengals. Only two receivers recorded catches the entire game: Ja’Lynn Polk and K.J. Osborn. Brissett barely glanced at slot receiver DeMario Douglas, and when he did, it resulted in a generously called defensive pass interference penalty.
A lot of what the Patriots are doing looks provisory. This can’t be the plan for the entire season, can it? Sure, it’s resulted in an upset and an overtime loss, which looks nice on paper for a team with the low expectations New England have. But Brissett took a violent beating in the second half and the Patriots remain without a sniff of a deep threat. The offense looks downright claustrophobic at times.
It won’t get any easier, as the Patriots travel to New Jersey for Thursday Night Football possibly down not one, but two offensive tackles. Chukwuma Okorafor was put on the exempt/left squad list Saturday, and Vederian Lowe spent time in the blue pop-up tent to end the Seattle game.
Rookie tackle Caeden Wallace told me he hadn’t even begun to think about Thursday’s game and his upcoming role in it after the loss in the locker room. He was tossed in at left tackle after Lowe went down, and picked up an illegal formation penalty. Wallace said he still found the experience valuable.
“Definitely,” he said. “I learn a lot every day I’m here, every week, and today was no different. Situational stuff, technique things, I’m learning every day here.”
It’s tough to imagine the Patriots will find a way to significantly expand their offensive game before seeing the Jets, but the bigger question is how they’ll develop. Will they be able to, as Mayo said postgame, “scheme” up enough ideas to further involve young talent like Douglas? Or is this a waiting game for young talent to develop in-game, like Wallace, or behind the scenes (cough, Drake Maye, cough) and drastically alter the offense?
Stevenson promised postgame that “this is not our final form.”
But how long until they evolve?