For the latest Patriots postgame recap, check out WEEI and Audacy's "1st and Foxborough."
There’s no one party completely at fault for the Patriots’ offensive struggles since their drubbing of the Cleveland Browns in Week 6.
Mac Jones hasn’t played that well. The offensive line has gone from a team strength to a liability. No receivers outside of Jakobi Meyers are consistently getting open or producing in the passing game. Matt Patricia’s play-calling has been hot and cold.
It’s all a mess at the moment, and everyone needs to do a bit of soul-searching as the team heads into a well-needed bye week. Patricia and the coaching staff might need to do more of it than the rest.
We keep hearing the Patriots are a “game plan” team that tailors its schemes to its opponents each week rather than which players they have to execute those plans.
That makes the statistics the Boston Herald’s Andrew Callahan relayed about the Patriots’ play-calling on Sunday even more confounding.
In particular, Patricia and the Patriots opted to run into the teeth of a top-10 run defense on early downs despite that being a bad idea and once again failing to use their two high-priced tight ends on the field together even though the Colts struggle with those alignments.
So, if this team is really all about attacking their opponents’ weaknesses, what was that?
Sure, some of it has to do with the Patriots wanting to establish the run game — their own strength — even against a stout team up front. Their passing game isn’t good enough to rely on by itself, especially when they keep asking Jones to throw vertical routes behind an offensive line that can’t protect him.
That said, the continued insistence on running on first and second down when they’ve been more efficient throwing the ball (via RBSDM.com) is maddening.
This is where the Patriots’ lack of true offensive identity hurts them. When Plan A fails, does this team have a tried-and-true Plan B to fall back on aside from “give the ball to Rhamondre Stevenson and hope he makes everyone miss”? No, they do not.
They’re a team without a “scheme,” caught between their aborted outside zone/Sean McVay-style shift, their almost Bruce Arians/“no risk it, no biscuit” tendencies, the old Josh McDaniels playbook and their spotty installation of Alabama RPO plays aimed at improving Mac Jones’ comfort in the pocket.
This dysfunction has seeped into their quarterback’s play, though signs of life occasionally flash up from the rubbish pile.
If they haven’t figured it out who they are by now, it feels like asking them to magically flip the lightbulb on over the bye week feels like wishful thinking.
But a good, hard look in the mirror is extremely necessary for everyone in the building, especially Patricia.
