The Patriots did exactly what they’ve hinted they wanted to do in Week 1 of the season against Miami: run the ball. A lot.
The only reason they didn’t draw up more than 22 carries for their running backs is because they fell behind 17 points at the half. Even then, New England ran the ball three straight times down 13 points going into the fourth quarter for reasons I can’t explain.
If nothing else, the offense was committed to the bit.
What they did not do, however, was build play-action off of all those runs, which would seemingly be the logical thing to do for an offense that runs the football as much as the Patriots do.
The Matt Patricia and Co. play-calling conglomerate dialed up just two play-action plays all day against Miami, sticking with a relatively vanilla game plan in both the passing and run game while trying to shave away at their deficit.
That has to be a game-planning aberration — though a bad one at that — because professional offenses don’t use play-action so little in games anymore. At least, not ones who want to be good.
If the Patriots want to beat the Steelers on Sunday, play-action has to be a bigger part of the play. There’s non-negotiable.
For one thing, it’s just good strategy.
As long as you make a defense think you’re running the ball — you don’t even have to be good at it — they will react to run fakes enough for you to take what you need. The Patriots have run the ball on early downs at a top-five rate in the league with Jones under center. Hitting defenses with play-action on those downs more consistently would be an obvious adjustment to punish linebackers and defensive backs for peeking in the backfield and keying on Damien Harris or Rhamondre Stevenson too much.
Secondly, Mac Jones is good at play-action — he completed both of those play-action attempts on Sunday for 22 yards — and excelled at it last season, completing 70.7 percent of his attempts on such throws for 8.8 yards per attempt. By contrast, he had a 66 percent completion percentage for 6.6 yards per attempt on non-play-action throws (albeit on almost 300 more attempts). Football 101: play to your strengths.
Now, a counterpoint: running play-action means your offensive line and running backs have to pass protect longer. If, say, your left tackle and guard keep having communication breakdowns against pressure, running those plays can get Jones hit pretty hard. He definitely doesn’t need more of that.
But if that’s a concern, allow us to introduce you to the acronym that’s sweeping the football nation: RPO (run-pass option).
RPOs are just quick play-actions meant to put defenders with multiple responsibilities in conflict and get quick yards. They also work well against zone defenses, which the Steelers played a heavy amount of against the Bengals in Week 1.
The Patriots have dabbled with RPOs in practice and preseason games, and the results have been good. Jones has extensive comfort and experience running them from his days at Alabama. Now, it’s time to put them into game action.
Plus, if the Patriots show they’re not ready to completely ditch their outside zone schemes, they can get Jones booting out and hitting easy completions on the backside. It’s unlikely defenses will be looking for that out of New England’s offense, which could give them the advantage.
If the Patriots want to operate like a 90s offense, they can at least try to do it properly. That means play-action must, with literally no exceptions, be part of the game plan this week.
Assuming Mac Jones plays on Sunday, it's time to let the man cook.
Also, play Kendrick Bourne.
