Mike Vrabel said the Patriots’ Week 4 win over the Buffalo Bills got his team “back in the race.”
In Week 5 against the Raiders, they kept racing, cruising to a 45-17 win over Las Vegas.
The win marked New England’s first back-to-back wins of the season, while its 45 points were the most in the Drake Maye era. With 536 total yards, the Patriots also recorded their first 500-yard game since October 2021 and just their second in the post-Tom Brady era.
Here are seven takeaways as the Patriots improve to 2-0 at Gillette Stadium this season and snap a three-game losing streak against the Raiders.
Drake Maye is back
You think Drake Maye is back?
With his four touchdown passes on Sunday, Maye now has back-to-back games with at least three touchdown passes for the first time in his career. He is the first Patriots player to have back-to-back games with three touchdown passes since Tom Brady, who threw three touchdowns against Miami (9/20) and Indianapolis (10/4) in 2018.
He also added a rushing touchdown, becoming just the second quarterback in franchise history to throw at least four touchdowns and rush for another, joining Steve Grogan, who accomplished the feat in December 1987.
Maye completed 26 of his 34 pass attempts (76.4%) for 374 yards. It was the second time in Maye’s career that he threw for over 300 yards. He completed five passes of 25+ yards.
Most impressively? Maye played his first turnover-free game of the season against a defense that entered the day with the most takeaways in the league (nine).
Maye was poised, confident, and decisive, looking like the quarterback we saw last year when he finished as the MVP runner-up. He also didn’t force any throws, wisely throwing the ball away when nothing was there, especially in the red zone.
Over his last two games, he has completed 48 of 71 passes (67.6%) for 643 yards and seven touchdowns.
He is back.
It was a collective effort from the wide receivers
With A.J. Brown and Mack Hollins on IR, the Patriots had just four wide receivers active on Sunday.
A big question leading into the game was who was going to step up at wide receiver. The answer? All of them.
Of the four active wide receivers (Romeo Doubs, Kyle Williams, DeMario Douglas and Efton Chism), three had at least 50 receiving yards.
Douglas led the way with four receptions for 65 yards and two touchdowns, Chism had five receptions for 57 yards, and Williams had three catches for 91 yards and a touchdown. The odd receiver out was Doubs, who had one catch for 16 yards on three targets. Doubs did, however, draw two defensive pass interference calls.
“They’re all ready to go. They all play different positions. That’s not easy to learn three different positions and being able to step in there and block and make plays. The ball found each and every one of them,” Vrabel said of the receivers. “They all care about each other. Those receivers, they don’t care who catches the ball. They don’t care who catches a touchdown. They’re just as excited for the next guy if it was them, and I think that that’s truly what we wanna build around here.”
The Patriots’ wide receiver depth was praised all summer, and it showed up in a big way on Sunday.
The offensive line bounced back in a big way
When asked how the Patriots were able to slow down Maxx Crosby (one tackle, two QB hits), Mike Vrabel shouted out the offensive line.
“Just proud of our offensive line, and I wanna recognize them,” Vrabel said. “I thought that they understood what the protection was and how to keep the middle of the pocket clean. There was a lot of time for us to progress down the field, and then they run blitz zero, and we blocked it up and were able to hit some plays down the field. And so that’s a testament to them for understanding what they have to be able to do, and guys stepped up.”
Drake Maye also made sure to give credit to the offensive line when discussing his touchdown pass to DeMario Douglas, who was wide open after Maye had over five seconds to throw.
“On the first touchdown to Pop, I’m back there, credit the offensive line eating a ham sandwich, so I got all day back there,” Maye said.
The kudos to the offensive line were well-deserved. After a shaky performance against the Bills, the unit bounced back in a big way, particularly in pass protection.
According to PFF, Maye was kept clean on 73.7% of his dropbacks, completing 21 of his 25 attempts in those situations.
Rookie Caleb Lomu replaced Will Campbell after Campbell left the game in the second quarter with a knee injury and did a nice job, allowing one hurry and one pressure across his 29 pass-blocking snaps, per PFF’s charting.
Las Vegas entered the game ranked in the top five in sacks.
Rhamondre Stevenson finally got the run game going
Through the first four weeks of the season, the Patriots struggled to establish the run. In Week 5, it finally got going.
The Patriots rushed for a season-high 165 yards on Sunday, averaging a season-high 5.3 yards per carry. For reference, the Kansas City Chiefs entered Sunday averaging a league-best 5.4 yards per carry.
Rhamondre Stevenson led the way with 13 carries for 64 yards (4.9 yards per carry) and a touchdown, while Corey Kiner added 52 yards on six carries (8.7 yards per carry), although Kiner did fumble.
TreVeyon Henderson, who left the game in the second quarter with an ankle injury and did not return, had four carries for 22 yards (5.5 yards per carry).
All told, the Patriots’ running backs had six carries of 10 or more yards.
That’s the kind of production the Patriots have been looking for from their run game.
Zak Kuhr and the Patriots defense did it again
Entering Week 5, the Raiders and Lions were the only teams in the NFL to score 25+ points in each of their first four games.
On Sunday, the Patriots held the Raiders to 17.
How?
For starters, they were able to keep the Raiders one-dimensional. Since Week 1, Las Vegas has struggled to run the football with a banged-up Ashton Jeanty behind an offensive line that has struggled with its run blocking. The Patriots made sure that didn’t change on Sunday, limiting the Raiders to 38 rushing yards on 18 carries (2.1 yards per carry). Jeanty had 10 carries for 27 yards (2.7 yards per carry).
The Patriots were also able to get pressure on Kirk Cousins. According to PFF, Cousins was under pressure on 38.7% of his dropbacks. He was sacked three times, tying a season-high.
But, most importantly, they were able to slow down Brock Bowers.
Yes, Bowers had eight receptions for 110 yards and a touchdown. But 37 of those yards, including the touchdown, came on the opening drive.
On that drive, the Patriots had 5-foot-8, 188-pound Marcus Jones covering the 6-foot-3, 237-pound Bowers. They made a change after the touchdown, bracketing the big tight end.
The rest of the way, Bowers had six receptions for 73 yards. That’s still productive, but the Patriots did a much better job limiting his impact after the opening drive.
The fact that the Patriots were able to slow down the Raiders’ offense, particularly Bowers, down four cornerbacks, including Christian Gonzalez (6-foot-1, 205 pounds) and Carlton Davis (6-foot-1, 200 pounds) is impressive.
Kuhr did a great job making adjustments and scheming up the defense. The players, many of whom were stepping into bigger roles, also deserve credit, particularly Kindle Vildor.
Elijah Ponder continues his strong start to the season
Elijah Ponder’s breakout is real.
The undrafted rookie out of Cal recorded a career-high 2.0 sacks Sunday, bringing his season total to 4.5 through five games. He has recorded at least half a sack in each of the last four games and added two tackles for loss.
Ponder has arguably been the Patriots’ biggest surprise this season, leading an EDGE group that has proved plenty of doubters, including this author, wrong.
Cashing in at the end of the half
The execution at the end of the first half has been a weakness for the Patriots this season.
They reversed that trend on Sunday.
After a missed 49-yard field goal by Raiders kicker Matt Gay, the Patriots got the ball at their own 39-yard line with 1:52 remaining and three timeouts.
The Patriots needed just five plays to go 61 yards and reach the end zone. The drive was highlighted by a patient 20-yard run by Rhamondre Stevenson, a 26-yard connection between Drake Maye and Hunter Henry, and an 11-yard touchdown pass from Maye, turning a 14-7 lead into a 21-7 advantage.
The Patriots then flawlessly executed the double score coming out of halftime, putting together a four-play, 68-yard touchdown drive to extend their lead to three scores and effectively end the game.
