The walk around a quiet and dejected New England Patriots locker room in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday felt different from the quiet and dejected locker rooms of last season — even if the team’s offensive performance evoked quite a few memories.
But a year ago, those trips to the locker room felt uncomfortable. Everyone in there last year knew why they weren’t winning. Even when the defense played well in 2023, the Patriots still lost. But this season, both sides of the ball are struggling and carrying equal weight for why the team has lost three straight contests.
So after a second straight blowout, let’s reset with a look at what we’re seeing from the Patriots.
LIVE: Jerod Mayo Press Conference 9/30: https://t.co/dyUKEgiTg9
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) September 30, 2024
The defense is struggling
Jerod Mayo’s plan for this season was a simple one: run the ball, play good defense and find hidden yardage in special teams.
Of those, the defense seemed the safest bet to count on. Yet four weeks into the season, a unit that had hopes of being a top-10 group in the league instead finds itself in the bottom 10.
The Patriots defense ranks 25th in success rate, 25th in EPA/play, 27th in yards allowed per play, 27th in DVOA and 31st in third-down defense. At this point, it doesn’t matter which stats you rely on to paint a picture. They all say the same thing about this group.
There are a few issues at play here. The first is that this was never a deep defense, and the Pats have been crushed by losing three of their four most important defenders. The absence of Christian Barmore (out indefinitely due to blood clots) and Matthew Judon (traded when he and the team couldn’t agree on a contract extension) has meant the team’s pass rush ranks as one of the worst in the NFL. Then, the loss of linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley to what is likely to be a season-ending pectoral tear was a tough break for the run defense and has forced Jahlani Tavai to take on a bigger role that he so far appears unready for. Those injuries are partly to blame for the unit’s struggles.
The other is the elephant in the room, the part that was awkward to talk about before the season when assessing expectations for this defense:
No one coached defense like Bill Belichick. But he’s gone now. So perhaps we should have expected some regression based on that alone.
And when you couple the injuries with the departure of arguably the greatest coach in NFL history, the defense has taken a massive tumble from the lofty standing of a year ago (and most years under Belichick).
“Defensively, we just haven’t tackled well,” Mayo said. “We haven’t kept the quarterback in the pocket. There have been times where we’ve covered well — and also times that it seems like receivers are wide open. That’s something we just have to get better at.”
The Pats never wanted to start Drake Maye before mid-October
The Patriots have made clear that they don’t want to play rookie quarterback Drake Maye until two things are true: (1) he’s ready for NFL action and (2) the team around him is ready to help him.
Reading between the lines in conversations with Mayo and other players, I get the sense that they feel Maye is ready. By the end of training camp, he was outplaying Jacoby Brissett and his performances in practice have impressed teammates.
But what concerns the staff is the group surrounding the quarterback. And that’s a big reason why Brissett remains the team’s starter.
“Jacoby is 100 percent our starter,” Mayo said Monday. “He’s 100 percent our starter, and that’s how we’re going to look at this going forward.”
Though one could argue that any quarterback goes a long way toward determining the success of the players around him, the Patriots aren’t looking at it that way. So Maye remains on the bench for now. I’d expect him to get the go-ahead sometime in November.
Still, a quarterback can make a big difference in the way an offense functions. It’s the most important position in pro sports for a reason. It seemed the Houston Texans had a less-than-optimal setup for a rookie quarterback last season until C.J. Stroud showed up and elevated everyone. It didn’t seem like the Washington Commanders had a great supporting cast this season until Jayden Daniels helped turn them into a high-flying offense through four games.
Good quarterbacks can change things quickly. If you’re looking for optimism, remember Maye has a chance to do that when he takes over.
O-line injuries stack up
The Patriots have started four different left tackles through four games. Then on Sunday, third-round pick Caedan Wallace suffered an ankle injury that appeared serious. He wore a walking boot and was on crutches in the locker room after the game.
Center David Andrews also left early Sunday with a shoulder injury, but he wasn’t wearing a sling afterward, potentially a good sign for his prognosis.
The team hopes Vederian Lowe might be back from a knee injury this week, which would help stabilize the left side of the offensive line. But since the Patriots haven’t signed one of the remaining free-agent offensive tackles to this point, it seems unlikely they will go that route this season.
Long story short, the offensive line probably isn’t going to get any better. It just is what it is for the Pats.
Help is on the way at WR
In a rare bit of good news for the Pats in the last couple of weeks, wide receiver Kendrick Bourne is expected to open his 21-day practice window on Wednesday as he nears a return from the ACL tear he suffered a year ago.
Bourne will have up to three weeks to practice while remaining on the physically unable to perform list before the team has to activate him or place him on injured reserve.
If all goes well, the Patriots will have their top wide receiver back by the end of the month.
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(Top photo: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
