FOXBORO — The way forward for the Patriots stood wrapped prior to now Sunday, purple and white from head to toe.
He launched bombs. Skirted round hazard. Impressed hope.
Alongside the way in which, Drake Maye even made a bit historical past. His pinpoint 40-yard landing cross earlier than halftime?
That was the Patriots’ longest completion at house since Christmas Eve two years in the past.
A brand new period, certainly.
However beneath his throwback Pat Patriot uniform, Maye wore growing shades of black and blue, because of a piñata welcome to the NFL.
Maye absorbed 4 sacks and 4 extra QB hits from the Texans, who additionally flogged his teammates over a 41-21 end. Patriots management believed Maye’s mobility and confidence would defend him from the punishment that they had invited by dropping him behind the league’s worst offensive line.
As a substitute, Maye’s first few drives regarded like Exhibit A for a lawsuit over unsafe working situations.
Maye received walloped. He threw a decide. He took a sack. He grimaced, as teammates peeled him off the turf after one other hit; teammates like middle Ben Brown, who signed Thursday and realized he was beginning hours simply earlier than kickoff, and practice-squad working again Terrell Jennings and offensive linemen Zach Thomas and Demontrey Jacobs, each plucked off the waiver wire.
Every thing in regards to the Patriots’ offense felt like a slow-motion automobile crash you may’t bear to observe, but can’t look away from. Then, instantly, Maye veered again onto the street.
He discovered Kayshon Boutte for a landing. He ripped six completions to DeMario Douglas. He completed with extra yards than any Patriots quarterback has handed for in nearly a full yr.
In spurts, he thrived. (See, Mac Jones? It wasn’t so arduous.)
Maye will inevitably resemble his damaged predecessor for a recreation or two within the coming weeks. He’s a rookie. Rookies throw interceptions, and take sacks and make dumb selections and switch the ball over as Maye did 3 times on Sunday.
However hey, the place had been you at 22?
But when Sunday supplied a official peek at Maye’s future — and by extension the Patriots’ — it’s much more incumbent on the workforce to assist and defend him. Maye is their ticket again to relevance, not to mention competition.
Jerod Mayo and personnel chief Eliot Wolf can not give up to circumstance, nor their very own failures; specifically, poor offensive roster building and dangerous damage luck. It’s time to do extra. Mayo properly owned as much as his shortcomings and pledged to do exactly that post-game.
“From a team-wide perspective proper now, we let (Maye) down,” Mayo stated. “It was his first recreation, and I really feel like I let him down. I’m positive all of the coaches really feel like we let everybody down. We’ve simply received to be higher.”
Offensively, the Patriots can begin by deploying Douglas on each snap till that 5-foot-9 jitterbug asks for a breather. They can’t afford to substitute Douglas, their greatest receiver, for Austin Hooper, a journeyman tight finish who fumbled on Sunday. That, as a rule, was the trade-off offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt made when calling performs from two-receiver personnel packages.
Even Mayo stated Douglas can get open towards anybody … an outline that sadly additionally appears to use to any working again who kilos lengthy sufficient on Mayo’s protection.
The Patriots have allowed greater than 190 speeding yards in back-to-back video games for the primary time in 4 years. Nostril deal with Davon Godchaux pretty described the trouble as embarrassing. Worse but, the Texans and Dolphins each ranked among the many league’s worst speeding groups earlier than visiting Foxboro. Not anymore.
“We shot ourselves within the foot,” Texans wideout Tank Dell stated post-game, “and we all know as an offense that we left some factors on the board.”
Mayo chalked the Patriots’ defensive failures to dangerous tackling and fundamentals; two givens within the Invoice Belichick period, regardless of how far they fell down the standings or how badly they reeked on offense. If that basis left with Belichick, how can the Patriots assist themselves? How can they assist Maye?
As Mayo alternated between Maye culpas and Maye reward in his press convention, Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans opined on the rookie’s debut a couple of doorways down.
In doing so, Ryans unintentionally minimize to the rub of the Patriots’ scenario: how a 22-year-old child, even in his NFL beginning debut, may be of better service to greater than 100 mixed teammates and coaches than they’re to him.
“Credit score to Maye: one factor he does as a quarterback, his escapability is basically good for them,” Ryans stated. “And I feel it’s a constructive for him. Like, with the ability to pull it down and when issues aren’t there, with the ability to make performs on the run; as rushers, you must remember that this man can pull it down and run. … That units them aside, makes them a bit completely different.”
