Pats Pulpit
The New England Patriots saw a 24-7 halftime lead slip away last Sunday against the Buffalo Bills.
While the defense allowing four straight touchdown drives over the final two quarters was the main culprits, New England’s offense struggled to move the football outside of 65-yard touchdown run by TreVeyon Henderson.
That continued a potential worrisome trend for New England’s offense that now ranks 22nd in the league in second-half scoring (10.6 points per game). Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, however, does not see any common themes from game-to-game.
“No trends,” McDaniels said Thursday. “I think it’s just when you play with a lead, there’s you fight that human nature to relax and want to have done enough, and I think sometimes that playing from behind is easier than playing from ahead in certain situations.
“This is a great opportunity to learn how you have to close out a game against a team that’s certainly been there at the end many years in a row. And so it can be a gift for us if we’ll learn, and I think our guys are intent on doing that.”
Last Sunday, Buffalo’s game plan to ditch post safety coverages and lean into more split safety looks in the second-half deserves credit. As McDaniels shared, his offense struggled to find a rhythm over the last two quarters as Drake Maye completed 5-of-12 passes in that stretch.
New England’s pass catchers didn’t help the cause either, as they often ran into leverage and struggled to separate from man-to-man coverage — another trend that has hurt the Patriots’ passing game of late.
“There’s probably a lot of variables that go into that. Depends on the situation, the call, the personnel that you’re talking about running it against,” McDaniels said. “It’s nice to say just run man beaters when they’re playing man. It’s not as simple as that. So we can certainly try to do those things, which we will, we have, and we’ll continue to try to do those because that’s always helpful if you can.
“But I think man’s no different now than it was in September. They get on you, and it is what it is in terms of the passing game. You either have a concept that’s really built for it or you don’t, and then it becomes kind of an execution thing. So we’re always trying to hunt those up and see if we can find ways to help our guys create more separation or make some plays against any coverage. But, I also think there’s teams that have seen enough of us and enough of everybody around the league that you start to see some things now that maybe you weren’t seeing a month ago.”
In a Sunday Night matchup against the Ravens, New England will have a chance to right the ship against a defense that plays man-to-man at one of the highest rates in football, while also needing a full 60-minute effort to keep pace with Lamar Jackson.
“There’s no...
