New England Patriots - NESN.com
The New England Patriots pushed their winning streak to five games with a 32-13 victory over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.
It’s the first time they’ve won that many consecutive games in four seasons, which is a statistic we seem to reference just about every week.
New England had a few familiar trends unfold — both positive and negative, but also learned plenty about what it will take to continue pushing that winning streak even further on the calendar. I’ve got your takeaways:
The Patriots’ defense has been looking to start faster, and has exhausted just about every option throughout the last few weeks in order to do so.
It’s just not working…
Patriots senior defensive assistant Ben McAdoo, who called offensive plays across stints with three different franchises, was tasked with creating an offensive script for his defensive unit to follow this week in practice, according to head coach Mike Vrabel’s weekly interview on 98.5 The Sports Hub.
New England responded to the real script by giving up plays of 19, 31 and 18 yards on an opening drive that resulted in a touchdown for Cleveland, the sixth opening-drive score allowed by that unit in eight games.
Back to the drawing board.
New England might not be able to stop a nosebleed on the first few drives of each game, but that unit has proven to be one of the second-half defensive teams in the NFL.
The Patriots are allowing just 147.25 yards and 8.0 points per second half this season, which include back-to-back-back weeks were they’ve allowed a total of 282 yards and eight points against the Browns, Tennessee Titans and New Orleans Saints. They’ve also forces a league-leading 12 turnovers in the second half this season.
It’s a unit that is not only taking care of business, but getting better throughout the course of each individual game and the season.
New England actually had two tremendous reps to start that opening drive, with Khyiris Tonga blowing up a running back screen and Milton Williams stuffing an inside run to setup a 3rd-and-11.
Patriots interim defensive coordinator Zak Kuhr then called for a long-developing stunt to try and apply some pressure in the obvious passing situation, leading to an easy conversion between rookies Dillon Gabriel and Harold Fannin Jr.
It’s abundantly clear that pass-rush help will be needed in order for this defense to continue being competitive as the level of competition begins to rise over the coming weeks, especially with Keion White becoming a healthy scratch and Harold Landry, K’Lavon Chaisson and Anfernee Jennings continuing to occupy the injury report.
I’d imagine we see someone added to that group in the coming days, which might coincide with the departure of a certain former second-round pick.
Drake Maye starts rather slowly, which is something we touched on last week by providing a quarter-by-quarter passing breakdown.
It’s clockwork, just like his ability...
