Pats Pulpit
A big win in Buffalo has the New England Patriots sitting at 3-2 and looking for their first three-game win streak since .
Here on Pats Pulpit, our focus this week both wrapped up the win over the Bills and prep for the Saints. For anything else not covered previously, let’s clean out the notebook. Welcome to this week’s edition of our Sunday Patriots Notes.
Through the first five weeks of the season, the New England Patriots offense has been off to a strong start averaging 25.0 points per game.
Much of that has to do with the improvements from second-year quarterback Drake Maye, who largely ranks as a top-10 — or even top-5 — passer by most statistics. But the most impressive part: Maye has moved the football without a run game.
Entering Week 6, New England’s rushing attack ranks 31st in success rate and 32nd EPA/rush. Their 3.75 yards per carry ranks them 28th in the NFL. It’s an area they know they must improve in.
“Just keep working at it,” Mike Vrabel said. “We understand that. It’s got to be better. It has to be better at the line of scrimmage, at the second level, and then continue to try to finish to break some of these. And we’ve had some good runs, just not enough of them. Not enough double-digit runs that help your average. So again, I think that we’ve got to stop talking about being one guy away or one block away. I think that was a big theme from last week, and that’ll have to fix.”
Against a struggling run defense in the Buffalo Bills last week, New England managed just 71 total rushing yards. That included 12 from Maye himself, as the three backs averaged just 3.1 yards per carry.
To Vrabel’s point, the problem appears to stem from multiple factors. Along the second level, New England is 31st in rush yards per attempt and 27th in the open field — failing to break off minimal gains into explosives.
“I think some big runs are just kind of what we’ve been missing a little bit, just being real explosive,” Maye shared. “It’s a big emphasis every week to try to run the football, and those guys are doing a great job. I think just finishing blocks a little longer.”
However, New England’s backs have not always helped the cause when it comes to adding yards and, of course, turnovers. On the season, the Patriots runners rank last in both yards after contract and avoided tackle rate and will now have to replace Antonio Gibson’s production after losing him to a torn ACL.
“Gibby’s certainly been involved in a lot of different things for us — caught the ball out of the backfield, made a lot of good plays in the running game, certainly the big return down in Miami,” Josh McDaniels said. “We’re trying to prepare every guy to have an opportunity to play when it’s his turn....
