Pats Pulpit
It’s finally football season, which means it’s finally time to bring you some takeaways and observations from every New England Patriots game. The team of first-year head coach Mike Vrabel blew out the Commanders, who had 29 players inactive, with a final score of 48-18 on Friday night.
It wasn’t all good, but there was a whole bunch of it. Let’s find out what we learned.
…Will Campbell plays with a mean streak: Will Campbell had one really bad play on Friday night. He and fellow rookie Jared Wilson screwed up a stunt that allowed a free rusher and ended with a Drake Maye fumble. Other than that, the fourth overall selection in this year’s draft played a clean game.
After the Commanders missed a field goal on the drive following Maye’s fumble, the Patriots drove down and scored a touchdown with the starters. On that series, Campbell played like a man possessed. He pancaked multiple defenders, and played to the echo of the whistle multiple times. The 22-year-old played well, and played nasty. It’s only one game, and the Commanders didn’t have all their starters, but it looks like the Patriots got a dawg at left tackle. This week is going to be very interesting in Minnesota.
…Drake Maye needs to cut down on dumb plays: Drake Maye had a rough night on Friday. He had only three completions, all check-downs or screens to Henderson, and he did scramble twice — once for a first down and once for a touchdown. His worst play of the night was the aforementioned fumble on the first offensive drive of the game.
On third down, Campbell and Wilson allowed a free rusher and, while getting taken down, Maye tried to make a wild throw and ended up fumbling. His biggest issue is that he tries to be a hero and make plays instead of just taking what is there, a problem he already had as a rookie. That play was a perfect example of just that: instead of just taking the sack and moving on, Maye tried to make a play where there was none to be made, and ended up giving the ball back to Washington in field goal range.
If he is going to make the jump from solid player to great player, he is going to have to eliminate those plays from his game. Luckily, this game doesn’t matter, so the coaches can get that out of him. It’s a fine line, because you want him to make some wild plays, but also rein it in at times. Josh Allen is able to walk that fine line, but it took him a while to find out how to do it. Hopefully, Maye can figure it out sooner rather than later.
…the backup QB spot is a concern: After a solid joint practice on Wednesday, Joshua Dobbs a rough night on Friday. The Patriots’ backup quarterback missed a wide open Kyle Williams on a...
