Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 11: Patriots vs. Rams

Things to consider while hoping Netflix has noted sports analysts Rosie Perez and Cedric the Entertainer all lined up for those Christmas Day games:

--There have been plenty of times this season where you can point to a decision or two as a major deciding factor in a loss. The call to kick the extra point at the end of regulation instead of trying to win it with a 2-point conversion being a recent example. But even that was a judgment call where a good argument could be made either way and the analytics backed the decision they made. This game is probably the first example we've had so far of the coaching straight up costing them a game. If not, it's by far the worst example. Where do we even begin to organize our thoughts on this? Just one horrific decision after another.

--Let's go with the most egregious call of them all. One they'd game-planned all week. And that was to misuse Christian Gonzalez by not putting him on Puka Nacua or Cooper Kupp. Jerod Mayo did what no opposing offensive coordinator has been able to do in Gonzo's career, which is take him out of a game. To make him a non-factor by assigning him to the boundary-X,  Demarcus Robinson. Bill Belichick's whole career was based on neutralizing an opponent's biggest threat and making them play left handed. Stephon Gilmore would follow their WR1 all across the formation on his way to a DPOTY. Darrelle Revis would take the WR2 while they doubled the WR1 and force them to look to their third option. Gonzalez has been taking on the toughest assignments all season and has a catch % of just 56.7 and a passer rating when targeted of 79.4, effectively turning every QB he faces into Daniel Jones. Yet Mayo had him covering a man who's never sniffed 500 receiving yards in his 9-year career. 

--Warning: This paragraph contains a lot of mixed metaphors and is not suitable for all audiences. Viewer discretion is advised. Siccing your best defender on another team's third- or fourth option while their top two targets are shredding you for almost 230 yards, three touchdowns, and 70% of all targets is the equivalent of having Jackie Bradley Jr. play short field on your beer league softball team. It's having Marcus Smart guard a Laker Girl. It's putting Zdeno Chara on the ice to shadow some ludicrous example I can't come up with because but you know where I'm going with this. It's a waste of your most precious resource. And yet at no point, through four touchdown drives (with close to 10 yards per play) sandwiched around halftime, that gawdawful plan - to eliminate no one on the Rams' offense - was never scrapped, amended, altered, or even tinkered with. Gonzalez on Robinson was Mayo's story, and he stuck to it. Even as Matthew Stafford statistically pitched a near perfect game (142.7 passer rating) against them.

--The terrible in-game decisions just piled on from there. Some of them the result of the Pats coaches having zero confidence they can pick up 2 yards when they need to. Like settling for a field goal to make it 21-13 instead of punching it in from LA's 2. Lining up in some weirdo direct-snap gadget play formation on 4th & inches, only to have Ja'Lynn Polk blow it up with a false start. Then there was the decision to punt instead of going for a 54-yard field goal try on a mild, windless day, only to have the kick land in the end zone for a net gain of about a makeable putt. But to me the worst came at the beginning of the final drive. Mayo accepted the penalty on a punt that went out of bounds at the 5, giving him the ball at the 10. Meaning he thought having the Rams rekick it would result in a worse outcome. When mathematically speaking there are only 9 yard lines worse than the one he settled for, or 9% of the entire football field. The science is pretty settled on that. 

--Here's the thing about Mayo. All the stuff we heard about him before and after he was named head coach is demonstrably true. He does have the intangibles. His players do play hard for him. They do respect him. I mean, it's not like they're in mutiny or he's in danger of getting fragged. He's one of those generals who can inspire his troops, but loses battles through poor tactics. He's Paulus against Hannibal at Cannae. McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign. Haig at the First Battle of the Somme. Grady Little in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium. All guilty of being outmanuevered by better, more seasoned strategists on the other side.

--In this case, it was Sean McVay, who's learned a lot since getting kept out the end zone by Belichick and Gilmore in Super Bowl LIII. He stressed the Patriots zone coverages with a lot of presnap motion. Quickly recognized he was getting Nacua and Kupp matched up on the likes of Marcus Jones, Jonathan Jones and linebackers and wasted very little time exploiting his advantage. Like catching onto the fact he was going to have Sione Takitaki in underneath zone on Kupp, and exploiting it with a Dragon concept (flat/slant combo) for an easy pitch and catch:

--On the biggest play of the game, it quickly became obvious McVay and Stafford had been waiting for a Cover-0 blitz. And when they saw it, ate all the meat off the bone and sucked out the marrow:

That was evident by the fact Stafford ran 70 yards upfield giving the "0" gesture to the sideline. It was a mental error by Jonathan Jones. With no safety help he should've played the man, not the ball. "Deeper than the deepest" and all that. But LA had done their homework. They'd done their film study - especially last week's game at Chicago - and  knew Mayo and Demarcus Covington like to be be aggressive (17 blitzes yesterday), and had just the counter move they wanted all chambered up with the safety off. That's just another example, in case anyone needs it, of how having the checkmark under "Coaching" on the Tale of the Tape gives you such a decisive edge in this league. 

--While we're still on coaching and trying to pivot to the offensive side of the ball, one of most disturbing trends with this team continues to be presnap penalties. The number of unforced errors, these inexcusable brainsharts, is alarming. They were a constant nuisance in the Fauxball games in August, and haven't been cleaned up even in mid-November. I mentioned Polk's, and he's a repeat offender. As is Vederian Lowe. Who admitted he was warned about lining up improperly twice before he got flagged, negating a 17-yard completion on 3rd & 8, leading the decision to boot it into the end zone instead of going for 3:

Some angles make it appear like maybe Michael Jordan wasn't lined up properly and Lowe was just working off of his alignment. But as anyone who's ever taking care of a toddle knows, if you don't make good on your "I'm not going to warn you again" threat, then you're not actually the one in charge. And from there, it's Walker and Texas Ranger-style anarchy. So you can't blame anyone but the one who ignored the warnings.

--But far be for me to pick this day of all days to harp on Lowe. Not when he gave us the rarest and most precious of NFL gifts. The joyous Fat Guy Touchdown:

And while sure, this might be yet another example of Alex Van Pelt's lack of confidence in the short area running attack, it's still a clever play design. By going with Austin Hooper and Sidy Sow as inline tight ends on the strong side, he got the Rams to think Sow (who took snaps at fullback earlier) had reported as eligible. But they both stayed into block. That, along with Kayshon Boutte motioning across the formation left Lowe's side unguarded for the easy score. 

--This might be the longest I've gone in 2024 without talking extensively about Drake Maye. And I don't mean just in a Knee Jerk; but in every conversation in my personal life as well. Talking to family and friends. Casual encounters with strangers. Romantic dinners with my ravishing Irish Rose. Weddings. Wakes. Funerals. In the Confessional. But it's not because he wasn't impressive. If anything, it might be because watching him play well as quickly become the norm. Unfortunately, so has watching him have to do everything practically by himself. Making off schedule plays. Escaping the pocket and throwing on the run. Having off schedule plays where he escapes the pocket and throws on the run negated by sloppy mental errors (see Lowe above) and drops. For instance, the first drive blew a circuit breaker when Maye's dart on 3rd & 13 bounced off Boutte's fingertips. Which is also unfortunate and something we've grown accustomed to, from all his targets.

--What's most encouraging about watching Maye develop is what he's doing despite the fact that a play rarely if ever goes the way it was drawn up on the white board. The 5-step timing throw where he drops back into a clean pocket, plants his foot, reads through his progressions and finds the best available receiver getting into his route is practically non-existent in this offense. You'd have a better chance of finding a Democrat who says, "Maybe this is all our fault for not having a primary." Too many blitzers are still coming in unaccounted for. Poor communication among O-linemen makes stunts more dangerous for Maye than they were for Super Dave Osborne. And yet Maye is still improvising ways to throw guys open. Like this Dennis Eckersley sidearm:

And this, throwing across his body with an unblocked pass rusher in his face like a second baseman turning a double play, hitting Pop Douglas behind the linebacker on a crosser:

--Yet his most impactful throw was the touchdown to Kendrick Bourne. Tight window. Bourne crossing the defender's face. The ball was in the air before he made his cut, anticipating he'd have upfield leverage. A sniper round right into his palms:

You can make a case that, with his second 100.0+ passer rating and completing a career high 75% of his passes that this was his best game so far. It was his most complete, until the pick that ended it, which both he and Douglas took the rap for. It looked like an option route, with LA playing 2-deep. Maye was trying to float it over the linebacker and Douglas was trying to break off into a corner route away from the safeties. For both it was one of those things that will only get sorted out with repeated reps and that chemistry that's hard to define but you know when you see it. And for them, it's already developing. Eventually they're going to be like the blue cat people from Avatar when they intertwine their hair with those pterodactyl pet thingys. (Don't make me look up the names. Those movies are just a fish tank you look at for three hours, not actual stories.) Maye also blamed himself for the strip sack, but I don't know how that's on him given the speed with which Braden Fiske got in on him. But that's what the best leaders do. They shoulder the blame and spread out the credit. This guy is already good, but he's going to be special very soon.

--As far as the receivers go, there's been some suggestions lately that Boutte is the best on the roster. And I'll concede he's made some big plays. But as long as Douglas is drawing a breath, he's the most consistent, dependable target. The 2024 equivalent of 2019 Julian Edelman. But with Hunter Henry around as the 1B to Pop's 1A. Bourne had a outstanding game as well. But by now, it's abundantly clear he needs to be shaken like an Etch-a-Sketch every so often if you're going to get anything out of him. Bourne is that well-intentioned but high-maintenance guy on the roster. The one you're dating that you have a good time with, but you just need to take a break from every few weeks because they're so, as the youngsters say, extra. Whereas Polk, with 31 snaps, zero targets and one crucial penalty, continues to look like he's headed for a future of having an animatronic figure of himself in Gillette Stadium's "Hall of Highly Drafted Wide Receiver Busts."

--This Week's Applicable Movie Quote: "Candidate Mayo's strutting in the dirt; Look at his face, he's starting to hurt; Here he is, thinking he's a great big star; But before too long he's gonna D.O.R.; Seen guys like you a hundred times; I'm telling you, Mayo, I'm one of a kind; Gonna give you more than you can take; I'm gonna watch you crumble and watch you break!" - Sgt. Foley, An Officer and a Gentleman

--Bottom-lining all this, we're 11 weeks into a season of transition. And while there's still a lot we don't know about the 2024 Patriots is they can compete with a decent, borderline playoff contender. They're capable of mounting a comeback when they fall behind, keep a game close, and even win it. But it requires a lot of things to go right. Which it seldom does. The biggest questions going into all this were quarterback, coaching, and offensive line. The first is an unqualified success. The other two, not so much. Unlike the last several attempts to replace Tom Brady, Maye is capable of doing a lot by himself. But not enough to actually carry a team for four quarters. Yet. That's gonna have to do for now.