Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 15: Patriots vs Cardinals

Things to consider while agreeing with Jonathan Kraft:

--It would actually be a positive if we could point to just the playcalling as the reason why the Patriots were barely competitive against a 6-7 team. You know, the way Jerod Mayo seems to:

But just because that's where the head coach has landed, doesn't mean the rest of us should. He might be an innocent bystander in all this. Just collateral damage. A victim of his own team's failings, with the luxury of pointing fingers. But to pin it all on Alex Van Pelt is to ignore the systemic, organization-wide negligence we're witnessing. Simply put, the Patriots were not ready for this game, on any level. Despite having two weeks to prepare for a sub-.500 team coming off three straight losses. To try and pin this on "If only the OC had called this instead of that" is to miss the larger point about just how awful, unprepared and inept the Patriots are in the Year of Our Lord 2024. So no one escapes blame. Even if it's true Drake Maye should have gotten the chance to pick up that 4th & 1:

--As a friend said in our group text, "Embarrassment is when you walk out of the bathroom and those residual pee stains are on your sweat pants. This is something else entirely." And I replied, "This is the football equivalent of being a guest in someone's house, clogging up the toilet, and having to ask for a plunger." I guess "mortified" is not too strong a word?

--It was an eerie feeling to watch the pregame show lean into the excitement and drama of the Buffalo at Detroit game for 15 minutes or so, then send us to Phoenix for the game no one in the country is talking about but us. When every December game was Footballmaggedon around here, with every win and every loss shifting the balance of power in the AFC, a tiny part of me used to wonder what life was like for those 3-10 teams this time of year. And now we know. It feels exactly like when Dorfman and Kroger are pledging Omega House and keep getting introduced to Mohamed, Jugdish, Sydney and Clayton. It's that distinct feeling  the cool crowd thinks you're boring and weird and don't want you at their party. 

--With that, let us steer into the skid of the many, many ways Mayo's team wasn't prepared. How they played this game like they'd been in deep REM sleep when an alarm went off, they had to grab their gear, slide down a pole, scramble to AirKraft One and barely made it to the stadium on time. Sure, the first drive was going swell. Maye hits Hunter Henry in the flat for a 1st down. The rare well-executed screen to Rhamondre Stevenson goes for 16 behind some great blocking by Austin Hooper. But even there, Maye had to field a grounder like Ben Brown was tossing infield practice. Which was the first sign the offensive line did not come to play. The second sign was the obligatory holding call on Layden Robinson to wipe out a 1st down at the Arizona 15. This year's Pats might not have invented the art of getting a 1st down called back, leading to a missed field goal, leading to a short field for the opposition, leading to points; but they have perfected it. 

--Oddly enough, the lack of preparation affected everyone who's worn a Pats offensive line number, as Hjalte Froholdt -  a member of that proud 2019 draft class that included N'Keal Harry, Joejuan Williams, and interior O-lineman with names like IKEA furniture - rolled his first snap as well. But it peaked with Vederian Lowe flat out failing to account for his assignment on consecutive snaps. Playing left tackle, he was caught looking inside on a TFL followed by a sack, resulting in a 3rd & 19. 

And yet, there Lowe was, back out for the third possession, and all 51 offensive snaps. Making it fair to wonder what it would take to get benched on this unit. And me start to question whether it's time to start using "Vederian" as an adjective to mean passive and non-aggressive. "He refused to get into it with that lunatic who had road rage. That was very Vederian of him." We've already been using his last name to describe our feelings toward this team all year.

--All the proof we needed the defensive side of the ball wasn't ready came on Arizona's second possession. Froholdt pulled to put Marcus Jones (who is giving away 130 pounds to him) into a shallow grave. Right tackle Jonah Williams also pulled and put Jahlani Tavai on his ass at the point of attack. From there, James Conner just needed to make Christian Elliss and Jabrill Peppers miss. Which wasn't hard since Elliss ran slower than the 5:15 Red Line train to Braintree. And Peppers wasn't exactly Euclid with the angle he took. Just failure to plan for and execute against a staple of the Cardinals attack:

--To stick with the defense for a moment and get us back to the playcalling as well, look at this design Drew Petzing came up with to get Greg Dortch into the open field with blockers ahead of him. A 3X1 with Dortch in the middle and Trey McBride in the slot and the Pats in man. McBride runs a legal pick on Marcus Jones while Dell Pettus stays on him, effectively leaving McBride blocking two. Meanwhile both Froholdt and left guard Evan Brown have bounced to the second level in front of Dortch's slant. Brown takes Peppers completely out of the play while Froholdt is blocking air, since there are no other Pats defenders within an Astronomical Unit of the ball. That would be the same air Kyle Dugger managed to tackle as Dortch added to his YAC totals:

It's worth asking when the last time AVP designed anything that creative. Or effective. Which might be the exact conversation being held at One Patriots Place this morning.

--Eventually I lost count of how many missed tackles the Patriots had. I just know the last time I saw that many whiffs in one game, the starter was Roger Clemens. Dugger had a few. Tavai and Peppers were guilty as well. Christian Gonzalez in the open field on Conner just after the 2:00 warning. And on the final nail in the Pats coffin, the one that set them up at 1st & goal from the 1 ahead of their final touchdown, it was Sione Takitaki catching no part of James Conner as he took it 17 yards on 2nd & 5. Even if you want to argue Van Pelt is doing a lousy job, this is Mayo's side of the ball. And with pretty much the same roster that was coached up into the No. 7 defense last year, they've now given up the 10th most yards and 9th most points in 2024.

--Worse still, they once again generated zero turnovers, giving them just 11 on the season, which is 3rd fewest in the league. Sacks are an overrated stat, particularly with a running, pocket-rolling passer like Kyler Murray. It's much more important to keep him bottled up all game than make the NFL Network highlight package. And naturally the one time they did put Murray on the ground, it was thanks to a Deatrich Wise horsecollar, because we can't have nice things. But how many times did the pass rush even put him in distress? That was definitely the case on the interception he threw that was called for a Roughing the Passer (see: Us, Things, Nice):

But by and large, this is simply no longer a unit capable of creating negative plays or forcing teams to make mistakes. It's become extremely Vederian. (I think this is going to work out. We're going to make this "fetch" happen.)

--Let's try a thought experiment. What if Roger Goodell, in his infinite greed and irrational desire to ruin the country, decides to expand into, say, Oklahoma City and Utah. So he holds an old fashioned expansion draft, where every team is allowed to protect just five players. On this one it's Maye, Gonzalez, and … who, exactly? I guess I'd go with Keion White. But really that's based on what he did early in the season than anything he's done lately.  In the last month he's turned invisible. Yesterday he was 4th on the defense with 56 snaps and didn't show up on the stats sheet. I might keep Marcus Jones, but more as a punt returner and gadget play weapon. And the fifth one? I might not even use it, and see if it's transferable into Jet Blue points or something. Because there might not be another player on this roster anyone would burn the calories it would take to claim him. And yet this is the foundation Eliot Wolf has chosen to build his castle on, despite having a fortune in cap space to spend. I hope that's part of the discussion in Foxboro as well.

--OK, well there's 1,500 words of pure negativity, well earned. Now just for my own benefit, and to help me with the existential despair I'm feeling, let's look at some of the positives. Beginning with Maye. It's impossible not to watch him and then look at Josh Allen, and see the career path Maye is on. Allen walked so Maye can run. (Just not a designed run; AVP doesn't draw those up.) And throw. Like this Go route by Kendrick Bourne, where he knew he had Sterling Thomas in single coverage on the boundary and Budda Baker as the post safety, and got the ball out before Baker could cover the ground:

--Followed up with exactly the sort of creative improv we've seen around the league for a decade or so, but was unthinkable in New England until about eight weeks ago:

--Sure, there was one bad throw where he missed a wide open Kayshon Boutte. But is that so bad, given what happens when he puts the ball right in Boutte's hands?

--Of course if we're counting our (few) blessings this Christmas season, like the Cratchits being grateful for their meager possessions, you have to include Gonzalez. When Mayo and Demarcus Covington do the right thing, don't get cute, and simply assign him to the opponent's WR1, he never fails to deliver. After Marvin Harrison Jr. got freed up with a well-executed mesh concept on the first drive, Gonzalez never lost him again. Including on two pass break ups in the end zone in which case he was basically spooning with the rookie who's considered a generational talent and practically uncoverable:

After that first catch and run, Harrison had one catch for 9 yards, and was PBU'ed in the end zone twice. I shudder to think what this team would be like if GM Bill didn't leave them with Gonzalez, his last truly great draft pick.

--And one last positive, Antonio Gibson:

All he needed there was an edge block from Henry and Bourne cracking down on a safety coming up in run force, and he was around the corner and gone. We've got the making of the next Kevin Faulk/James White on our hands. We just need someone willing to put a game in his hands the way the Charlie Weises and Josh McDanielses used to.

--This Week's Applicable Movie Quote: "What do we got on the spacecraft that's good?" - Gene Kranz, Apollo 13

--Finally, if the New Jersey drones really do intend to attack and wipe us all out, Independence Day style:

… is it too much to ask that they do it now, to spare us from watching this team lose the last seven in a row?