Drake Maye's Passing is Opening Up the Patriots Running Game, Spelling Doom for the Rest of Pro Football

By now it's been firmly established that Drake Maye is the NFL's best deep-ball passer over the first half(ish) of his second season in the league. The data points above prove it. The pundits agree:

And your eyes have not been lying to you:

The science is settled on this question. 

And so it's been a matter of waiting for the rest of the NFL to watch the same tape we're seeing and make the necessary adjustments to try and stop Maye from single-handedly destroying their defenses. It was inevitable opposing coaches would try something new instead of just keep getting carpet bombed. And we began to see some of that Sunday in Tennessee. 

And not only the Titans counter-measures not have the intended effect on Maye's passing:

… they had the unintended consequence of solving the biggest problem the Pats have had this season. Which is open up the run game. A rushing attack that averaged just 91.5 rushing yards per game in Weeks 1-6 Monster Trucked over the Titans for a season-high 175 yards and 4.86 YPA. Also thanks to Maye's running:

But having a lot more to do with the Titans having to pick their poison, over-commit to stopping the deep ball, and making everything easier for the run game:

Source -  Since opposing defenses didn't fear the Patriots passing game yet, the Pats were running the ball into loaded boxes, and admittedly struggling. But the takeaway here was once defenses adjust to Maye's ascension into the top-10 quarterback conversation, will the Patriots still struggle to run? If the Patriots couldn't run defenses out of two-high safety shells, that's when it was time to truly worry about the ground game.

 

On Sunday, we got our answer. Now, it's worth noting that the Titans defense came into the week ranked 24th in EPA vs. the run, so this wasn't a good Tennessee run defense that the Patriots faced. Still, the Titans opened the game in two-high safety shells to force the Patriots to run the ball. On the opening drive, RB Rhamondre Stevenson rushed five times for 42 yards (8.4 YPC). In all, Stevenson had a season-high 10 carries for 71 rushing yards vs. the Titans two-high safety structures. So, this week, we got our answer: Yes, the Patriots can run the ball well enough to make defenses pay for playing two-high safeties. …

In the second half, the Titans were forced to adjust due to New England's RBs averaging 6.8 yards per rush in the first half (11 attempts, 75 yards) … and WR Mack Hollins hits a 27-yard explosive play off the glance route. 

So going forward, DC's around the league are going to have to make a choice. Either keep two safeties back to take away the deep strikes, which Maye can also exploit by hitting the "Cover-2 hole" with alarming accuracy:

… in which case Josh McDaniels will happily take advantage of the numbers advantage in the box with two tight ends and/or two running backs and pound them with downhill power runs all day like he did to open the game Sunday. Or they can drop a safety down, in which case he'll happily let Maye and Kayshon Boutte launch air strikes on you outside the numbers. 

Boutte, it should be noted, is Top 10 in the league in yards per reception with 17.8, receiving touchdowns with four, and has the highest passer rating when targeted at 141.7. 

As you look ahead at this week's game against Cleveland, DC Jim Schwartz is calling for Cover-1, man-heavy sets 40.8% of the time, which is the most in the league by a wide margin. Like 8% more than the No. 2 team. And it will be interesting to see if Drake & Josh can make him pay a price, force him to adjust to more of a deep shell, then switch it up and run the ball more. 

Because the Patriots offense has gotten to a point now where the league has to scheme up ways to stop for the first time since the 2010s. And it feels like old times again. 

I ask you: How much fricking fun is this season? And it's only getting better as we go along.