Marc Bertrand: I Still Have Faith The Patriots Made The Right Pick

On Tuesday's edition of Zolak & Bertrand, the guys reacted to Commanders' QB Jayden Daniels' performance on Monday night against the Bengals. This prompted the guys to make the point that they don't regret the Patriots drafting Drake Maye, and how they still have a ton of faith in the rookie.

Bertrand: You must be annoyed watching Jayden Daniels last night, for the Commanders.

Zolak: I'm annoyed not watching our third pick, I know that. Third picks play, and I'm getting real tired of the narrative of needing to protect the kid. It's so overkill. At some point you got to play football. If you get knocked around, you get knocked around. Like at some point, play the damn kid and let's go. Because you're talking about teams like Denver and Chicago. I'm looking at ones that have the rookies that are playing. Washington who picked ahead of you was a worse team than you. All of a sudden, all those three offensive lines are all better than what you had? Au contraire, I go back to draft time, and that was concerning. Now all of a sudden those three teams are kind of blocking it up a little bit. You can't block it up. You got the worst offensive line. How did that all switch? Because they're playing all those guys even with that offense.

Bertrand: If I could bring it back to this topic of Jayden Daniels.

Zolak: I'm a fan of Jayden Daniel's because he moves well, he sits upright, and he's very calm. It doesn't feel like he gets flustered, and he's played the most football out of any of the top quarterbacks who were drafted.

Bertrand: Did the Patriots miss on not being able to get Jayden Daniels? Are they going to look back and say, "Man, if we only had the second pick instead of the third, we could've had Jayden Daniels?"

Zolak: Maybe, but maybe not, because maybe they might take Maye there. There's no guarantee the team is taking Daniels, if the team was drafting second. From everything you talked about afterwards, it was Maye who they fell in love with.

Bertrand: I agree with you on this.

Zolak: I think if they were drafting second, I think they're taking Drake Maye. They knew it was going to be a transition.

Bertrand: You would not have taken Drake Maye though, right? You would have taken Jayden Daniels?

Zolak: Yeah, and I like Maye.

Bertrand: I would have taken Maye, and I told everybody, if you want to win and you want to make a pick that's about the next two years then take Jayden Daniels. If you want to take a pick about the next ten years then take Drake Maye.

Zolak: That's fair and I understood that.

Bertrand: That's how I feel about both of those guys. I still have a boatload of faith that the Patriots got the right guy in this draft.

On Thursday night the New England Patriots went down to the Meadowlands to face the New York Jets, carrying some momentum after a 1-1 start that saw them play two competitive games. The expectation was that win or loss, that level of competition would continue into the team’s first divisional matchup of 2024.

Instead, all of the biggest concerns and worst fears about this team from training camp were on full display as the Patriots got dominated by the Jets in a 24-3 game. Rather than continuing what was a surprising start to the season, the team reminded those watching why those first two games were surprising to begin with, compared to the expectations set when training camp began in July.

Thursday night was more lopsided than the score dictated. The Patriots were outgained in total yardage 400-139, with 46 of those yards coming on the final drive when the Jets put in their backup defense. The last time the Patriots were outgained by that many yards was at the end of the 2022 season against the Buffalo Bills in a 38-9 loss. Before that, you have to go back to a 1986 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

The Patriots possessed the ball for just 19:56 in this game, getting out-snapped 70-48. It’s just the seventh game in which the Patriots failed to possess the ball for more than 20 minutes since the NFL began tracking time of possession in 1977.

With any game that one-sided, there’s going to be issues on both sides of the ball. But looking at this game through the lens of preseason concerns, there’s one clear place to start as we begin this week’s game takeaways…

Thursday night was a rough night for Patriots quarterback Jacoby Brissett. Brissett was pressured on a whopping 52.2 percent of his dropbacks per PFF before he was pulled late in the game. In total the Jets defense recorded seven sacks and 15 quarterback hits.

Granted, the Patriots were short on offensive line personnel in this game making the pressure - while still excessive - not overly surprising. Both tackles in this game were playing out of position. With Vederian Lowe out, rookie Caedan Wallace started at left tackle despite being a career right tackle in college and spending most of training camp on the right side. On the right side was Mike Onwenu, who is primarily a guard and has struggled in pass protection at tackle to start the season.

On the interior the Patriots had Michael Jordan - who started the year on the practice squad - at left guard. Rookie Layden Robinson played right guard and David Andrews played center. Those two - along with Onwenu - came into the game dealing with injuries. This was the unit for the Patriots against a Jets defense that put up the highest pressure rate in the NFL through the first two weeks.

What this all really gets back to is that the Patriots came into this season without the necessary offensive line depth. Keep in mind they’re stretched this thin now, and it’s only Week 3. The depth could be tested more in coming weeks, after Wallace and Jordan both left Thursday night’s game with injuries.

While there are other issues facing the roster, this sits at the forefront. Until the Patriots figure out a way to at least reach a baseline level of pass protection, it will be very difficult to further build out their offense. The lack of protection also brings into question the timeline for Drake Maye, and if the Patriots want to subject him to playing behind this line this early in his development.

Speaking of Drake Maye, he got his first taste of regular season NFL action on Thursday night, coming in for the Patriots’ final series of the game. He completed four of his eight passes for 22 yards and added two carries for 12 yards. He also took a couple of big hits over the course of the drive.

The actual results were up and down for Maye. He nearly threw an interception on his first pass and had another errant throw, but he was also able to move around and navigate the pocket to extend plays.

Maye had a chance to lead a touchdown drive but took a sack at the Jets 12-yard line, setting up a 2nd and goal with 20 seconds to go. The Patriots still had all three timeouts, yet let the clock run out rather than letting Maye finish his drive.

It was clear the Patriots were hesitant about Maye getting into the game - Jerod Mayo said postgame the state of the offensive line almost kept the Patriots from putting him in late. So when it comes to Maye’s timeline, it’s hard to say whether tonight’s performance did much. Mayo did say after the game “I don’t know” when asked about a potential quarterback switch, but if he’s worrying about the offensive line it’s hard to see that coming any time soon - especially after the injuries the team suffered Thursday night.

Another major storyline coming into this game was the usage of Pop Douglas. The Patriots’ wide receivers as a whole were uninvolved through the first two weeks, but Douglas in particular stood out as a player who has the ability to create the kind of explosive plays this offense is lacking without the need to throw the ball deep. Douglas himself expressed frustration with his lack of targets (he had none in Week 2) in the days leading up to this game.

On one hand, Douglas was certainly more involved. He had a team-high nine targets, catching seven passes for 69 yards. He also ran once for a nine-yard gain.

However, a good chunk of that production came once the game was out of reach. In the second half Douglas was targeted six times, catching five passes for 56 yards. He had two catches for 20 yards on the final drive alone.

Douglas flashed his high-level ability to create with the ball in his hands but couldn’t do it consistently enough to lift the offense. The Patriots need to keep him involved but need to grow the offense around him as well. He’s not going to be able to carry the unit on his own.

Production elsewhere was minimal, in part due to the play of the offensive line. Ja’Lynn Polk was the only other receiver to record a catch before the final drive - he caught two passes for 13 yards.

Part of the reason the Patriots were so competitive through the first two games is they didn’t turn the ball over. While this game was out of reach by the time they had their first turnover of the season, that play did come in this game.

It was running back Rhamondre Stevenson who produced the first turnover of the season from the Patriots, fumbling the ball on a 1st & 10 early in the fourth quarter. That came immediately after a Jets punt, and led to a field goal for the final score of the game.

While that’s the first turnover of the year for the Patriots, it wasn’t Stevenson’s first fumble. He put the ball on the ground in each of the Patriots’ first two games as well, including on the goal line against Cincinnati. The Patriots don’t have the margin for error to work around regular fumbles so Stevenson will need to improve his ball security moving forwards - especially if he’s going to be as big of a part of the Patriots’ offense as he has been.

Speaking of that - if there’s one minor silver lining in this game for the Patriots it’s that Stevenson finally got a bit of a rest. Through the first two weeks Stevenson led the NFL with 51 touches, and that kind of workload with how physically he was running the ball didn’t feel sustainable. The Patriots took some off his plate Thursday night (helped by the fact he missed a quarter with a finger injury) as he only recorded six touches against the Jets.

The Patriots’ defense had its share of problems as well. Throughout the game the Jets’ offense was able to get pretty much whatever it wanted, putting up exactly 400 yards of total offense while gaining 5.7 yards per play and going 10-of-15 on third down.

Ja’Whaun Bentley’s absence was felt throughout the game in a number of ways. The Patriots were slower swarming to the ball and didn’t seem to be on the same page as much as they were the first two weeks.

Where Bentley was missed the most though was his reliable tackling ability. The Patriots - who have been one of the best tackling teams in the NFL over the past few seasons - couldn’t get Jets ball carriers to the ground.

Late in the game the broadcast showed a Next Gen Stats graphic that had the Patriots down for 13 missed tackles costing the team 100 yards of field position (the Patriots only missed 13 tackles combined in the first two games per Pro Football Reference). It’s hard to win giving an offense that many extra chances (case in point, yards after contact was a major factor for the Patriots in their win over the Bengals.

The Patriots were on a short week, so fatigue is expected to play a factor in a game like this. That could explain some tackling issues, but the problems for the Patriots in that regard on Thursday night seemed bigger at times than just a quick turnaround. With a little more time before the next game, the Patriots’ defensive coaching staff will have to get to work on tightening up the unit without its most consistent player in the middle of it.

The Patriots will face the Jets again at the end of October, and something they’ll need to consider between now and then is how New York’s bigger wide receivers took advantage of their smaller cornerbacks. Throughout the game Aaron Rodgers picked on 5-foot-9 Jonathan Jones and 5-foot-8 Marcus Jones covering 6-foot-5 Allen Lazard and 6-foot-4 Mike Williams.

While Christian Gonzalez put together a solid showing against Garrett Wilson, Lazard and Williams combined for 82 yards on just six catches, often creating after the catch. That’s where some of the Patriots’ tackling issues came in.

One player who should be able to help the Patriots out of those mismatches is 6-foot-1 Alex Austin, who saw an increased role in this game with Marco Wilson inactive. However Austin also struggled, including having Lazard blow by him after catching a screen for the first touchdown of the game.

It’s not just the Jets that have the personnel to force the Patriots into mismatches like this. There are a few more teams coming up on the Patriots’ schedule with bigger wide receivers like the Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago Bears, and (assuming they’re healthy) the Los Angeles Rams. It’s not something the Patriots will have to worry about much over the next two weeks against the San Francisco 49rs and Miami Dolphins, but still something that will come up sooner rather than later.

This was another solid game for punter Bryce Baringer. He punted five times averaging 43.6 net yards per punt with three kicks downed inside the 20 and no touchbacks.

However, for the second week in a row the coverage team let up a big return off one of his longer kicks. That came after the Patriots punted on their first drive of the second half, still trailing just 14-3.

Baringer drilled a kick 51 yards to the Jets 13 yard line, and Brenden Schooler beat the blockers down the field for a clear shot at returner Xavier Gipson. Gipson made Schooler miss and returned the punt 21 yards. That favorable field position led to the Jets’ third touchdown of the game and seemed to close any hopes of the Patriots coming back.

In their Week 1 win, high-level special teams play was such a big part of the reason the Patriots were able to control the game against the Bengals. They’ll need to get back to that moving forwards as they start facing some tougher opponents.