Patriots safety Jabrill Peppers knew right away.
“We came out and got our a— kicked,” he said late Thursday night.
The film agreed.
Thursday’s’ 24-3 loss to the Jets was more than a manhandling or an embarrassment. It was a cartoonish brawl spinning end zone to end zone, players rolling in a cloud, fists sticking out and the same loser seeing stars at the end of virtually every drive: the Patriots.
The Jets pummeled their longtime tormentors, dominating the Pats at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. The Patriots’ offensive line remains a no-charge vending machine for pressure. It allowed a season-worst seven sacks and pressure on 54% of pass plays; a rate that bears repeating.
More than half the time Jacoby Brissett or Drake Maye dropped back to pass, they were hit or hurried.
Defensively, the Pats suffered against a familiar ball-control formula that yielded 133 rushing yards and more than 40 minutes of possession time for the Jets. Peppers and Co. also whiffed on 12 tackles, their second-highest single-game total since the start of the 2021 season and a clear breakdown of fundamentals and spirit. Aaron Rodgers shredded their coverage plan, even picking his spots with star receiver Garrett Wilson who had five catches and a touchdown working mostly in the shadow of Christian Gonzalez.
The good news: the defense should rebound. The Pats have ranked among the surest tackling teams in the NFL for years. Gonzalez is a stud.
The bad news: it takes more than tackling to win in the NFL. And right now, scoring enough points feels frighteningly difficult to come by given the state of an offensive line that may be the franchise’s worst pass-protecting unit in the modern era.
So, where is the hope? And what about Maye?
Here’s what the film revealed about the Patriots’ latest loss:
12-of-18 for 98 yards, 5 sacks
Accurate throw percentage: 70.6%
Under pressure: 3-of-8, 28 yards, five sacks
Against the blitz: 2-of-6 for 28 yards, three sacks
Behind the line: 5-of-6 for 28 yards
0-9 yards downfield: 6-of-7 for 48 yards
10-19 yards downfield: 1-of-1 for 22 yards
20+ yards downfield: 0-of-3
Notes: More of the same for the Pats’ starting quarterback, plus a couple extra sacks. And when Brissett is not avoiding sacks, he’s not driving a winning effort.
Again, he operated mostly within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage and was forced to navigate a steady barrage of pressure. Brissett’s only bad miss downfield likely cost the Patriots some points: a corner-route overthrow of tight end Austin Hooper in the first half that would have been an explosive play into Jets territory. Brissett is now 0-of-5 this season on deep throws, though he’s completed more than half his attempts in the intermediate area (10 to 19 yards downfield).
Against the Jets, Brissett also faced significant unblocked pressure, which arrived on six of the 13 combined sacks, hits and hurries he took. In Alex Van Pelt’s offense, the center sets the protections, which alleviates some of the blame here on the quarterback. But Brissett remains more caretaker than playmaker, and in games like Thursday’s, the Patriots will need more of the latter.
Notes: I’m sorry. Thursday’s tape offered no real insight into Maye’s long-term prospects as an NFL quarterback.
He saw fewer than five minutes of game time. He directed one drive with the same type of personnel (three receivers, one running back, one tight end) on every snap. He faced a smattering of Jets backups.
Maye looked like a rookie, played like a rookie, and that is to be expected.
He did thread a nice 15-yard completion on fourth down to DeMario Douglas before ending the game on his back. Diving a little deeper, he went 0-of-2 against the blitz, with a couple scrambles for 12 yards. Facing pressure, he scrambled for one yard and took a massive hit, then had an incompletion affected by another hit and absorbed the two sacks.
Maye’s athleticism is an obvious plus, but it is not synonymous with sack avoidance or pocket presence. The 22-year-old has room for growth in both areas, which will come with reps. In the meantime, the Patriots must decide whether reps behind this offensive line are worth it for the future of their franchise; a tough, smart player whose physical tools are plenty evident and summer-time development has been encouraging, but otherwise remains a mystery.
How Patriots coaches graded Drake Maye’s NFL debut vs. Jets
Turnovers: Patriots 1, Jets 0
Explosive play rate: Patriots 2.1%, Jets 5.4%
Success rate: Patriots 29%, Jets 55%
Red-zone efficiency: Patriots 0-1, Jets 3-4
Defensive pressure rate: Patriots 20%, Jets 54.2%
Game plan
Personnel breakdown: 79% of snaps in 11 personnel, 17% snaps in 12 personnel, 4% snaps in 13 personnel.***
Personnel production: 34% success rate in 11 personnel, 12.5% success rate in 12 personnel, 0% success rate in 13 personnel.
First-down down play-calls: 32% run (17% success rate), 68% pass (31% success rate)
Play-action rate: 20%
Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt told reporters Friday he regretted his game plan. He had reasons to regret.
Van Pelt called passes on seven of the Pats' first nine plays and twice as many passes than runs in the first half, despite facing a Jets defense that had allowed 4.7 yards per carry and ranked bottom 10 in run defense by DVOA and Pro Football Focus grades. He also called passes on seven of their first 11 first-down snaps while the game was in relative reach. Worse yet, the Jets had a beat on his play-action calls, much like Seattle last weekend.
Running play-action, Brissett started 2-of-3 for one yard and took two sacks. He got hit three times on these plays, including twice on unblocked pressures. The Jets knew how to attack the Patriots' protection schemes and short-circuited their bootleg passes by widening the alignment of their defensive ends. This allowed the ends to rush freely and diagnose whether Brissett had handed the ball off or was turning back around in their direction after faking outside zone hand-offs.
As soon as he turned around, Brissett got smacked. Once the Jets staked a two-possession lead, their pass rush proved relentless, even without blitz pressure, which overwhelmed the Patriots. Brissett got sacked on one-third of his dropbacks versus the blitz.
Broken tackles: WR DeMario Douglas 4, RB Rhamondre Stevenson 2, RB Antonio Gibson 2, TE Austin Hooper
Pressure allowed: Team 6 (2 sacks, 3 QB hits, hurry), LT Caedan Wallace 3 (2 hurries, QB hit), LG Michael Jordan 2 (2 sacks), C David Andrews 2 (sack, QB hit), RG Layden Robinson 2 (sack, QB hit), RT Mike Onwenu (hurry), QB Drake Maye (hurry)
Run stuffs allowed: Team
Drops: None
Game plan
Personnel breakdown: 35% three-corner nickel package, 24% three-safety nickel, 23% base, 15% dime, 3% goal-line.****
Coverage breakdown: 60% zone, 40% man
Blitz rate: 20%
Blitz efficacy: 77% offensive success rate and 9.33 yards per play allowed
No surprise, Patriots defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington assigned Christian Gonzalez to shadow Garrett Wilson, another opposing No. 1 receiver, and played a lot of Cover 2 around his man-to-man calls. It was the same basic plan Covington designed in Weeks 1 and 2. And just like Geno Smith in the Pats' Week 2 loss to Seattle, Aaron Rodgers had no problem identifying and beating all types of pressure.
That was a significant problem for the Pats, who again leaned on creative blitzes and simulated pressures to get the offense off the field in high-leverage situations: third downs, snaps inside the red zone and on the fringe of field goal range. Instead, Rodgers went 7-of-9 for 84 yards and two touchdowns versus the blitz. He never looked off-balance, let alone confused.
The Pats also increased their rate of man coverage, something Rodgers exploited by playing matchup ball with passes to Allen Lazard (6-foot-5) and Mike Williams (6-foot-3) when they were matched against smaller corners in Jonathan Jones, Alex Austin and Marcus Jones. Rodgers finished 13-of-16 for 118 yards and two touchdowns versus man-to-man.
Against Cover 2, he carved up the middle of the field with targets for tight end Tyler Conklin (five catches) and on checkdowns to running back Breece Hall (four catches). In addition to failing with their disguises and pressure packages, the Pats couldn't stop the run out of their preferred two-high coverage shell. That let Hall and fellow running back Braelon Hall eat for more than 100 combined rushing yards and a touchdown, then cut Rodgers loose to attack 1-on-1 matchups outside with only a single safety deep.
Pressure: DL Keion White 3 (2 QB hits, hurry), OLB Anfernee Jennings 2 (hurry, drawn hold), DL Deatrich Wise (sack), OLB Joshua Uche (sack), LB Jahlani Tavai (hurry)
Run stuffs: Jennings 2, Tavai
Pass deflections: CB Jonathan Jones
Missed tackles: Tavai 3, LB Raekwon McMillan 2, CB Christian Gonzalez, CB Alex Austin, S Jaylinn Hawkins, CB Jonathan Jones, Jennings, Uche
OLB Anfernee Jennings
The only bright spot for the Patriots, Jennings tallied a game-high two run stuffs and a couple hurries. Keion White was the only other Patriot to register multiple pressures.
Offensive line
Too many duds to pick just one. A pressure rate of 54. Come on.
RB Rhamondre Stevenson
Three fumbles in three games. That's a one-way ticket to the bench, no matter who you are or how many yards you pick up after contact, and Stevenson sat for the final 14:02 Thursday.
LB Jahlani Tavai
Tavai missed a game-worst three tackles, and Rodgers regularly picked on him in coverage. He also got flagged for unnecessary roughness in the first quarter.
*Explosive plays are defined as runs of 12-plus yards and passes of 20-plus yards.
**Success rate is an efficiency metric measuring how often an offense stays on schedule. A play is successful when it gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on first down, 60% of yards-to-go on second down and 100% of yards-to-go on third or fourth down.
***11 personnel = one running back, one tight end; 12 personnel = one running back, two tight ends; 13 personnel = one running back, three tight ends; 21 = two halfbacks, one tight end.
****Base defense = four defensive backs; nickel = five defensive backs; dime = six defensive backs; goal-line defense = three defensive backs.