Patriots
“I simply thought that was going to be a energy of this workforce.”
Lots went fallacious for Mike Vrabel and the Patriots of their season-opening loss to the Raiders on Sunday at Gillette Stadium.
After a promising first half, Drake Maye and the Patriots’ offense flatlined down the stretch — punting or turning the ball over on six of the workforce’s ultimate seven drives of the afternoon.
New England’s protection did solely enable 20 factors, however Geno Smith and the Raiders nonetheless managed to generate loads of explosive performs in Foxborough — with Las Vegas closing out the sport with 9 performs of 20-plus yards.
However for former Patriots heart David Andrews, probably the most disheartening end result from Sunday’s 20-13 loss revolved round New England’s poor exhibiting within the run sport.
“Watching the sport from an O-line perspective, an offensive perspective, I wasn’t that upset within the go blocking however extra upset within the run sport,” Andrews said on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Zolak & Bertrand on Monday. “I simply thought that was going to be a energy of this workforce.”
The expectation coming into the 2025 season was for New England to rely closely on a ground-and-pound method on offense — particularly given the expertise discovered on that space of the roster.
Rhamondre Stevenson and Antonio Gibson had been already anticipated to play key roles this season, however New England seemingly had one other high playmaker in place with 2025 second-round choose TreVeyon Henderson — who emerged as a breakout star throughout preseason play along with his dynamic velocity and versatile skillset.
However even with these weapons out there in Josh McDaniels’ offense, New England opted to focus extra on the go sport in opposition to the Raiders.
Drake Maye finally tried 46 passes on Sunday, which marks as the third-highest passing attempts by a Patriots QB in the post-Brady era (since 2019).
A few of that emphasis on an aerial assault might need been a results of poor outcomes with the bottom sport, as New England generated simply 60 complete speeding yards off of 18 makes an attempt — amounting to simply 3.3 yards per carry.
Each Stevenson and Henderson didn’t document a carry within the second half as New England’s offense sputtered.
The Patriots generated simply 137 complete offensive yards over the third and fourth quarters of play, with a hefty portion of that (54 yards) coming off of a garbage-time drive within the ultimate minutes of play because the Raiders switched to a forestall protection.
For Andrews, these struggles with producing chunk yardage on the bottom was a results of New England’s offensive line being unable to clear the best way for Stevenson and Henderson.
“There’s outdated adage in offensive line play, ‘Deal with the down guys,’” Andrews stated. “If you say that, you’re hoping you drive that D-lineman six yards down the sector and dump him on a double workforce. Now, he’s within the linebacker’s lap. You won’t have blocked the linebacker, nevertheless it’s nonetheless going to be a very good play.
“However once you’re not shifting these guys, and possibly you’re ‘caring for them,’ however you’re not getting the linebacker,” Andrews stated, “that’s the place you see the two-, three-yard runs.”
Speaking on Monday, Vrabel defined why New England opted to desert the run sport as Sunday’s sport carried on.
“It simply wasn’t certainly one of our higher performs,” Vrabel stated. “Once more, we simply need to make the most of the performs that we do name and hit it when we have now guys open, and simply having the ability to begin the second half, having the ability to go down there and proceed that drive, sadly not flip it over and be capable to create some momentum in that state of affairs.”
“The underside line is we have now to run the ball higher and we have now to run it extra effectively,” he added. “As a result of then I believe that each one opens up some extra of the stuff that we’re doing, can do and wish to have the ability to achieve this that it’s not only a drop-back passing sport.”
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