Sunday Night vs. Ravens is Patriots’ biggest game of the season

Welcome to Season 14, Episode 16 of the Unconventional Preview, a critical but lighthearted, nostalgia-tinted take a look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup …

Possibly it is a prediction, or possibly it’s simply widespread sense. Nevertheless it appears obvious that we’re going to study extra in regards to the Patriots in Sunday night time’s prime-time matchup with the Ravens than after they dropkicked a 17-point halftime lead and lost to the division rival Bills final Sunday.

This recreation is greater than the final, and any of the ten straight the Patriots received previous it for that matter, as a result of we’re about to seek out out which issues revealed by Josh Allen and pals have speedy options and which of them don’t.

The Patriots get an opportunity to lock up a playoff berth towards a proud Ravens group clinging to its postseason hopes. After colliding with Allen, they get an opportunity to face one other MVP, two-time winner Lamar Jackson, although he missed one apply with an sickness this week and has been coping with an assortment of accidents.

What else? They get an opportunity to indicate that quarterback Drake Maye can bounce again from his first mediocre efficiency because the season’s first month, that the attrition on the protection could be overcome, that there are answers to stopping the run, and that their second-half offensive struggles are a behavior able to be put up to now.

It’s essential to recollect the place the Patriots are: 11-3 is a remarkable record by any measure, particularly contemplating the expectations getting into the season. However we’re nonetheless studying about simply how good they’re. The Payments uncovered some downside areas. The Ravens will attempt to do the identical. How they fare will inform us rather a lot in regards to the actuality of this group’s aspirations.

Kick it off, Borregales, and let’s get this factor began …

Three gamers price watching aside from the quarterbacks

Derrick Henry: It’s beginning to really feel like a very long time in the past that the Patriots protection was stout towards the run. Within the three video games since defensive deal with Milton (Price Each Greenback) Williams went down with an ankle injury within the Week 11 victory over the Jets, the Patriots have allowed a mean of 134 dashing yards per recreation after preserving seven of their first 9 opponents underneath 74 yards per recreation.

Moreover, the Patriots didn’t enable a single runner to surpass 50 yards till Tampa Bay’s Sean Tucker ran for 53 in Week 8. The Bengals’ Chase Brown turned the primary opponent to clear 100 dashing yards, with 107 on 19 carries in Week 12. This previous Sunday, the Payments’ James Prepare dinner slithered by way of the Patriots protection for 107 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 22 carries. His longest run was 12 yards, however Prepare dinner was in a position to acquire 5- and 6-yard chunks every time the Payments wished.

And now the Patriots must deal with Henry, who thundered for 100 yards on simply 11 makes an attempt within the Ravens’ shutout of the Bengals. Henry, who’s first amongst lively operating backs in dashing makes an attempt (2,588, thirteenth all-time) continues to be thriving at age 31, with 1,125 yards, 11 touchdowns, and a 4.8 yards per try common this season.

The Patriots’ early dominance towards the run was a little bit of a mirage as a result of recreation circumstances. Now, regardless of nonetheless rating fifth within the NFL with 95.1 dashing yards allowed per recreation, it’s trending towards being a significant downside.

Robert Spillane, the Patriots’ main tackler, was in a strolling boot early within the week after lacking the Payments recreation, and fellow linebackers Christian Elliss and Harold Landry are additionally banged up. The Patriots signed former Jaguars third-round decide Chad Muma off the Colts apply squad, nevertheless it stays a remorse that the linebacker corps wasn’t boosted on the commerce deadline.

Up entrance, Williams isn’t eligible to return off injured reserve till subsequent week, leaving Christian Barmore (4 pressures towards the Payments) to face regular double groups, which can be affecting their principally ineffective cross rush.

Maybe Mike Vrabel’s expertise teaching Henry for six seasons with the Titans will present the Patriots protection with some perception on how you can finest take care of him. However that may solely achieve this a lot given the Patriots’ personnel deficiencies proper now.

TreVeyon Henderson: By means of the Patriots’ first seven video games, the rookie second-round decide totaled simply 43 carries for 153 yards and a landing. Nobody with even a shred of endurance thought he was a bust, however even these of us who preached early on that his breakout was coming have been starting to wonder if he truly wanted a yr to get acclimated to the NFL, very like James White, Shane Vereen, and some different Patriots backs earlier than him.

After which, the breakout got here. He ran for 75 yards on 10 makes an attempt towards the Browns, and he has been a dynamic a part of the Patriots offense since. Over the past seven video games starting with that Week 8 rout of the Browns, Henderson has carried the ball precisely 100 occasions for 620 yards and 6 touchdowns.

Henderson discovered his stride, and it occurs to be a stride that makes him as large a menace to take it the space as any Patriots again I can recall seeing. He has three two-touchdown video games in these final seven video games, with 4 of these scoring runs going for over 50 yards. Solely the Colts’ Lenny Moore in 1956 and the Giants’ Saquan Barkley in 2018 have additionally had 4 50-yards-plus TD runs of their rookie season.

With 773 rushing yards this season, Henderson has a wonderful shot at 1,000 yards. He was downright electrifying towards the Payments, with 148 yards and a pair of lengthy touchdowns, however it’s honest to recommend that there are nonetheless just a few too many 1- and 2-yard runs on his ledger.

The Ravens’ Fifteenth-ranked run protection (111.1 yards per recreation) has been sturdy these days, permitting simply 34 dashing yards to the Steelers two weeks in the past and 100 to the Bengals final week. However Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson, who ran with toughness and purpose against the Bills, are not any simple problem.

Kyle Van Noy: A reliable defensive piece for the Patriots’ 2016 and ‘18 Tremendous Bowl winners, the 34-year-old linebacker can nonetheless muster a giant play every so often. He made one of many performs of the week within the NFL final Sunday, intercepting Joe Burrow in the fourth quarter and lateraling to Alohi Gilman for a 84-yard return for a landing.

The lateral was most likely a clever determination: NextGen Stats tracked Van Noy as operating 16.2 miles per hour earlier than the lateral, which is barely higher than Philip Rivers’s footspeed at this level. Maye’s eyes will get awfully huge if he sees Van Noy matched up with Henderson in protection.

The flashback

Contemplating they’ve met simply 16 occasions, the Patriots and Ravens have a slightly storied rivalry.

It helps the legend that 4 of these matchups got here within the postseason, together with AFC Championship video games in 2011 (received by the Patriots) and ’12 (received by the eventual champion Ravens). The Patriots are 9-3 towards the Ravens within the common season, however cut up the 4 playoff showdowns.

One of many playoff victories over Baltimore stands for my part as essentially the most spectacular and memorable victory of the second section of the Patriots dynasty, excluding Tremendous Bowls.

In fact, I’m speaking in regards to the Patriots’ 35-31 victory in a 2014 AFC Divisional Playoff at Gillette Stadium. The Patriots trailed by 14 factors twice — 14-0 within the first quarter, and 28-14 within the third — and needed to come again towards a Ravens protection that would actually get after the quarterback (Elvis Dumerville and Terrell Suggs mixed for 29½ sacks that season).

The Patriots minimize the Ravens result in 28-21 with slightly below 7 minutes left within the third on a Tom Brady to Rob Gronkowski 5-yard TD cross. Then offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels cooked up some much-needed trickery, a double cross wherein former Kent State quarterback Julian Edelman threw a strike to Danny Amendola for a 51-yard landing cross to tie the sport.

The Ravens briefly seized the lead once more on Justin Tucker‘s 25-yard subject aim with 10:17 remaining, however Brady hit Brandon LaFell with a great thing about a throw for a 23-yard landing for the ultimate factors with simply over 5 minutes left.

That may have been a divisional playoff recreation, nevertheless it had the strain of a Tremendous Bowl.

Grievance of the week

It’s been a wrestle many weeks to seek out one thing to gripe about on this area throughout this pleasant shock of a Patriots season.

So simply think about how a lot of a wrestle it have to be for these in sports activities radio and tv that visitors in grievance. They’ve needed to be — gasp! — optimistic. Their hearts have been compelled to develop 3½ sizes. I really feel for them this vacation season.

I think the scarcity of issues to complain about relating to these Patriots is a giant cause why Vrabel’s candid feedback on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Present” Monday in regards to the offense getting “cute” towards the Payments bought a lot traction this week.

The same old suspects have been making an attempt to fire up rumors of discord between Vrabel and McDaniels all season, regardless of Maye quickly growing right into a MVP candidate because of the steerage of each of them.

Vrabel is blunt in a Invoice Parcells sort of manner, and he did appear pissed off that McDaniels’s pair of trick performs and maybe some new twists to the offense didn’t have much of a payoff for the time apparently spent on them.

However he wasn’t unsuitable, and he’s not going to say something on a sports activities radio present or throughout a press convention that he received’t say on to gamers’ and coaches’ faces.

Too many individuals round right here have Belichick Syndrome, the place they’ve been conditioned to imagine candor and emotion is a nasty factor. And too many others simply need to complain about one thing, actually because they don’t have anything else to say in any other case.

Prediction, or I nonetheless can’t imagine Invoice Belichick by no means introduced Ed Reed to the Patriots

The Ravens have scored 24 or fewer factors of their final 5 video games. The Patriots have scored 24 or extra factors in every of their final 9. Belief the developments and the mathematics.

Patriots 31, Ravens 23