There were a lot of mixed emotions as this game progressed. Drake Maye got his first career start against the Houston Texans and looked incredibly promising, but the New England Patriots still showed too many weaknesses that cost them this game. Their defense clearly does not play their best when it is not fully healthy and the offense still has discipline issues that need to be corrected. The Patriots looked a lot better this week than they did in the last three weeks with Jacoby Brissett as the starting quarterback, but the losses just keep piling up. Let’s take a look at five of the biggest things to take away from this football game on Sunday and see just how New England dropped their fifth game in a row.
Patriots Recap of Week 6
1. Drake Maye Looked Sharp
If there was one thing to be super happy about, it is that Maye ran the offense significantly better than Brissett did in the last five weeks. He got his receivers more involved, he did his best to push the ball down the field, and he even made some nifty plays with his legs. The third overall pick finished the day with over 280 yards from scrimmage, three touchdown passes, two interceptions, and a lost fumble. His first career touchdown was a beauty as he threw a 40-yard dot down the sideline to Kayshon Boutte on the final drive of the first half, and his last was a sharp 35-yard dart over the middle to Demario Douglas, who finally got in the end zone for the first time in his young career. Two of those turnovers were not completely Maye’s fault, so given the circumstances, he looked pretty well on Sunday. There are still plenty of areas that need improvement such as his footwork, but this was a better start than expected.
2. Turnovers Were a Problem
The Patriots offense turned the ball over four times and the Texans scored seventeen points off of those mistakes. Houston ended up winning the game 41-21, so if New England held onto the football better, they might have had a realistic shot of pulling off an upset. Maye was responsible for three of those mistakes, but to reiterate, two of those were not completely his fault. The first pick was on the quarterback for overthrowing Douglas. His second interception took place on an attempted screen pass to Antonio Gibson, in which Danielle Hunter made an impressive deflection and Eric Murray made an even better catch as he was getting blocked on the play. The lost fumble was created by Hunter on a strip sack, which could have been avoided if the Patriots had somebody other than Zach Thomas blocking, who is the third right tackle that the team has started this year. Austin Hooper was responsible for the final turnover, fumbling it well into their own territory, which set up a 39-yard field goal by Ka’imi Fairbairn to make it a 27-7 ballgame. Houston was clearly the better team, but New England would have made it competitive without those four head-scratching and costly mistakes.
3. Abysmal Run Defense
Ever since Ja’Whaun Bentley went down with a torn pec in Week 2 against the Seahawks, this Patriots run defense has been atrocious. When he was healthy, New England has given up just 116 total yards on the ground. Without him, the defense has allowed close to 167 per game. On Sunday afternoon, the Texans were eight yards short of 200. Joe Mixon looked promising in his return from injury with 132 total yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns, but the real stinger came with just under eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. Dameon Pierce, a running back who was on the bubble of getting cut in training camp, broke three tackles and turned on the jets down the right sideline for a back-breaking 54-yard touchdown run to essentially put the game on ice. That allowed the former fourth-round pick out of Florida to finish the day with 76 yards on just eight touches. Last year, the Patriots were one of the best-run defenses in the league, and now they are ranked nineteenth. It is not shocking that the absence of Bentley has impacted this group, but their inability to handle the run in these last few games has been absolutely unacceptable. If they somehow get gashed against the Jaguars of all offenses next week, that might be a sign that this defense is trash.
4. No Rhamondre, No Running Game
Rhamondre Stevenson didn’t practice all week because of a foot injury, so it was not shocking that he was ruled out. Unfortunately, while Maye looked promising, he could not defer to the running game at all. Their quarterback was the leading rusher with thirty-eight yards and their top back Gibson got completely shut down with just nineteen on thirteen carries. The Texans have one of the best defenses in the league, sure, but this New England offense became one-dimensional in a hurry. There is no doubt that this area will get better with Stevenson back in the lineup, but this is just another area that has proven to fall off the grid when it is not at full strength.
5. O-Line Woes Continued
The New England populace was very split on Maye making his first start in the sixth game of the season. One side was excited to finally see a spark out of this football team, let alone the whole offense. The other were scared and upset because they knew that this horrible supporting cast was going to cause Maye to regress and it would hurt his development. After this game on Sunday, both sides were validated. Maye made fantastic plays that kept his team in the game, but the offensive line was still just as abysmal as it was when Brissett was starting. They are now down to their third center Ben Brown, who somehow leaped over the backup veteran Nick Leverett on the depth chart after their starter David Andrews underwent season-ending shoulder surgery. They rotated Demontrey Jacobs and Zach Thomas at right tackle, let Vederian Lowe take over on the blind side, and had Michael Onwenu and Michael Jordan as the starting guards. It is no wonder that Will Anderson had a “hat trick” afternoon, meaning he had three sacks for the entire afternoon. Hunter got loose around the edge as well, creating a critical strip-sack on just the second play of the second half, which allowed the Texans to increase their lead to fourteen and pull away for the rest of the afternoon. Of all of the things that could have gone wrong for the Patriots this year, nobody could have anticipated that this offensive line would be this horrific with absolutely no depth. It does not matter who is starting at quarterback or which receiver decides to have a standout game or even if the defense decides to play lights out. Without any protection, there is no hope for this football team and it is just going to completely sink any hope that these fans have left.
The Patriots will travel to London and hopefully end their five-game losing streak against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Both teams are 1-5, so the United States is going to have a promising morning to look forward to on Sunday, and they are going to be incredibly desperate for a victory. New England is bad in terms of talent, but Jacksonville has fallen down a darker path. Their offense is one-dimensional and turnover-prone, while the defense has no secondary or any pass rush besides Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker. It would be nice to see the Patriots finally get another win, but it is not going to completely elevate them to a higher tier.
Main Image: Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images
