3 hours Ago By Andrew Callahan
It’s been another tough go in Foxboro. The Patriots clinched their fourth losing season in five years weeks ago, and are now heading for their worst record in more than 30 years. At 3-11, the Pats can match last year’s win total by winning any one of their final three games: at Buffalo, versus the Chargers and versus the Bills.
Even if they don’t, it was always understood the team was rebuilding under a new regime led by head coach Jerod Mayo and Eliot Wolf. Still, doubts persist because of how the roster has largely failed to develop, and how dramatically. At least there’s Drake Maye.
Taking all of that into consideration, here are seven stats that tell the story of the Patriots’ season: Out of 32 teams, the Patriots offense and defense both rank 30th by the opponent-and-situation-adjusted metric, DVOA; meaning they are a bottom-3 team on both sides of the ball. EPA doesn’t paint a much prettier picture. The defense still ranks 30th, while the offense jumps to 25th, or the eighth-worst ranking in the league.
Over the course of the season, the defense has regressed hard, while the offense received a notable boost from Maye, but still can’t escape the bottom 10, dragged down by the NFL’s worst pass-protecting offensive line and a bad receiving corps. That is the single-game scoring high for the Patriots, thanks to a fourth-down rushing touchdown Rhamondre Stevenson scored with 22 seconds left in a win over the Jets in late October. Every other team in the NFL has scored more than 25 points in at least one game, including the Jets (32 last weekend), the Giants (29 at Seattle in Week 5) and the Raiders (26 at Baltimore in Week 2).
That’s right. The Patriots have lost the ball as many times as they’ve carried it into the end zone, with Maye (six) and Stevenson (six) being the chief fumble offenders. Turnovers have arguably been less of a problem than takeaways, however, as the defense has taken the ball away in half of the team’s games for a total of 11 times this season.
Maye out-ranks quarterbacks like Juston Herbert, C.J. Stroud and Aaron Rodgers by ESPN’s QBR, a modernized version of passer rating that accounts for plays like fumbles and sacks and scrambles, plus game situation.
He ranks 17th in the league, and has exceeded expectations in every sense. Maye is not just a talented passer, but mature and a sound decision-maker; everything the Patriots have needed this season and beyond. The Patriots’ pass rush ranks fourth-worst in the league by pressure rate and total sacks.
Their lack of disruption has been a killer all season, despite the fact the defense ranks among the highest blitzing teams in the league. Defensive lineman Keion White and Deatrich Wise are currently tied for the team lead in sacks with five, while Anfernee Jennings (2.5) is in second and Joshua Uche, who was traded a couple months ago, is still tied for third with two.
On the flip side, Maye and Jacoby Brissett have come under pressure at the second-highest rate in the NFL this season. Brissett was regularly facing pressure rates around 50% before he got benched after Week 5. Maye’s mobility has offset some of these issues, which also stem from unrest up front.
The Pats started seven different offensive line combinations in their first seven games, and have hardly settled with performance issues and injuries hitting at both tackle spots, center and left guard. If this point spread holds before Sunday’s kickoff in Buffalo, the Patriots will be the largest underdogs they’ve ever been under the Krafts’ ownership. The previous highs were 14-point spreads as underdogs at Buffalo last December and in Super Bowl XXXVI versus the Rams.
The Bills are more than deserved favorites, but it wasn’t too long ago point spreads like this were flipped in their division rivalry. How the mighty continue to fall..
