Film Review: Patriots Offense and Defense Sucksonville Edition

Nothing like an emotionless deep dive into the All-22 to give you a nice football reminder how scary it can look when even good teams play bad. I left my film review with a near-exact feeling like I had after breaking down the Patriots loss to the Chiefs in 2014. This is what happens when everyone takes turns making bad mistakes until things are just totally unraveled. Add in a talented young team playing a near-perfect game, making miraculous plays in heavy heat and it’s recipe for disaster.

And that’s what this loss was. But it was still just one loss in week two under extreme conditions. What we see in Detroit will be far more toward the center of who this team is. There might still be issues but no defense can play this perfectly bad two weeks in a row, especially a Patriots defense.

Flip just a couple plays and this is a ball game in the fourth quarter. But that doesn’t mean the Patriots don’t have issues to fix. Getting Josh Gordon this week proved that. But is it time to dip into the rookies at cornerback? At least there are options, whereas we’re all just holding our breath hoping Dont’a Hightower gets through the season on his knee.

More on that and everything else in the film review.

 

— The ups and downs of Keionta Davis continue but given his workload, where he’s 2nd in snaps to only Trey Flowers, the Pats continue to lean on him on early downs. When Flowers went out Davis became a target to, like his entire brief career thus far, mixed results. There’s a lot to like about him and when he’s on, he’s a powerful defensive end in the mold of Trey Flowers. When he’s off, he’s eliminated from plays with ease, especially like the plays he was used inside near the end of the first half. But there’s enough there to stick with the rookie, not that we’ll really have a choice if Flowers is out.

— I came out of the game disappointed in Chris Hogan but coming out I feel like it more just that Brady wasn’t finding him. He was open more than a couple times and Brady just couldn’t or didn’t get it to him. We started to see the results when Brady did finally start finding Hogan with the two TDs.

— James White deserves more national attention for how good and savvy a receiving back he is. I don’t give him enough love but the guy is the second coming of Kevin Faulk.

— Adrian Clayborn wasn’t super effective (no one wasy) but there’s a lot to like about him coming off the edge now. He’s a powerful pass rusher and the Pats appear content to use him as a designated edge rusher. He’s played just under 30 percent of the snaps, almost the same as designated interior pass rusher Adam Butler.

— File this under same problems but Malcom Brown, Lawrence Guy and especially Danny Shelton don’t get much push on early down passing plays. It’s a big reason why they’re especially vulnerable to the pass due to their scheme. It’s exposed even more when the edge rushers are average at best, which Davis and Grissom were for most of the game.

— Jonathan Jones had the worst game of his career, but considering he’s coming off injury this was a tough test having not played in the preseason. He was slow in reacting and missed some plays that he should’ve made. But showed good awareness to peel off a receiver and force the Van Noy interception. Then he ruined that on the 61-yard game-sealer by giving up on the play. Jackson and Crossen didn’t play in the slot much this summer, so if they were inserted I’d expect it to be outside for Rowe/J-Mac.

— More Jacob Hollister please! He played just a 14 snaps but he’s really running good, holding on to the ball and most important, getting open. He reminds me of a Wes Welker-in-a-tight-end kind of look. They even had him in the backfield a bit.

— This is the second year in a row D-Mac, Harmon and Chung have gotten off to such a spectacularly bad start. They looked so locked in Week One but this game brought out the worst of them all, especially D-Mac who is getting worse the more he plays near the line of scrimmage, an unfortunate necessity without Chung. Chung is such a vitally important piece to this defense, I’m not sure people realize it.

— What went wrong on the backbreaking 61-yard touchdown to Westbrook? Let’s take a look at the point Bortles threw it…

The Pats have basically five guys covering the two receivers at the top of the screen because it’s Jones’ guy and he got caught up in the traffic and just passed him off to one. In man defense a busted coverage can be deadly and this one was. Van Noy failed to get through the wide receiver and make a tackle, McCourty and Harmon failed to get the edge and Westbrook was gone.

No question it was a terrible game across the board and it could result in some shuffling, but things have to better in Detroit this week. Expect the Pats to bounce back and then head into the divisional game against Miami with some confidence.