FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The New England Patriots have moved forward as a team with two straight wins, but the offense keeps going backward.
It’s an alarming trend that must be corrected for the team to earn a playoff berth.
Consider that the offense had 10 negative non-kneel-down plays in Sunday’s 26-3 win over the Indianapolis Colts. They had 14 the week before in a victory over the New York Jets.
That’s a whopping 24 plays that didn’t advance past the line of scrimmage, which when combined with seven that went for no gain, represents 22.6% of the non-kneel-down snaps over the past two games.
It is no wonder that quarterback Mac Jones, who has been unable to get into a rhythm partly due to shaky protection in front of him, held up his right arm and moved it up and down Sunday as he said: “We’re playing good at spots, but we need to continue to go up here and stop riding the wave.”
Jones expressed confidence that the Patriots will do that. Heading into their bye week, players went through meetings Monday and coach Bill Belichick will have them on the practice field Wednesday, as they’re using the time to self-scout before players receive a four-day break later in the week.
“We have a lot of strides we need to make; I’m not going to lie,” veteran tight end Hunter Henry said Monday on sports radio WEEI’s “Gresh and Keefe Show.”
“The bye comes at a good time. We really need to look at ourselves in the mirror, as an offense especially, and need to be better. We have to be more accountable.”
Henry noted it’s “been a strange season” for the offense when combining everything from new coaches leading the unit (Matt Patricia, Joe Judge) to Jones and others missing time due to injuries.
Through nine games, the Patriots rank 24th in the NFL in passing yards, averaging just 202.7 per game. When they can’t lean on emerging star Rhamondre Stevenson as a rusher -- the Jets and Colts made it hard for them to do that consistently the past two weeks -- their deficiencies in the passing game show more.
If anyone tells you it's Mac Jones' issue in New England they're out the freaking minds
— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) November 7, 2022
This offense has completely regressed this player, and it's awful.
Coach Bill Belichick deflected a question Monday when asked how he feels things have progressed with the offensive coaching staff, which might be a result of him preferring to leave big-picture evaluations for the offseason when he’s out of the daily grind.
“Every week’s its own week in terms of game-planning, practicing, preparing for that team and then moving on to the next week,” Belichick said in response to the question.
“It’s the way it is on offense, defense, special teams -- for our entire team. It’s what we’ll keep doing, just grinding away here. Consistency in all three phases of the game is definitely something that we need to be better at. So we’ll start with that.”
After Sunday’s game, Belichick acknowledged the Colts’ defensive front gave the Patriots problems, but wouldn’t pinpoint one specific area for the struggles.
“Collectively as a team we had some trouble, for sure. Some negative runs, some pressure,” he said.
If there was a silver lining, it was that Jones finished without an interception for the first time in seven straight starts (dating back to last season). Both Belichick and Jones noted that after the game as one step in the right direction and, obviously, both were pleased with the bottomline victory.
But, overall, everyone agrees that the status quo won’t be good enough.
“We just want to score more touchdowns as a group. Offense just needs to pick it up,” receiver Kendrick Bourne said.
“We’ve got to go out and execute a little better,” added Jones. “The bye week is always a good time to physically get yourself back, mentally, and then X’s and O’s wise see what you’re doing well and not doing as well. I know our coaches will do a great job grinding it out and we’ll be on the same page.”