Patriots Hold Off Another Win

By Steve Atkinson 

The Patriots won their seventh straight game on Sunday and now face a quick turnaround to play the Jets on Thursday night. Talk about an easy schedule all you want, but they beat two of the toughest teams on their schedule on the road in Tampa and Buffalo. Now, they should have a cupcake game on Thursday night against the Jets, who blew up their team despite winning their last two games. They did not beat the easy teams last year or in Belichick’s last season. Belichick hates quarterbacks who are more important than him, which is why he pushed Brady out the door and destroyed Mac Jones.

Mike Vrabel is doing everything he can to support his young quarterback, which is why they have Stefon Diggs. Diggs made a great catch Sunday in the end zone to close out the first half. That doesn’t happen in 2023. Also, Josh McDaniels has adapted to Drake Maye’s play style and mobility. It’s a mix of the West Coast offense and his own. That long pass to Mack Hollins late in the game on third and long was huge. It was a bad decision on Drake’s part in the end zone with the interception, but overall he played better than Baker Mayfield did.

“I always love the fight, that’s why I love coaching them – it’s [because] they fight and they compete. It’s not always perfect, it’s never going to be perfect, but I love the way that they compete. You’re going to have some time – if you strike out you [have] to go to the dugout and be pissed for a couple seconds and then you [have] to go play the rest of the game. So, we tell them, ‘Take 30 seconds, be pissed but you know we [have] to go play.’ It [was] a long game, it’s a tough place to play, it was warm and they’re good.”

With the loss of Stevenson and Boutte other guys stepped up big. Henderson who was due to have a big running game had two big rushing touchdowns. Even rookie Kyle Williams finally showed up with a big catch and score of his own.

Well, those are important. Those were important, we needed it. [It’s] situational football – we’ll talk through all those things. And again, he was thinking the right thing and today, in the game, the way that it was – they needed two touchdowns, I think it was okay. But we made it a little closer – we knew it would be difficult coming down here. But two explosive plays and then I think Kyle [Williams’] play early – we really needed that one. That was the one that we were talking about, just needing one play and he hit it, and it was great to see him have that success.”