With the book closed on Week 2 in the NFL, the focus now shifts to Week 3. For the New England Patriots, that means we say goodbye to the New York Jets and the jokes about their rookie quarterback, Zach Wilson, throwing four interceptions and gifting the team a win. Instead, preparations are underway for New England’s next opponent, which is the New Orleans Saints.
Through two games, the Saints have managed to confuse the rest of the league. They unexpectedly destroyed the Green Bay Packers in Week 1 by 35 points, but then proceeded to muster only seven points in a 20 point loss to the Carolina Panthers. Nobody really knew what to expect from the Saints and their new quarterback, Jameis Winston, and that hasn’t changed through two weeks.
A team led by Saints head coach Sean Payton isn’t going to put up two clunkers in a row, and the Patriots should expect the Saints to put their best foot forward in this one. Sure they are coming off a dominating win over the Jets, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have things to improve on.
Regardless of Winston’s inconsistencies at quarterback, the rest of the Saints roster is brimming with talent. If New England can’t solve some of their issues they had against the Jets this week, they will probably end up losing to the Saints. Here are three areas of improvement for the team as they prepare for their upcoming opponent.
New England Patriots Area of Improvement No. 3: Offensive playcalling/Mac Jones’ decision-making
These two issues pretty much go hand in hand, and combined to limit the offense’s production in Week 2. The scoreboard shows one team dominating the other, but New England’s offense benefitted greatly from pretty much always having good starting field position considering Wilson continually fired interceptions to them. Yet for the second week in a row, the offense struggled to find the end zone, and only managed to pick up two touchdowns despite the good field position.
There are two main reasons for that, and they are the playcalling and Mac Jones’ decision-making. We will start with the playcalling considering that’s been an issue for some time now. Josh McDaniels is certainly a great coach, but too often he gets cute with his playcalling and it costs the offense. How many times have you caught yourself screaming at your TV when McDaniels fifth screen pass of the day ends up losing yards?
Jones showed us in Week 1 that he is capable of carving up whatever defense he finds himself against when he efficiently picked apart a talented Miami Dolphins secondary for 281 yards and a touchdown. Unfortunately, he simply wasn’t given an opportunity to do that against the Jets, and their offense struggled to get going all afternoon.
When McDaniels did open up the playbook though, he often deferred to a checkdown route rather than taking a shot. Replays showed a couple of occasions where Jones passed up more yardage down the field for a safer option in the flat or five yards in front of him as a checkdown. If that stalls the offense against the Jets, it’s going to happen against more competent defenses too.
When you combine these two issues, it’s easy to see why the Patriots struggled to accumulate much yardage offensively against New York. The Saints secondary, led by star cornerback Marshon Lattimore, is much more talented than that of the Jets, so if this issue persists, they are going to end up losing. McDaniels needs to open up the playbook for Jones, who in turn needs to take advantage of his open receivers down the field if he wants to lead his team to it’s second straight victory.
New England Patriots Area of Improvement No. 2: The Offensive Line
The Patriots considered their offensive line to be one of the best in the league heading into the season. And for half of a quarter against the Dolphins, it lived up to that billing. But then starting right tackle Trent Brown went down with an injury, and things have gone south since.
The Patriots have struggled to find a quality replacement in Brown’s absence. The most logical thing to do would be to flip starting left guard Michael Onwenu to right tackle, which is where he played all last season, and insert backup guard Ted Karras at Onwenu’s vacant position. Instead, head coach Bill Belichick has decided to flip-flop Justin Herron and Yasir Durant at the position, with neither player having much success.
Herron initially got the call once Brown went down against Miami, but struggled so much that he was replaced by Durant midway through the game. Durant got the nod in Week 2, but gave up two sacks in a matter of three players, and was quickly swapped out in favor of Herron. Then Herron got injured only a few minutes later, forcing Durant back into action.
The right tackle spot has been a mess, but the rest of the line hasn’t been much better. Jones is almost always under duress, and seems to feel forced to release the ball quicker than he actually has to most of the time. The ground game has had varying degrees of success, but when they struggle, it’s notable that there just simply is nowhere for them to go.
The good news for New England is that Brown has been practicing (he logged a limited participation today, which is a good sign), implying that he is trending towards a return to action. With the line hopefully back in tact, it will help open up the offense by giving Jones more time to throw, and allows the team to try more runs behind the right side of the line. If Brown ends up being active for Sunday’s game, New England’s chances of winning increase drastically.
New England Patriots Area of Improvement No. 1: Defending the run
The run defense was a clear weakness of the Patriots last season, and the front office made it a goal of theirs to make sure that wouldn’t be the case this time around. Unfortunately, throughout two games, that just simply hasn’t been the case.
In Week 1, the Jets could only muster a pathetic 45 rushing yards on 17 carries, good for just 2.7 yards per carry. Yet the second they stepped on the field against the Patriots, the Jets running back committee had all the running room in the world. They picked up 152 yards on 31 carries (4.9 yards per carry), and they pretty much moved the ball at will throughout the game.
If the Patriots front seven is struggling to contain the likes of Michael Carter, Ty Johnson, and Tevin Coleman, then that doesn’t bode well for their game against the Saints considering they will be going up against Alvin Kamara. In case you aren’t familiar with him, Kamara has turned himself into one of the most dangerous dual-threat running backs in the game, and if the Patriots run defense struggles, Kamara will be sure to take full advantage of them.
Ultimately the Patriots run defense struggles didn’t really matter against the Jets because of Wilson’s struggles, but they won’t be able to get away with it against the Saints. Kamara is lethal, and if you give him an inch, he’s going to find a way to pick up a yard instead. Belichick is famous for taking away an opposing offense’s best weapon, so he better be able to come up with a good plan for Kamara here.
Nobody really knows what expect from Winston and the Saints passing game, but it won’t even matter what he does if the Patriots can’t slow down Kamara. Kamara is coming off one of the worst games of his career, in which he logged eight carries for a meager five yards, so he will surely be looking to have a bounce back game. It’s up to the Patriots front seven to slow down Kamara, and their success or failure will play a big part in determining who comes out on top in Week 3.