RESURGENCE: Patriots’ Defense RISES to Challenge | Drake Maye’s Second Half DOMINANCE

RESURGENCE: Patriots’ Defense RISES to Challenge | Drake Maye’s Second Half DOMINANCE

The defense played its best football of the season on Sunday night given the level of competition. We start by telling you how they did it. This is Locked On Patriots. You are Locked On Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast, part of the Locked On Network. Your team every day. What’s happening? and I’m your host Nick Catles. Born and raised in New England. I’ve been covering the Pats for 16 years. Also the co-host of the Greg Baddard Patriots podcast with Nick Catles and a sports talk show host veteran. In today’s third segment, the Pats lose a vital member of the team for the season and need to figure out how to replace that guy not only in one phase, but two phases. Also, we’ll tell you how Drake May and the offensive line were even better than you might have thought on Sunday night. But first, the defense is showing signs of life. We appreciate you joining the show, making us your first listen, and for being an everyday, the Lockdown Patriots podcast, a proud partner, the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Let’s start with the unsung hero of this football team, the unsung hero of this coaching staff, and I’m talking about Zack Core. Somebody who had to take over at the beginning of the season after week one for Terrell Williams. We all know what’s going on with Williams. We certainly wish him well, but Zack Core had to take over as defensive play caller. Had never done that, especially at the NFL level. And he took over. And what you’ve seen from Zack Core is steady improvement. And what you’ve seen from the defense is steady improvement. The second and third quarters against Pittsburgh, good job. the second and third quarters, even some of the fourth quarter up until garbage time. Good job against Carolina after that initial drive when they scored a touchdown. And then in Buffalo, the defense stepped up against the stiffest competition they have faced all season by far. Look at the Raiders offense. The Miami offense, of course, can be good. It can be explosive, but Buffalo’s offense was the best offense in football going into Sunday night. This was the stiffest competition that this defense has faced through the first five weeks. And all in all, from beginning to end, the defense did its job. So, what did they do? How did they limit Buffalo’s offense to 20 points aside from the turnovers, which we have to point out, the Patriots forced two of those three turnovers. Great play by Marcus Jones undercutting the route for the interception in the red zone. Robert Spalain forces the other turnover on a fumble in Buffalo territory. Defense making plays. Of course, Buffalo the offense not as sharp as it wanted to be and didn’t take care of the ball like they wanted to, but you still give some credit to the defense for creating those turnovers, recovering the two fumbles. Marcus Jones making that pick. But aside from the turnovers, which is the lowhanging fruit, how did the Patriots limit the Buffalo offense when it came to explosive plays? How did the offense of Buffalo not move up and down the field as easily as some of us might have thought that they would? Well, you begin with your cornerbacks. The Patriots trusted Christian Gonzalez and Carlton Davis during our preview Friday’s episode getting you ready for the game on Sunday night. We talked about this. The Buffalo Bills wide receivers are not great. You’ve got a good football player and Khalil Shakir. You’ve got Keon Coleman who has not necessarily fulfilled the potential that Buffalo thought he had when they drafted him in 2024. Joshua Palmer is a good player. He’s not a great player. He’s a fine number three or four guy. Curtis Samuel, same thing. He’s okay as a fourth or fifth receiver, but nobody jumps out at you. And we had wondered out loud as we talked about this game and previewed this game. Would the Patriots trust their starting outside corners to play man coverage? Would they play more man than we’ve seen them play in the earlier portion of this season? And the answer was yes. Evan Lazar pulled the number out. It’s 41% of the dropbacks by Josh Allen on Sunday night defended by man coverage. 41%. That’s a pretty good number. That is a good number of snaps on the drop backs. And because you played man coverage and because you played man coverage well, Josh Allen for most of the night was stuck. I was re-watching the game on Monday morning and man oh man I’ll tell you you watch this game back and you count how many times Josh Allen has forever to throw the football but can’t find anybody can’t do much or it takes a while for him to find somebody great coverage especially on the initial coverage some of the sandlot stuff is going to get you because it’s really difficult to cover an NFL receiver or an NFL tight end for three and a 4 seconds, four and a half seconds, 5 seconds. Now, don’t get it twisted. I’m not telling you Josh Allen played badly on Sunday night, but the Patriots defense lowered him a notch. And what I mean by that is heading into Sunday night, Josh Allen was number one in the NFL in EPA, expected points added. Sunday night, before you get to the Monday Night Football game, Josh Allen was 10th in week five EPA. So, he goes from first to 10th. That’s a significant drop. Again, he’s still finishing in the top 10 after Sunday’s games, but he’s not the number one guy. Josh Allen was number one walking into Sunday night through the first month of the season in EPA per dropback. Sunday night against the Patriots, he was 11th heading into, of course, Monday Night Football. And if you look at passer rating, Josh Allen through the first four weeks of the season, he was fourth in passer rating, but against the Patriots by the end of all the games that were played by Sunday night, Josh Allen finished ninth in passer rating. So yes, Josh Allen was still a top 10 quarterback for the week. Before you get to Monday night, he was still a top 10 quarterback against this Patriots defense. But the Patriots defense dropped him 2/10th from first overall. Again, that is a significant drop down, a significant decline for somebody like Josh Allen. And if you could have him drop down that much, that means you’re limiting him ultimately. Playing man coverage allowed the Patriots to play a bigger defensive line, allowed them to play more linebackers, which could help take away the run game, which is what we saw. The Patriots shut down the run. I talked about it in the postgame show, but I have even more stats and thoughts on it. They shut down the run, but they also limited the big plays from this Buffalo offense. James Cook averaged 3.3 yards per carry. The Buffalo Bills run success rate was only 36%. And if you look at what the Patriots did, Buffalo only had two runs of 10 plus yards. James Cook came into the game with 10 of those on his own. James Cook did not have a single run that hit 10 yards or more. That is a great job by this run defense and they just limited the extra yards. For example, James Cook coming into Sunday night was second in the NFL when it came to rushing yards over expected. He was a plus 94th. So through the first four weeks of the season, he was a plus 94 in rushing yards over expected. Against the Patriots, he was minus 10. That is a gigantic swing. James Cook had 36 yards after contact against the Patriots. He came into the game with 312 yards after contact through four weeks. We talked about it on the preview show. That is 78 yards after contact every single week. He went from 78 per week to 36 against the Patriots. That is limiting the damage. Andrew Callahan posted the Patriots held the Bills to 3.22 yards per carry on designed runs. The Bills run game was 17th in rush EPA versus the Patriots. That’s minus 4.9. They came into the game the best team in the league in rush EPA with a plus 22.2. That is another gigantic shift. And it wasn’t just about James Cook in the run game. Patriots limited Khalil Shakir to 45 receiving yards. His longest play was 18 yards. And Khalil Shakir will kill you in Yak. The only thing you saw from the Buffalo offense that was consistently good against the Patriots defense was Josh Allen running the football and Dalton Concincaid. Owen, you had 30 yards in back-to-back penalties which led to a touchdown for Buffalo. Concincade had six catches for 108 yards. Evan Lazar noted that four of those catches for 72 of those yards were against Jaylen Hawkins and Craig Woodson, your safeties. But the Patriots just did a better job of tackling and swarming to the football. Defensive line, linebackers, not giving up those cutback lanes. I thought Galani Tvi made three or four really good plays against the run. I thought Robert Spalain made a few good plays against the run on the edge. Christian Barour, according to Pro Football Focus, had seven pressures against Buffalo. He continues to disrupt every offense he faces. He continues to get better by the week. Kyrie Tonga was a force against the run. Again, Milton Williams was good. The interior defensive line mostly did their job. And you limited James Cook, which was our number one priority going into this game. You limited him. You limited the yards after contact. You limited the big plays. So, all in all, good job by the defense. an unsung hero, Zack Core, as this defense is now gaining some momentum. Drake May was nearly perfect in the second half, literally. And the offensive line continues to exceed expectations. All that next. This is Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. Every day we make decisions, but on Prize Picks, being right can actually get you paid. Don’t miss the excitement of this football season with prize picks where it’s good to be right. Playing prize picks is such a fun, simple way to add more excitement to football. You just pick more or less on player projections like Drake May’s passing yards or Saquon Barkley rushing for a touchdown and you’re in the game. I love how quick it is. You can make your lineup in just under a minute. And maybe your favorite part once you start looking around prize picks is stacks. Prize picks just added stacks. So, if you want to ride with a player, you can select their passing yards, rushing yards, and touchdowns all in one lineup. It’s also fun to follow other players in the app and copy their lineups with one click. Oh, and the new injury reboot feature. If your player leaves early and doesn’t return, it won’t count against you. Download the prize picks app today. Use code lockdown NFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s code lockdown NFL for $50 in lineups after your first $5 lineup prize picks. It’s good to be right. Watching this game live, my initial feeling was Drake May was really good with three or four exceptional plays. After rewatching the game and digging into some of the analytics, Drake May was even better against the Bills than you might have thought. even better. In the second half, Drake May completed 13 of his 14 pass attempts. That’s right. I’m not delusional. I’m not losing my mind here. I’m not giving you bad information. Drake May had one incomplete pass in the entire second half against the Bills. He threw for 182 yards in the second half. I’m not a mathematician, but that’s more than on pace for 350 yards in the game. And we know that Drake may get off to a somewhat slow start with his pocket presence against the Bills. That was obvious. He was a little jittery early. I mentioned that during the live post game. He was jittery. He drifted into some pressure, but he got better and better as the game went on. And he was fantastic in the second half. Mike Gardi noted that Drake May 56% of his drop backs were for first downs. Insane. insane. And the the the numbers are just crazy when you look at some of these numbers. Andrew Callahan of the Boston Herald, Drake May had an 88.9% adjusted completion percentage. It’s the second highest of his career. If you’re wondering what adjusted completion percentage is, it removes throwaways and spikes, and it also accounts for drops. So, if you take away the throwaways, the spikes, and the drops, Drake May completed almost 89% of his passes against the Bills. His completion percentage was 13.8% better than expected, 78% to 64.8%. That math doesn’t quite math. Maybe it’s 78.6%. But the completion percentage over expected if you’re wondering that accounts for distance in the difficulty of the throw. So Drake May almost 89% adjusted completion percentage in a completion percentage over expected of almost 14%. Those are bananas numbers. Evan Lazar second half second half against Buffalo Drake May had a 118.8 passer rating. He averaged 13.1 yards per attempt. So, this wasn’t your dinking and dunking offense. He was plus 068, plus 0.68 EPA per dropback. And in the second half, again, the completion percentage over expected accounts for distance and difficulty of throw. In the second half, Drake May’s completion percentage over expected was 30.9%. When you think about that number and you think about the fact that he’s playing in Buffalo, prime time, his first shot at prime time as an NFL quarterback, crazy atmosphere, super noisy, super chaotic, and he has those numbers against Josh Allen and the Bills. And also, by the way, throws in a game-winning drive. Andrew Callahan compared the numbers of Drake May to Josh Allen. When you look at the analytics and frankly it’s easy to see Drake May was the better quarterback on Sunday night. I’m not telling you Drake May is better than Josh Allen. What I’m saying is in this specific game analytically, Drake May was better. His EPA per play was better. His total EPA was better. His completion percentage over expected was better. The average depth of target was exactly the same at 8 yards. That’s how good he was. He was even better than you thought. And re-watching the game, I’ll give you two examples. Re-watching the game because in real time sometimes you just lose stuff. Like I’m taking notes. I’m on Twitter. I’m going back and forth with people. And sometimes you miss a couple plays or you overlook them because you’re more focused on even better plays. Two other huge plays that we didn’t discuss last night. same drive ended up being uh a touchdown. This is the drive where the Patriots went up 20-10 the third quarter. Drake May extends. It’s third and seven from his own 13 yd line. He extends the play. He rolls out to his right and he finds Stfan Diggs right near the boundary. Diggs makes a fantastic catch, but they convert on that third down. If you don’t convert on that third down, if that’s an incomplete pass, you’re punting right next to your end zone. Completely changes the game. It’s 13-10 at that point. Buffalo would have fantastic field position. That play swings a lot of the second half. Then later, same drive, third and three from his own 30. The Bills blitz and again Drake May finds Stfan Diggs this time for 11 yards. Drake May keeps killing defenses on third down. He was so good against the Bills, especially in that second half. You know what else was good against the Bills on Sunday night? The pass protection. Now, watching the game, I felt like there was a little bit more pressure than you want, especially in that, you know, first half, but I completely changed my mind watching this game over again. Completely changed my mind. Michael Wenu, Garrett Bradberry, Jared Wilson, they all had a whiff. You go back, you watch the game, they all had a whiff. You might even categorize the whiff as an egregious whiff, but that was pretty much it. And Will Campbell was really good. Los Pat’s talk. Carlos Lopez posted the Pro Football focused numbers on Twitter. Here are the numbers for Will Campbell against Buffalo. 40 pass blocking snaps. Zero sacks allowed, zero pressures, zero quarterback hits, two hurries. His pass block efficiency, according to PFF, was 97.2%. His true pass blocking grade was 87.2, which was the highest on the team. And Chad Graph of the Athletic points out in his first five NFL games, Will Campbell has allowed just one sack according to Pro Football Focus. And that was week one. Since the opener, Will Campbell has allowed just six pressures on 135 dropbacks. in his toughest game yet against Pittsburgh. Nick Herbig, well, Nick Herbig happens to be number one in ESPN’s pass rush win rate heading into week five. So, the toughest game that Will Campbell had was against the best pass rusher in the NFL through the first four weeks. If you use ESPN’s pass rush win rate, the offensive line handled more blitzes in the second half from Buffalo and they handled them fairly well. So, a good job by the offensive line. And the offensive ceiling we always talk about with this team. The offensive ceiling could be higher. Could be higher than we thought initially if number one, the pass protection keeps at it. If this pass protection continues to do the job it’s been doing, the offensive ceiling is is higher, if Drake May continues to take this leap, he has been fantastic. You can look at the Raiders game for a half where he wasn’t that good. You can look at the turnovers against Pittsburgh, but other than those two turnovers against the Steelers and the Raiders second half, Drake May has been so good. He’s on a heater right now. The offensive ceiling is higher if he can continue that. The offensive ceiling is higher if Stfane Diggs continues to play the way he’s played the last two weeks. But you still need a run game. This offense is eventually going to stall out a bit if they can’t run the football. And speaking of the run game, Antonio Gibson is done for the year. And the Pats need to find a replacement, not just in one way, but two ways. That’s next as we continue with today’s episode of Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. Let’s talk about Mazda. Mazda crafts cars for those who do more than simply move. Mazda delivers confidence with every ride with more IHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than anyone else. From footwork to breath work, athletes, they sweat all the details. And Mazda brings this same intention to how they craft every model. stunning detail that will bring you back to the two dynastic runs in New England. The good times and you can feel Japanese craftsmanship in every detail from the metallic accents to available Napa leather upholstery. And you can make everyday drives feel anything but from smooth handling to intuitive controls. And here’s something that’s really cool, especially if you’re up in New England. all-wheel drive standard in every crossover SUV so you can drive with confidence through almost any season. Like our players, Mazda, they sweat every single detail because when you make every move count, impossible becomes irrelevant. Mazda move and be moved. [Music] The Patriots got some unfortunate news, some bad news on Monday after a great win in Buffalo. Antonio Gibson tore his ACL on that kickoff return on Sunday night. This is not a surprise. If you were watching the game, Antonio Gibson was emotional as he was walking to the tunnel. And the Patriots ruled Antonio Gibson out almost immediately. And when a player gets ruled out that quickly, usually means it’s a pretty significant injury. So, Antonio Gibson done for the year. And this is a bigger loss than some might think. I know we get all wrapped up into Drake May for all the right reasons and Stefan Diggs and Kahan Booty making a couple plays and Hunter Henry and the offensive line protecting better better than we expected them to protect. But Antonio Gibson, not only as a running back, but especially in special teams, this is a hit to the Patriots. So, let’s just look at this from a functional standpoint. What will the Patriots do at running back? Raandre Stevenson fumbles again on Sunday night. That is obviously an issue. I’m not sold that Raandre Stevenson would have played nearly as much as he played against the Bills if it was not for the injury to Antonio Gibson. After the Ramandre Stevenson fumble, Antonio Gibson was the guy that was put in the backfield. So, I’m not sold that we would have seen much of Ramandre Stevenson the rest of the night if Antonio Gibson stayed healthy. So, now you don’t have Antonio Gibson, but you still have the fumbling problem with Raandre Stevenson. How do you juggle the running back? And I know a lot of people I I still get it. Trayvon Henderson, Nick. Trayvon Henderson. Number one, he’s still not there yet. He had a run on Sunday night that I thought he had a cut back lane. could have been a big play and he just kind of ran into guys. He He’s done that a number of times this year. I I don’t think he’s there yet, especially when it comes to pass protection. And you want to limit his snaps as we’ve talked about. I’m not going to keep talking about it. We know it by now. If if you keep screaming about Trayvon Henderson and you want him to get 50 snaps, you’re just you’re screaming towards a wall because it’s not going to happen. it was never going to happen. So, Trayvon Henderson, he’s going to play a certain rate of snaps because that’s where he’s most effective. And when he’s been out there, he has not shown that he is consistently ready to be the guy. So, what do you do? What do you do? The Patriots offense without Antonio Gibson is less multiple. It’s less versatile because you could use Antonio Gibson as we saw against Carolina, line him up as a wide receiver, run the jet sweep, and yes, you can do that with Trayvon Henderson. But if you only want to play Trayvon Henderson a certain amount of snaps per game, then you can’t always do that with him. And one of the one of the formations that we’ve seen a lot of and we saw it a decent amount last night is this shotgun with the splitbacks where you’ve got Drake May in the shotgun and you’ve got running backs on each side of him pony formation and we’ve seen a decent amount of that. How much can you do of that if you don’t have Henderson playing as many snaps? So the Patriots offense will be less multiple and less versatile without Antonio Gibson. Special Teams really hurts. I thought special teams was very good on Sunday night. The the kick coverage, the kick coverage, the punt coverage, obviously Andy Boragales, but the kickoff return is going to be impacted severely with Antonio Gibson out for the season. He is literally one of the best kick returners in the NFL. And with these new rules, especially, this hurts the ability, the opportunity to take one to the house like you saw against Miami. It’s not impossible, but it’s less likely with Antonio Gibson being out for the year. It hurts your field position. It’s great to start on the 35 to 40 yardd line when you got Antonio Gibson out there. I don’t think Raandre Stevenson is the answer after what we saw on Sunday night. And I get it. Things were happening in real time. You’ve got to figure out who you can throw out there. They threw Raandre Stevenson out there to return kicks. I didn’t think he was explosive. I didn’t think he looked that comfortable. And then you add the fact that he fumbles. I do not think Raandre Stevenson is the answer. I do not think you want both Raandre Stevenson and Trayvon Henderson back there for kickoff returns. If you have Ramandre Stevenson back there, teams are going to just keep kicking to Raandre Stevenson. Trayvon Henderson is not going to touch the football. So, you’ve got to find somebody else who is more explosive and that you trust holding on to the football. I don’t think Reandre Stevenson is that guy. So, what do you do? How do you handle this? Well, the Patriots have some options. Obviously, they can elevate Terrell Jennings from the practice squad if they want to go that route. They decided to hold on to Jennings and put him on the practice squad. So you can always just make that easy elevation and you have Raandre Stevenson, Trayvon Henderson, and Terrell Jennings as your three running backs on game day. Uh Jamaichel Hasty is somebody obviously he was with the Patriots in camp. Uh he was with the Patriots before this season. He is on the practice squad of the Miami Dolphins. So you can sign him and put him on the active roster. So maybe Jamaichel Hasty is a an option. But the Patriots, let’s not forget, they kept Terrell Jennings over Jamaich Hasty unless Jamaich Hasty said, “Look, I want to go down to Miami. I don’t want to be here.” Free agents, not a lot. I mean, it’s October. Zack Moss is available. That gets you excited? Gus Edwards is available. Does that get you excited? One name to keep an eye on is Trayvon Williams. Uh, he is currently a free agent and we know that he was brought in by the Patriots during camp. We had the two Trayvons. So maybe maybe Trayvon Williams is somebody they look at. Maybe they try to go outside of the organization and try to make a trade late round pick. You know, you swap late round picks, you bring him back in. But the Patriots need help. They have not consistently run the football and now they lost one of their more explosive players. Antonio Gibson is fast. He’s explosive. He’s a playmaker. And so now you you lose his ability to help you with this run game and and with the offense overall and with your special teams. So this could have a significant impact bigger than you might think. The Patriots going to have to react and find somebody whether it’s Jennings on the practice squad or you go out and you get somebody but they need help. This is the last thing you wanted to see with their with their run game being so, you know, inconsistent. You did not want to see one of their top three backs go down with a season ending injury, but here we are. All right, that wraps up this edition of Lockdown Patriots. Thank you for making us your first listen and for being an everyday. Reach out to me on Twitter at Nick Cradio. Again, Nick Cradio. Don’t forget to throw a comment in on the YouTube channel. Don’t forget to hit that like button and don’t forget to subscribe. We’re pushing towards 7,000 subs. We’re battling other lockdown channels. We can do this. Patriots fans so passionate about this football team. Let’s show the other lockdown hosts that we can get these numbers up. For your second listen, get a double dose of the Lockdown NFL podcast with Tyler the madman Roland and Tony Wiggins. Find Lockdown NFL on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast. Have a great day and we will see you tomorrow.

Patriots’ defense shines, Drake Maye dazzles in prime-time debut against Bills. Is New England turning a corner?

Nick Cattles breaks down the Patriots’ impressive defensive performance, highlighting Zak Kuhr’s play-calling and the shutdown of Buffalo’s run game. Maye’s near-perfect second half, completing 13 of 14 passes, takes center stage. The discussion covers Will Campbell’s stellar offensive line play and the impact of Antonio Gibson’s season-ending ACL tear on special teams and offensive versatility. Key topics include potential replacements for Gibson and the Patriots’ evolving offensive strategy.

Tune in for an in-depth analysis of New England’s path forward and how these developments could reshape their season outlook.

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