INSTANT REACTION: Patriots show RESILIENCE as Drake Maye leads narrow win over Falcons

INSTANT REACTION: Patriots show RESILIENCE as Drake Maye leads narrow win over Falcons

All right, welcome to Postgame Live. It’s brought to you by your New England Ford dealers. What a game today in Foxboro for the Patriots sixth consecutive victory. They beat the Atlanta Falcons 24 to23. I thought for a second, you may have too, this game was headed to overtime when Drake London scored his third touchdown of the day. But here’s a familiar name, John Parker Romo. We thought he should have been the kicker here. missed an extra point that provided the difference. Patriots win 24-23. Look at them now. They’re 7-2. Uh possibly, possibly. We’ll see soon at top the AFC. We’ve got Phil Perry here. We got Tommy Curran. We got three-time Super Bowl champion Ted Johnson. I’m Michael Holly. Let’s go around the table and get some thoughts on this game today. Phil, what’ you see? Well, you escaped. You escaped by the hair of your chinny chin chin. a big time big time intentional grounding penalty at the very end for Atlanta. Listen, they’ve got a young quarterback trying to figure things out, too. So, Drake May with a few mistakes today that we haven’t seen from him in a long, long time. It feels like he’s able to do just enough and the Falcons end up making enough in the way of mistakes to keep them uh from being unable to tie it and push it to overtime. But you escaped. It’s fun because there’s a resilience element here where you go in, it’s 21 to 14. It could have been 28 with to7 on the verge of going to 35 to7 had the Patriots converted on that last drive of the second first half instead of having the fumble. Then they have a 12play drive that results in just a field goal their only points of the second half. Then they have injuries and then they have two guys and Bejian Robinson and Drake London taking over but they still weather the storm and find a way to win. That’s a great resilient win for the Patriots even though it’s narrow and even though Teddy people are going to nitpick and as they should, but you have to have some of those wins mixed in. I was saying before the game, how long will this go on? This is enough of an alteration to what’s been going on. This was a good gritty win despite the mistakes. I think this game kind of highlights what I I talked about last week is this team has more than it has since Tom Brady was here room for error, right? I mean, they they were minus two in the turnover battle. Uh they were Drake May was sacked six times. Atlanta basically just feasted on the the red zone defense of the Patriots. They were three for three in the red zone and yet they were still able to come away with this this game. I mean, partly it was because uh the defense was excellent. Uh that Patriots defense was in third down. I mean, Atlanta only converted one of 10 third downs and conversely, the offense was eight of 12 and so they were able to possess the ball and move the chains a little bit. But, um, again, it’s just with the quarterback play, even though he he was responsible for two turnovers, he he had some great plays and they were able to win the game because of of of his greatness despite some of the issues that you saw, the sacks, the turnovers, uh, and the, uh, and the three trips to the red zone for the Atlanta Falcons where they converted in all three. So, there is room for error for this team because of the brilliance of the quarterback. Well, let me ask all of you guys this. You know, they got the victory. Obviously, that’s what you’re looking for and and you talk about all the mistakes, Ted. Anything concerning in there, if it’s the sacks, if it’s the ball security issues from from Drake May, which gave Atlanta life right at the end of the first half, not taking care of the football, Atlanta gets it. Uh or or the defense of Drake London, who had three touchdowns today. Is there anything, Phil, that you look at and say, “Okay, they won, but uh trade deadline coming up on Tuesday. We need to address fill in the blank.” Well, I think you need to address the pass rush. To me, there are way too many opportunities for the Falcons at the end of that game. And phenomenal catches by Drake London and Bean Robinson. Those guys are monsters. But no pressure it felt like at the end of this game. And and they got away with one at the end again because they snap it at the wrong time. Milton Williams goes through untouched and Michael Penn feels like he has to get it away. It’s 10 yard penalty and you lose it down there. I guess they’ll get credit for generating a pressure and a negative play there. But boy, Calevon Chaon early in the game, great. Harold Landry every once in a while, fine. They have very little in terms of pressure options it feels like on this defense and allowed somebody like Michael Penn to get into a little bit of a rhythm at the end of that game. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I’m also concerned, my number one concern is the number of sacks and hits. And I’ve been a big proponent of, hey, he’s a quarterback who moves around. Everybody gets hit. There’s going to be 100% hurt rate, if not injury rate on every position. That’s the byproduct of playing the position. But six this week, six last week, that’s now 34 sacks for Drake May. Some of those are are his decisions. They’re one-yard sacks when he scrambles and steps up. So, they’re not necessarily offensive line sacks, but to me, it’s a concern. Um, but again, it’s it’s a little nitpick. I don’t think you have to do something drastical on the offensive line to fix it. Uh, I just this was a a good win for them because it challenged them in a number of ways. And the injuries are a thing, Teddy, too. Y that between Stevenson and Ellis and Booty and Gonzalez at the end, now they’re going to start to enter that depth category. Look, I’m going to combine my answer to to both what Phil and Tom were saying is basically the pass rush. Uh we got to get better. I mean, one one sack on the day. I mean, they had all day to throw back there. Uh they they led the league in sacks for the first two two weeks and they have been putrid ever since. And just not getting pressure. They were ranked 21st. They’re going to be lower after this game and pressure rate going into this game. Uh so that that to me is a concern. And then conversely, right now you you probably had Drake May. He’s they’re probably averaging almost four uh giving up four to four and a half sacks per game. I mean that you’re talking about he’s on he’s on a a trajectory to get sacked 65 times. Um and that clearly is not going to is conducive for winning football. So I’m just worried about getting to the quarterback and protecting the quarterback. Those are my two biggest concerns. So you when you ask you know what what what uh you know who do you want at the trade deadline? Can we get a pass rusher? That’s what we really need to me is uh is a pass rusher. That would be my first first choice uh on that category. It’s two weeks in a row, right? They they couldn’t get after Dylan Gabriel last week and you’re going up against multiple backup offensive linemen at different points during this Falcons game and you still can’t get to the quarterback. Milton Williams, Christian Barmore, those guys could be doing probably a little bit more right now, too. So, I think they have to get that figured out. But the quarterback and the number of times he’s been hit and the turnovers of late, too, right? throws the interception last week, has an interception and a fumble this week, had another fumble today, soon after the first fumble, uh, which he doesn’t lose, but that’s a turnover worthy kind of play. You know, he could afford to have a little bit better ball security moving forward. I would say, uh, Tom, tell me if you agree with this. I think despite his mistakes today, I think Drake May has really displayed an ability, not just today in a in a game that was for him, this is his this is his B game today. like he’s been he’s been A pluses across the board, it’s a nice solid maybe even a midb to a B+ game uh for for Drake May, but even in games like this when he’s not on it, his his ability to pick up big plays on third down is impressive. Do you look at do you come out of this game and say, “Yeah, okay, you don’t have Raandre Stevenson. Uh you don’t have Kan Booty, one of his favorite targets. Uh Michael Winn was having some problems up front. You talk about those sacks, Ted. Maybe the the part of the reason he was getting a hit is because, you know, on the offensive line, a little shaky performance. All these things happened yet he still was able to deliver when he needed to. I think it’s because of his confidence. I mean, I think that it’s born of I’ve done this on third and seven. I’ve done this on third and 11. You don’t see happy feet. And it’s such a departure. It’s such an astonishing departure from the beginning of the season in games that were not of great import. the the opener against the Raiders, you know, the game against the Steelers, those don’t have as great an import as now, but now he has built up, I believe, so much confidence, and he’s gotten players to reward him when he goes to them that he just feels at ease. It’s interesting. One of the rare misfires we’ve seen in the last several weeks was that outside throw to Kyle Williams that we saw and immediately I said, “That had to be a miscommunication. That’s not on May.” That was my initial knee-jerk. Um because he just doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes. He’s just a confident player and I understand there was a pick. There was a pick last week. Whatever. Um he’s just in command generally. Yeah, it was and besides that the uh the Williams I thought that the Hunter Henry down the middle of the field there was he didn’t look back for it and he almost had got one. So it was okay. H this is we haven’t seen this version of Drake May for for a while. But um you you talk about confidence if you remember last year we bring up uh uh in these in postgame you know his interceptions and he was almost kind of just you know dismissive of this the the interceptions like yeah okay they happen and we were all worried about that. Oh he doesn’t take this serious enough. That’s him saying yeah watch me throw you know a touchdown right after right after that. So he you know the guys that keep the jobs the longest in this league are guys that forget about their mistakes. He clearly uh has that uh innate in it thing in him in his DNA. And that is a number one quality you’re going to have if you’re going to be a quarterback, a high achieving quarterback in this league for a long time. Well, if you believe the stats and you see that that that uh little screen, look at that crawl uh beneath your screen. Uh eighth straight game that Drake May uh has 200 plus passing yards and a 100 plus passer rating. We talked about this in pregame. The fourth guy in NFL history to do that. the other ones, one of your teammates, Ted, Tom Brady, uh, one of your adversaries, Payton Manning, and then Aaron Rogers and Drake May. So, even even as we talk about this game, hey, some ball security issues. What are you doing here? A couple occasional misfire, is still, if you just look at the the the numbers, Phil, on paper, it’s still an eighth straight game with 200 plus passing yards and 100 plus uh quarterback rating. It’s remarkable. And and to look at the game in hindsight now and look at their third downs. Their average third down yards to go today was about seven yards and they still went eight for 12 on third down. And it’s because he can scramble and pick it up with his legs or he can be accurate down the field. I thought there were a couple pretty accurate passes deep down the field. There was an early one to pop Douglas that were pretty good throws and they’re just not completed. So even when they miss, I don’t for the most part look at the quarterback and say, “Ah, it’s just not his day today.” It just feels like every time he pulls the trigger trigger and it’s going down the field, aside from very rare occasions, it goes where he wants it to go. And I I would credit a fair amount of that to the offensive line, too. Even if we’re talking about 12 sacks in the last two weeks, it’s almost like Mike Vel was talking about Phil a couple weeks ago where he said, “We were either getting sudden pressure or no pressure and plenty of time.” And when May has the protection and the time to look, it’s absolutely shooting fish in a barrel. I mean, he is going to find someone, which to me isn’t because those guys are such unbelievable separators. It’s because he has great anticipation and trust and he’s able to hit those spots when he has all that time to survey. So, to me, he’s just, if you give him time, and every quarterback needs time, but we’ve seen plenty of quarterbacks get time, stand, dance, front, look, look, and nothing happened, right? And then they whip it into the cheerleaders because they can’t find anything. He is not at a whip it into the cheerleaders uh portion of his career right now, too. And just and no, definitely not. And one of the things just want to point out is you look at just the average yards per pass, 8.9. Uh last week it was 11. If you look at his average, he was throwing the ball on average three more yards uh each pass more than his uh his buddy on the cross from him in Michael Pinnick. So like averaging nine yards per pass. I mean, this is a deep kind of offense, deep ball, big play type offense, and it shows in the average yards per per pass attempt uh that you see from Drake every single week. All right, we want you guys to join the conversation. What do they need? Vote in our poll by going to nbcportsboston.com/patriots.vote. Scan the QR code. You see it on the screen and scroll down to the poll. The Patriots, the trade deadline is on Tuesday. You saw some things today. Is it pass rush? Uh which is what these guys have been talking about. Is it Christian Gonzalez? I know we’ll talk about that later today. He gives up a a long completion to Drake London. London, he falls. Gonzalez does falls on his back, hits his helmet, and then Drake London lands on top of Gonzalez to make it even worse. You know, what are some of the running back? Uh do you need another wide receiver, cornerback? Uh vote in the poll, and then we will talk about that uh later. But listen, uh plenty to talk about today. Plenty to talk about. Uh, Patriots win this game 24-23. They are 7-2. It looks like, is that Colts game official yet? It looks like the Colts have lost to the Steelers. Uh, 24 seconds remaining. Yeah. 24 seconds left, right? So, seven and So, the Colts are going to drop to 7-2. And even if Buffalo beats uh Kansas City today to go to 7-2, you still have the advantage over Buffalo. So, seven and two. You you’re looking at it, Tom, where the Patriots might be the number one team in the AFC. They will. They’re going to be tied for the for the number one spot. Indie will have the tie. Buffalo My bad. Buffalo’s five and two. They already had their buy, but they’ll have the conference edge. Uh Indie will because of conference record. So, that’s the only thing separating the two. Uh Patriots had those two AFC losses. This will be the first AFC loss, I believe, for um for Indianapolis. But, you know, the way it stacks up, it’s the AFC is wide open. Tonight’s game will be fascinating because the Patriots are in that conversation. There’s Indie, there’s New England, there’s Denver, there’s Kansas City, there’s Buffalo. My god, last year was there’s the Raiders, there’s the Giants, there’s the Jaguars, there’s the you know, every other the Titans and the Patriots. So, they have completely changed their address in less than eight months. No, it’s it’s crazy, Phil. If they are, you know, after nine games, you’re you’re looking at seven and two. show if you go four and four down the stretch if you just an easy schedule and you go four and four you’re 11 and six. So I mean it are are we do we believe it yet? Do we believe I think it’s just is it a product is it a byproduct of the schedule or is it hey you know this team can play a game that is not perfect far from perfect come out with a victory and still they’ve they’re that kind of team where you look at and say yeah they’re one of the best teams in the league. I would look at that second thing and that’s probably where I would lean. However, I would say this game probably gives people who would say look at the Patriots schedule and tell me who they’ve beaten. It does give them a little bit of ammo. This was their most challenging opponent in the last month. You look at Tennessee, New Orleans, and last week it was the Browns. The Falcons are better than all of those teams. The Falcons have beaten the Bills. The Falcons have had a couple of impressive wins on their resume. They’re 10th in DVOA this year. There are some different numbers that would suggest this was far and away the best team they faced in the last four weeks and it should have gone overtime. So like to me if you’re one of those people and I haven’t been and I give them credit for winning a tight game but they clearly showed some flaws today. If you’re one of those people who said hey look at the schedule I’m not believing in the Patriots yet. You might look at today’s game and say see what’ I tell you. But this is a game I think you want to look at the fine print and the granular details of why it ended up 2423 which I’m sure we can get into after Mike Frael. Mike. Oh, thank you. How about that? Hey, you see that, Teddy? Presented by Gem Plumbing and Heating. For an instant reaction to your heating, cooling, electrical, and plumbing needs, visit ask.com.

Phil Perry, Tom E. Curran, Ted Johnson and Michael Holley break down the Patriots’ 24-23 win over the Atlanta Falcons

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