Seattle’s zone-droppers play extremely deep downfield, even at the second level of the defense. Above, the Pats run the commonly known “dagger” concept, where the slot receiver runs a vertical route (middle-read) and the outside receiver runs a deep dig. The Seahawks not only have two safeties over the top of WR Romeo Doubs’s clear-out route, but they also drop LB Ernest Jones IV all the way underneath WR Mack Hollins’s deep in-cut, leaving Maye with no choice but to check the ball down.
During their most recent five-game stretch, opposing safeties have lined up at 12.8 yards off the line of scrimmage on average against the Patriots, per NextGen Stats. For comparison, the league average during the 2025 regular season was 12.0 yards while the Bengals faced the deepest safety depth at 12.5 yards. In other words, the strategy against Maye has been GTFB: get the [expletive] back.
For the first three quarters last week, Maye was taking profits underneath Seattle’s defense to produce a positive EPA per drop-back (+0.30). However, he was averaging only 5.8 yards per pass attempt and didn’t throw a single deep pass (20+ yards). It’s a boring brand of football, with Maye admitting that he “lost patience” with taking what the defense was giving him last week. But underneath passes and finding a running game is how you get defenses out of the blueprint.
Over the last four seasons, the Patriots offense has ranked 26th, 30th, 22nd, and 25th in EPA per rush. The last time they had an efficient run game was Mac Jones’s rookie season in 2021 (seventh). In Week 1, they were last in the NFL in rush EPA (-0.45). Until the run game picks up to force opponents to put an extra defender into the box, Maye will have fewer 1-on-1 matchups on the outside to throw deep on opposing defenses.
“You can’t get bored taking what they give you, and that goes for everybody. If the defense gives you something and the ball’s supposed to go somewhere, then put the ball there,” head coach Mike Vrabel said this week. “If you’re playing a team that is in split safety, like they’re in split safety to stop the pass, not to stop the run. We should be able to run the football. We’ll see some more of that stuff, then we’ll obviously have to have a plan for what we’ll do going forward.”
As we turn the page to the Steelers, one of my favorite football idioms is that the NFL is a copycat league. Pittsburgh and the rest of New England’s future opponents are seeing the success of the two-high safety blueprint against Maye and the Patriots offense. You can count on the same strategy moving forward until the Patriots consistently find ways to move the ball and score points against this style of defense.
Let’s preview the chess match between the Steelers and Patriots at Gillette Stadium in Week 2.
Patriots Offense Key: Stay Patient vs. the Steelers Zone Coverages
Starting our game-specific breakdown, the Steelers defense is returning their key veteran players under McCarthy and new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham this season.
Graham, a Bill Belichick disciple who worked for Josh McDaniels, is taking over as the defensive architect with T.J. Watt, Cameron Heyward, Alex Highsmith, Jalen Ramsey, and company continuing as the foundation of the Pittsburgh defense. Graham coaches for three different head coaches in Las Vegas as a respected defensive mind before leaving the Raiders to reimagine the Steelers defense on McCarthy’s staff. Given the success that Pittsburgh’s core defenders have had over the years, Graham isn’t completely reinventing the wheel here, but there are always changes when a new coordinator is running the show.
Getting back to the blueprint vs. the Patriots offense, Graham has leaned heavier on zone coverage schemes over the last two seasons than his Belichick roots would suggest. Some of that could be due to coaching for former Raiders coach Pete Carroll last season, a pioneer of the Seattle-3 system. Another piece of context that could be driving Pittsburgh’s zone-heavy tendencies in their season opener is an injury to star CB Joey Porter Jr., the Steelers best man-cover corner. Porter Jr. returned to practice this week and is trending in the right to play on Sunday, so that could change Pittsburgh’s approach.
That said, Pittsburgh didn’t play a single snap in man coverage in its win over Atlanta and third-string QB Cooper Rush last week — 26 drop-backs all in zone coverage. The Patriots also faced Graham when he was with the Raiders last season, when he called a 90.6% zone coverage rate vs. Maye, the highest zone coverage rate the Pats QB has faced in a game in his career. Graham disguised coverage over 25 percent of the time to change Maye’s post-snap picture, often dropping into zones after bluffing or simulating pressure.
The Raiders mostly played cover three (25 snaps) and cover two (16 snaps) to force Maye to beat them with precise underneath passes, which held the Pats QB in check. One would expect Graham to have a similar coverage mix in his second matchup vs. Maye.