The Patriots have earned their bye week, to say the least.
They’ve gone essentially nonstop from late July to early December without a significant break. During that span of four-plus months, they’ve only lost two meaningful games, positioning themselves atop the AFC entering Week 14.
But for a team with aspirations of making a deep playoff run, the work never truly stops — and the same goes for the Mailbag. As usual, you had plenty of questions about New England at the bye. Let’s get to answering them.
Editor’s Note: Some questions have been lightly edited for clarity.
Bill Belichick used to talk about using the bye week to self-scout and adjust accordingly. What are the biggest adjustments you expect the team to make after the bye week? – @nonseqoftinmen
Every team does it, Nonseq, but it’s a good question for us to try to tackle this week. Defensively, I think the biggest thing for them will be to get healthy. While some of their issues against the run came with both Milton Williams and Khyiris Tonga still in the lineup, getting those two players back down the stretch will go a long way in terms of improving a run defense that has been a little more permissive of late.
Some of the more interesting Xs and Os tweaks could come on the offensive side, believe it or not. Let’s look first at the run game.
As efficient as they’ve been on that side of the ball, it hasn’t been because of what they can do on the ground. They’re 29th in success rate when they hand it off, and it’s hard to find bright spots there.
According to Sports Info Solutions, since Week 6 they’re 21st in the NFL when they run outside the tackles, though their averages when doing so aren’t necessarily unproductive (4.6 yards per attempt). They’re 22nd in the NFL when running inside the tackles (3.4 yards per attempt). They’re 31st when they pull linemen (2.5 yards per attempt), and they’re 24th when calling “gap” runs — which includes power, counter, wham and duo runs — with an average of 3.6 yards per rush. Their 84 “gap” attempts since Week 6 are the most in the NFL, however.
My guess? The reason they’ve leaned on those calls despite their relative inefficiency is because those looks tie so well to Josh McDaniels’ play-action passing calls. Even if the runs don’t produce big gains, the deception they create serves as a setup pitch of sorts that can produce dividends down the line.
I found it interesting that, per SIS, the Patriots have been fairly productive when they use outside zone over these last two months. They’re 15th in the NFL with 4.2 yards per attempt, but they’ve called only 25 outside zone runs in that span.
Perhaps one tweak they could make to have a better overall rushing attack would be to try a little more outside zone. Bootleg play-action calls off those have been productive for the Patriots in the past, so maybe McDaniels would be OK with a little bit of a shift there.
With the passing game — no surprise — it’s almost the opposite in terms of finding bright spots. Drake Maye does just about everything well, and on the latest Next Pats, I wondered if he was a blueprint-proof quarterback. Again, since Week 6, he’s first in EPA when not blitzed, when faced with zone coverage, when facing two-high safety shells and when facing single-high safety shells. He’s fifth in the NFL when blitzed and he’s eighth against man coverage.
He certainly doesn’t struggle against man, but I looked a little more closely at some of those numbers only because it has felt like the Patriots have seen a little more man coverage of late. Is there something opposing defensive coordinators have seen that they like when the Patriots face man?
You have to squint hard. When Maye sees Cover 1, since Week 6, he’s third in yards per attempt (9.9) and passer rating (126.7). But he also has the third-highest sack percentage (15.3), behind only Cam Ward and Justin Fields. That’s led to an EPA against Cover 1 specifically in the last two months that ranks 17th among 33 qualifiers.
Is that because of anything Maye can control? Is it more about his receivers breaking free from tight man coverage or his line protecting? Is the sample size too small?
The answer to all of those questions may be yes. But if you’re Sean McDermott and the Bills, it might be worth your while to run a little more Cover 1 than you may have planned to against a mobile quarterback who can go for big gains against that type of coverage.
The reason? There’s not a whole lot else that has worked against Maye this season.
More of a comment: I have to say that back in April when Christian Elliss decided to re-sign with Patriots, I had the thought that we were over paying a backup/ST player. Man, the dude is playing fast and hard. One of my obscure heroes on this team. – @martinlaroche13
He’s ended up being a key re-sign, Martin. And he clearly set the tone with his physicality on Monday night.
There were times this season where the Patriots have played around with their No. 2 off-ball linebacker usage — Christian Elliss would be in, then Jack Gibbens, then back to Elliss — and in Week 7, Elliss played just 16 snaps defensively.
But in hindsight, that feels like it could have just been an opportunity for Mike Vrabel to get two good players on the field and manage the workloads for both.
Elliss and Gibbens, it should be noted, both have had significant roles in the kicking game.
Good day, Phil. Looking forward, what would be the worst/best-case scenario for the Patriots in the playoffs? I think the Patriots are making the Super Bowl this year but don’t expect it to be easy. Who could play spoiler for this Cinderella season? – @CJ8784312942327
Still need the playoff picture to shake out a little more clearly, CJ, but there is certainly a scenario in which the Patriots make it all the way to Santa Clara and win it. I’m not ruling that out.
They are, for me, the best team in the AFC right now and the second-best team in the NFL. I’d still have to rank the Rams as top dogs for right now. The Rams are second in the NFL in point-differential — the Patriots are third — and have had a much more challenging schedule when you look at opponent win percentage.
Hoisting the Lombardi is the best-case scenario, and it feels as though Mike Vrabel is starting to plant the seed in the minds of his players that that is possible. He told reporters on Tuesday that “champions are never satisfied,” and he told his players after beating the Giants that they competed “like champions.”
Words have meaning. Vrabel, as much as he wears his heart on his sleeve, is very intentional in all that he does. He’s not saying “Super Bowl or bust, boys!” But he wants them to know what they’re capable of, and by sprinkling in some language that he never would have used early in the season, he’s doing exactly that.
Worst-case scenario, on the other hand, would be losing out on the No. 1 seed to the Broncos and losing at home in the Wild Card round. There could be some frisky wild-card teams to make their way to Foxboro. Houston? Kansas City? Both, for different reasons, would pose real challenges.
Houston’s defense might be the most dominant unit in the AFC. Patrick Mahomes is Patrick Mahomes. Hard for me to envision a loss to a team like the Jaguars or Colts coming to Foxboro, but playoff football is a different animal.
Weird things happen. The Patriots, for all they’ve done well, are relatively inexperienced. So just as there is a plausible scenario in which they could win the Super Bowl, we’d have to acknowledge the possibility that things go awry for them at some point.
That unpredictability — and their ability to continuously exceed expectations — is one of the reasons this season has already been so memorable.
How much would you trade for Justin Jefferson and is it different than the amount you’d trade for AJ Brown? – @blingatti
A lot. You’re probably talking two first-round picks, at least. (Though, remember, they’ll probably be late-firsts given how the Patriots are performing.) And, yes, it’d be more than what AJ Brown would require.
It’ll be fascinating to see how the Patriots will try to surround Drake Maye with talent moving forward. Do they believe he needs that kind of top-tier No. 1 wideout? Or is what he’s doing this season proof that he doesn’t need that kind of help?
Would it be better to build an improved line — and therefore a better rushing attack — to maximize Maye’s abilities? All pertinent questions come the offseason.
Alec Pierce, future Patriot? What’s the market value for him this offseason? – @DrakeMVPMaye
Alec Pierce — guest of the Next Pats pod back in the day — would be a nice fit with Maye, you would think.
Big catch radius. Plus ball-tracking skills. He leads the NFL in yards per catch right now (20.9). He’s a free agent this offseason, and could hit the $20 million per year threshold. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but it’s not quite “No. 1” dollars, considering there are 24 receivers making over $20 million annually right now.
A good goal might be to try to approach the dollar figures given to his Colts teammate Michael Pittman ($23.3 million per year, $46 million total guaranteed). Pittman is more of a possession wideout and racks up a high volume of receptions, but the market at the position continues to climb and the more explosive Pierce is on pace for 1,000 yards this season, which Pittman has reached twice in his five-year career.