While the Patriots showed some promise on their first two drives, gaining three first downs and driving into Seattle territory both times, it could not get anything going on that side of the ball afterwards. It took McDaniels\u2019 crew until the early fourth quarter to cross midfield again, at which point the team was already trailing 19-0.<\/p>\n
The reasons for New England\u2019s offense being virtually nonexistent for more than two quarters are manifold and intertwined. One of the more curious aspects, however, was the team\u2019s personnel usage and by extension game plan: despite the offensive line clearly having issues in pass protection and Seattle being comfortable operating predominately out of nickel and dime looks, the Patriots neglected to go big.<\/p>\n
The following breakdown illustrates this:<\/p>\n
The usage of two players illustrates this more than anything. Fullback Jack Westover was on the field for only five snaps, his lowest output since Week 3. Thayer Munford Jr, the Patriots\u2019 jumbo tackle regularly used as an extra blocker up front, played one solitary snap on the second drive of the day, that ended with the team picking up 21 yards on a pass to Kayshon Boutte.<\/p>\n
New England seemingly entered the Super Bowl relying on its core group of players and the concepts they were comfortable with, but the Seahawks simply did not give up much ground. And yet, McDaniels and company kept at it even as the deficit continued to grow and quarterback Drake Maye got increasingly more flustered operating from a muddy pocket regularly collapsed by Seattle\u2019s four-man rush.<\/p>\n
While head coach Mike Vrabel noted after the game that the fatal flaw was a different one in his eyes \u2014 \u201cI think the turnovers ultimately cost us.\u201d \u2014 the Patriots\u2019 offensive inconsistency as a whole sunk the operation in the first place. And while it would be too simple to point to New England being underprepared, the apparent \u201cwear and tear\u201d approach also did not show many positive results until it was too late.<\/p>\n
And even when it did starting with a touchdown drive in the early fourth quarter, the overall execution under what had become an increasingly high-pressure situation was not up to par either. For Vrabel, it all blended together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt starts with us as coaching staff and making sure that we\u2019re doing our part,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then obviously, we have to be able to execute. We got to be able to protect. When we do protect, we have to be able to progress through and throw the ball to the guy that\u2019s open and help the quarterback. And then he\u2019s got to be better. That\u2019s just how it goes. That\u2019s never going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Patriots showed some promise on their first two drives, gaining three first downs and driving into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52640,52113,103282,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-740483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-england","10":"tag-new-england-patriots","11":"tag-new-england-patriots-analysis","12":"tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","13":"tag-new-england-patriots-super-bowl","14":"tag-newengland","15":"tag-newenglandpatriots","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116041246678902040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}