There were plenty of crossed signals in New England over the past two seasons. But in the first game of the Jerod Mayo era on Sunday, Patriots players were all on the same page.
The Patriots scored a surprising 16-10 upset of the Cincinnati Bengals thanks in part to a dominant running game, with Rhamondre Stevenson rushing for 120 yards and a touchdown on 25 attempts. That success on the ground allowed offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt to keep his game plan simple -- and led to a moment of collective clarity in the offensive huddle.
"We got to the point where it was just -- we saw what type of game it turned into," quarterback Jacoby Brissett told reporters Wednesday. "The cool part was, there (were) no egos in the huddle. Everybody kind of bought into it and realized, like, 'We're running one play the whole time, and they're not stopping it. So, why change it?'"
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That buy-in stemmed in part from the team's belief in its conditioning; Mayo admitted Monday he heard Patriots players on the sideline saying, "Take them to the hill!" in reference to their practice of running sprints up a side hill outside Gillette Stadium during training camp.
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That mantra also made its way onto the field, where Brissett was left impressed with his team's commitment to essentially out-work the Bengals in the second half.
"I think that was one of the cooler moments in my career," Brissett added. "Everybody in the huddle was saying, 'Let's take them to the hill!' because we knew we were in that much better shape than they were, and I think it paid off."
The Patriots have one of the NFL's least talented offenses on paper, and that lack of talent is a primary reason why they're projected to be one of the NFL's worst teams in 2024. Their margin for error is slim, and they needed a lot to go right in Sunday's victory, including a brutal Bengals turnover on the 1-yard line and New England tight end Hunter Henry breaking up a potential interception in the red zone.
But Week 1 proved that hard work can pay off, as the Patriots won the possession battle -- 34:03 compared to Cincinnati's 25:57 -- and salted the game away in the fourth quarter on multiple Stevenson runs to record the NFL's biggest Week 1 upset since 2018.