The New England Patriots allowed 402 total yards Sunday and trailed by as many as 15 points in a 28-22 loss to the Los Angeles Rams at Gillette Stadium.
Which is why Jerod Mayo's postgame diagnosis of how the game unfolded raised a few eyebrows.
"I never really felt like they had control of the game. I felt like we had control of the game," the Patriots head coach told reporters in his press conference.
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Care to explain, Jerod?
"If you look at the first half, I think we only had one three-and-out offensively," Mayo added. "I thought (the offense) did a great job on first and second down, which is one of the targets that we talked about. Defensively, not so much. Defensively, they only had eight third downs in the game, and you just can't win that way.
"If you look at the time of possession -- if you look at the movement we had offensively in the run game and in the pass game -- that's part of the formula. We've just got to continue to build on it."
MORE PATRIOTS COVERAGE
The Patriots did, in fact, win the time-of-possession battle by a wide margin (37:20 compared to the Rams' 22:40). But that was partly because their defense allowed L.A. to score so quickly: The Rams had two touchdown drives of under one minute thanks to Cooper Kupp's 69-yard TD catch and Matthew Stafford's 19-yard strike to Chandler Parkinson immediately after a Drake Maye fumble.
In fact, New England allowed Stafford and Co. to score four touchdowns over just two quarters with a ridiculous offensive success rate of 80 percent in that span.
Since their first touchdown drive in the second quarter, the Rams have an offensive success rate of 80 percent.
— Phil Perry (@PhilAPerry) November 17, 2024
That's... extremely high. Patriots have no answers.
(Ravens had the best offensive success rate in the league coming into Week 11 at 50.2 percent.)
The Patriots did some things well Sunday. Rookie quarterback Drake Maye threw for a career-high 282 passing yards with two touchdowns, while the offense converted on nearly 50 percent of its third downs (6 for 14). To say they had "control" of this game would be a stretch, however, especially since they led for fewer than eight minutes of total game time.
Expect Mayo's comments -- and a few of the coaching staff's questionable decisions -- to garner some discussion in the coming days after New England dropped to 3-8 with the loss.