What we learned in Pats-Rams: Maye's poise, Mayo's decision-making in focus

FOXBORO -- Jerod Mayo's first comments about Sunday's loss to the Rams might've been a source of confusion for those watching from home.

"I never really felt like they had control of the game," Mayo explained following his team's 28-22 defeat. "I felt like we had control of the game."

Yes, the Patriots had just two drives of fewer than seven plays -- they put together four series that lasted 10 plays or more -- and they out-possessed Los Angeles by almost 15 minutes. Additionally, they held the Rams to just 2-for-8 on third down.

But there was a section in the middle of the matchup where Mayo's defense faltered time and again, the game became unwieldy, and the Rams won because of it.

"Just frustrating," safety Kyle Dugger said. "Third down was something we knew, if we got them there, we'd have a good chance to get them off the field. It's just frustrating. Feeling like we have control of the game in a lot of aspects and just not doing enough of the little things to get a win and knowing how to win. So, yeah. Pretty frustrating."

That's where we'll start for our weekly What We Learned...

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Eleven minutes from hell does in Patriots' D

Eleven minutes. Or 11:23, to be exact. That's all it took for Rams coach Sean McVay and his offense to rack up 28 points and build a lead that proved insurmountable for a Patriots offense still trying to get its details in order.

Matthew Stafford was on point. Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua were problems. The Rams running game -- the second-worst in football on a per-play basis this season -- couldn't be stopped.

The Patriots were decidedly not in control. In fact, it was as though they had no answers. For five consecutive drives.

The Rams got into the end zone on four of those five series, which featured 30 total snaps. They averaged 9.9 yards per play during that stretch and compiled a success rate -- meaning they accumulated 40 percent of the yards needed for a first down on first down, 50 percent on second down and 100 percent on third or fourth down -- of 80 percent. (For reference, the Ravens had the best offensive success rate in the NFL coming into Week 11 at 50 percent.)

"They kept doing what they do," Dugger said. "Their game plan was the same. They came back to the plays they had success on. We just weren't stopping them. It just came down to each individual doing their job every play consistently and we didn't do that."

The highlight for LA was a 69-yard catch-and-run from Stafford to Kupp against an all-out Patriots blitz. (More on that below.) But this soft middle of the game for the Patriots -- these 11 minutes from hell for them -- included some methodical wear-you-down running from the Rams. 

Despite ranking 31st in the NFL coming into the game in yards per rush (3.8), the Rams averaged 6.0 yards per carry (11 attempts for 66 yards) during this five-series stretch and simply imposed their will on the Patriots defense.

Drake Maye was dealing under pressure...

Drake Maye faced an unblocked rusher on the Patriots' very first offensive snap of the game, which was indicative of the type of game he was about to endure. He was under pressure, by my initial count, on 22 of his 46 dropbacks for a whopping 48 percent pressure rate.

And yet, he handled it with aplomb. He had answers. He knew where to go with the football, and he went there. He navigated the pocket. He changed arm angles. He played beyond his years. 

For large swaths of the game, at least. 

Maye completed back-to-back passes under pressure in the first quarter for 46 yards, including converting on a third-and-7 play by finding DeMario Douglas on a shallow cross with a safety blitzer breaking through into the New England backfield. Later, Maye flicked one to Kendrick Bourne for an 18-yard gain while absorbing a shot to his midsection.

In the second quarter, he hit a slant to Kayshon Boutte, weaving a pass through defenders and while finding himself dealing with almost-immediate pressure. In the fourth, he had two scrambles when pressured for 21 yards.

"You can really see his ability to create off schedule," McVay said after the game. "I thought he did a great job of being able to make plays in the pocket today, extend drives. I thought he was patient, taking some underneath check-downs where guys were able to create. We had tighter coverages, and he was able to fit the ball into tight windows. 

"He looks like a stud. I didn't do too much work on him coming out (of the draft). I do know a lot of people that studied him really hard, that I truly respect their opinions, loved what he was all about. You can see just the impact that he has on his teammates, the way people talk about him here. He looks like he's going to be a special player for a long time, and he gave us fits today."

By my initial count, Maye went 13-for-19 for 153 yards under pressure. Not bad for a rookie playing behind a patchwork line that, on paper prior to the game, figured to be facing a tremendous mismatch in the trenches. But that wasn't the entirety of his under-pressure story in this one.

...Pressure still cracks Patriots' chances

Maye was sacked three times, including a strip sack that gave the Rams the ball at the New England 12-yard line. One play later, Stafford found Nacua for a diving touchdown grab and a 14-7 lead. 

"Just can't hurt our defense on the fumble, third down," Maye said later. "Got to get the ball out. Can't take a sack there. Same thing I talked about in previous press conferences. Punt, ending the drive with a kick, Coach Mayo preaches ending every drive with a kick. I thought we did some good things, but at the end of the day, just wasn't good enough."

Though that play was the game-changer, Maye took another sack on the final drive of the game, where it looked like he held onto the football for an extended period of time before getting dropped. He lost seven yards on the play and set up a third-and-13 situation that yielded Maye's sixth interception of the season.

Bad time to be on different pages

What happened on the game-ending interception? Was it more Maye's fault or the fault of his intended target Douglas? We may never know fully, though it's safe to say that in a critical situation like that one, for there to be any sort of miscommunication is an indication that this offense is still lacking in the attention-to-detail department.

Here was Maye's explanation of what he saw on the play after the fact.

"It was a two-high look and Pop's up the middle, and they're pretty good up front rushing five," Maye said. "I tried to kind of put it on him and kind of hit them over the linebacker, and Pop was thinking probably deep. But at the end of the day, just got to be on the same page, and I think Pop did the right thing, I guess. Got to just talk through more conversations. Just goes back to me during the week doing more, talking through different situations, 'Hey, I may put this one on you versus let it rip.' That's about it."

It would be beneficial to know how exactly a play like that one is coached up by Alex Van Pelt and his staff.

It looked like an "all-go" concept against a two-high safety look. Against those types of coverages, shots to the middle of the field can be productive, which helps explain why Maye might've tried to go there with the football. He also might've sensed pressure coming from his front side and felt as though he had to get rid of it sooner than he'd like.

From Douglas' point of view, he might've seen that once the weak-side safety was drawn to Hunter Henry, the deep part of the field on the offensive left was open. Douglas didn't sit in the middle of the field because he saw a hole in the secondary ahead of him as he ran from right to left.

"I was running my route," Douglas said. "Just a miscommunication on both of us."

Should he have adjusted? Should Maye have thrown it out ahead of his target? Even if Douglas did look for the ball in the middle of the field, would the throw have been accurate enough to be completed?

All fair questions. But the bottom line is that the Patriots had a gotta-have-it play where all the details weren't ironed out. And the result was a game-sealing turnover.

The best decision, looking back at the play, might've just been to try Kendrick Bourne along the right sideline. He was in one-on-one coverage with New England's all-go concept holding the closest safety in the middle of the field. Miss the target, and it likely falls out of bounds. Hit the target, and you have an explosive play in a desperation situation.

'Greatest motivator of all is your ass on the bench'

That quote from Bobby Knight seems applicable to Bourne's performance in Week 11.

He was fully dressed in Week 10 in Chicago but didn't play a single snap. The week prior in Tennessee, he committed an ugly false-start penalty. He faltered on multiple routes that ultimately ended up with turnover-worthy throws by Maye. Previously, he'd been plagued by drops. 

Thus, he was benched. And, when given the opportunity, he responded against the Rams with five catches on five targets for 70 yards and a touchdown.

"Just working," Bourne said of his bounce-back. "If my coaches see something, I might not see it. They evaluate, they watch us every day. Honestly speaking, I could have played better. My coaches’ job is to make me get better, so whatever they have to do to make me get better, that’s how I have to approach it.

"That’s what happened. I came back to work, focused through the week, and had a good game."

Trickery spoiled

One of the key plays in the game came with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, when it looked like the Patriots had a trick play up their sleeve. The reason why it's hard to say exactly what their intentions were was because a Ja'Lynn Polk false-start penalty wrecked the call before the ball was snapped.

That fourth-and-1, with the Patriots down 28-19, turned into a fourth-and-5, and Mayo had to settle for a field goal. Polk left the field shaking his head, marching past both receivers coach Tyler Hughes and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt. 

Polk had to be aligned properly with some help from Maye, and then as Maye walked down the line of scrimmage -- looking a bit like Nick Foles from the (infamous in New England) Philly Special play that helped beat the Patriots in Super Bowl LII -- Polk fell forward before the snap.

"I think the play clock was running down," Maye said. "Just trying to do different things and get guys lined up. Yeah, just unfortunate that we had to take... a false start. Kicked us back and kicked the field goal, so it was just unfortunate."

Polk wasn't targeted in 31 offensive snaps and now has 11 catches in 10 games played.

"I think he's going to be a great player in this league," Maye added of Polk. "He's a rookie like myself. We're going to have some good games as Patriots together.

"Looking forward to keeping him going, and I think he's getting thrown in there at different times and thrown in there to block some, so I think he's going to pick up some little things. But he's a great player, and need to find a way to get him the football."

Van Pelt acquitted himself nicely

After a week in which there were reports floating that Patriots ownership had been making calls about how to maximize their young quarterback, the most hands-on person when it comes to maximizing their quarterback had himself a nice game.

The Patriots were balanced (30 rushing attempts, 40 pass attempts) and averaged 4.2 yards per carry. They improved over their season average, converting on six of 14 third down opportunities. They ran a season-high 76 offensive plays and averaged 5.2 yards per play.

They allowed three sacks, which isn't ideal, but against one of the league's top pass-rushing units, there was clearly a plan in place -- a plan that was clearly well understood by Maye -- to have the ball out quickly, which served them well for the majority of the game.

Van Pelt schemed up a touchdown for left tackle Vederian Lowe that obviously confused the Rams defense. He worked Marcus Jones into the offense for a five-yard carry on Jones' first offensive snap of the season, then later followed that up with a similar look to use Jones as a decoy and set up Rhamondre Stevenson for a nine-yard screen.

Van Pelt also deserves some credit for Maye playing the way he did under pressure. Most of his damage in those situations was from the pocket, indicating that the rookie had absorbed enough from Van Pelt and the rest of the offensive staff to understand where his answers were.

The coaching staff deserves some criticism for having both Polk and Javon Baker on the field on that critical fourth-and-1 play that was blown dead before it began due to Polk's penalty. That's not an ideal personnel grouping for that particular situation when dependability should be of the utmost importance.

But all in all, that was perhaps Van Pelt's best game of the season.

Coaching questions abound

Plenty to dissect 24 hours later when it came to the coaching. 

Not using Christian Gonzalez to shadow either Puka Nacua or Cooper Kupp when they combined for 229 yards and three touchdowns seems like a misallocation of resources. The Patriots planned to play man-to-man on third down, but they got to third down so infrequently, their third-down plan was rendered moot. 

"Defensively they only had eight third downs in the game," Mayo said, "and you just can't win that way."

Additionally, on the defensive side of things, there was one man-to-man snap that proved to be a back-breaker, and Gonzalez was on neither Kupp nor Nacua. Sending a Cover 0 all-out blitz, Gonzalez played DeMarcus Robinson, leaving Jonathan Jones on Kupp and Marcus Jones on Nacua. 

The Patriots rushed seven against L.A.'s six pass-protectors and still weren't able to generate any pressure. That gave Stafford plenty of time to set his feet and throw a strike to Kupp down the middle of the field for a 69-yard touchdown.

If DeMarcus Covington is going to go to that call, they have to generate some pressure there to alter the throw or force Stafford to go to a different target. Jonathan Jones seemed to lament the play after the fact, but to take as long as they did to break into the backfield meant that play was doomed from the start against a quick-thinking veteran group with Stafford and Kupp.

Another coaching decision worth analyzing was Mayo's decision to kick a field goal on fourth down from the 2-yard line in the third quarter. He said later that had it been a fourth-and-1 scenario, he would've gone for it. But taking a more aggressive approach there might've been beneficial, especially since the Patriots defense had struggled -- as we mentioned above in describing the 11 minutes from hell -- to slow down Stafford and the Rams offense. 

Making a different call on third down, maybe allowing Maye to try to throw or create with his legs, as opposed to running with Stevenson against one of the league's best run defenses over the last month, might've made sense there too.

Easy to say in hindsight, as one of the team's best players -- tight end Hunter Henry -- appeared to miss a block on the play, an unexpected lack of execution there from a typically-dependable veteran that led to the stuffed run.