After two games, there’s only one word to describe the Patriots’ offense — dysfunctional, especially after Sunday’s 30-7 victory over the Vikings.
As the clock ticked down in the fourth quarter Sunday, Tom Brady was in a dour mood on the sideline, brooding away from his teammates. Rob Gronkowski stood solemnly on the sideline, not talking to anyone. The offensive linemen and wide receivers hung their heads.
The first two weeks have been a grind, to say the least, for the Patriots, and the offense looks completely out of synch. The Patriots are 27th in the league in total yards, they’re committing penalties at an alarming rate, they can’t convert third-and-short, and they have absolutely no vertical stretch to their offense.
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In Week 1 against the Dolphins, Brady was 2 for 18 on passes of 15 yards or more. In Week 2 against the Vikings, Brady didn’t bother going downfield. He threw exactly four passes of 15 yards or more — a pick play to Danny Amendola that got called back for a penalty, a wheel route to Julian Edelman that earned a pass interference, a 44-yard pass to Edelman that included 29 yards after the catch, and a deep sideline pass to Amendola that had no chance.
That’s it.
Usually, we blame the Patriots receivers for not knowing the offense well enough and not being on the same page as Brady. But it’s time to start wondering if Brady is being a little stubborn and not helping his receivers develop.
One of the more impressive attributes about Peyton Manning is that throughout his career, he has turned his receivers into Pro Bowlers, no matter who is playing with him.
Brady, though, refuses to look at anyone other than Edelman, Gronkowski, and Shane Vereen. Every other pass on Sunday was a dump-off to a running back in the flat, or a quick hitch to a tight end, or something to Edelman over the middle. The wide receivers were totally invisible. Edelman was targeted seven times, and every other wide receiver on the team was targeted a combined three times. Brady only had one official target to Amendola, and he never even looked Brandon LaFell’s way. After the 44-yarder to Edelman, the Patriots’ longest pass was a 13-yarder to Aaron Dobson, who, in theory, is the team’s deep threat.
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The Patriots have what looks to be an excellent defense, so they can get away with stalled drives and missed opportunities against teams such as the Vikings and this week’s opponent, the Raiders. But Brady and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels need to figure out how to get the wide receivers more involved and open up the field if they want to keep up with offenses like the Broncos’ and Colts’.
Other observations after re-watching the Patriots’ win over the Vikings:
When the Patriots had the ball
■ The Patriots basically conceded that they can’t pass the ball down the field, and took the ball out of Brady’s hands on several third-and-long opportunities. On third and 8 in the first quarter, he handed off to Vereen for 7 yards. On second and 18, they ran a draw to Vereen for 7 yards. The next play, on third and 11, Brady threw a bubble screen to Edelman that didn’t gain any yards. On third and 19 from the 21-yard line in the second half, they again ran an inside draw to Vereen.
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The Vikings did play double-high safety for much of the game, but this wasn’t about the Vikings as much as it was about the Patriots just being totally incapable of stretching the field. The offensive line gave Brady decent protection Sunday. And on the rare occasion when the receivers do get open downfield, Brady hasn’t been hitting them.
■ The Patriots passing attack is so stale that the only way for them to move the ball was to use heavy formations, continue to pound the running game, and then hit the Vikings with a play-action pass. Rookie offensive tackle Cameron Fleming played a whopping 27 of 65 snaps as an extra tight end — the same number as Gronkowski. They used at least two tight ends on 42 of 65 snaps (64.6 percent), and two tight ends and a fullback on about one-third of the snaps. Brady was an efficient 9 of 10 for 105 yards in the first half, and just 6 of 12 for 44 yards in the second half.
■ Brady still is a maestro at the line of scrimmage, however, and he did a great job of getting the Patriots in the right play on Edelman’s 9-yard touchdown catch. The Vikings showed man coverage, and their two middle linebackers gave away their intentions a second too early — they crowded the line of scrimmage with about 8 seconds left in the play clock, revealing an all-out blitz. With 7 seconds left, Brady quickly audibled from a run play to a pass. Knowing that Vikings cornerback Xavier Rhodes would be jumping the slant pass — the slant is the best way to beat the blitz — Brady sent Edelman on a post-corner route from the slot. Brady got the snap off with 1 second left, and floated a perfect pass to a wide-open Edelman while getting crushed by a blitzer (Brandon Bolden didn’t pick him up). Brady was 5 for 5 on the drive.
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■ Edelman, meanwhile, deserves a lot of praise. There aren’t many tougher dudes in the NFL, and he took several punishing hits over the middle Sunday. The Patriots’ only touchdown drive was pretty much all Edelman — he had a 44-yard catch-and-run to get into scoring position, had a huge third-down catch over the middle to keep the drive going, then caught the touchdown. And he also had punt returns of 28 and 34 yards.
■ RB Stevan Ridley and the offensive line deserve credit for finishing the game well and tacking on some nice runs at the end to run out the clock. Dan Connolly and Sebastian Vollmer had nice blocks in the run game, and Jordan Devey played much better this game. But Marcus Cannon and Nate Solder are struggling on the left side, and the running game still struggled for most of the game — midway through the fourth quarter Ridley had 20 carries for just 66 yards. Early in the game on the goal line, Ridley got stuffed from the 1-yard line, then barely got over the goal line on the next attempt while getting crushed. And twice Ridley was stuffed on third and 1, forcing the Patriots to punt. Brady’s one sack came when Cannon was bull-rushed and overpowered by Tom Johnson.
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■ Vereen didn’t touch the ball between 1:23 left in the first quarter and 6:46 left in the third quarter, and only had seven touches overall. But I think that was more part of the gameplan to use Ridley in the power run game than any sort of punishment for Vereen.
When the Vikings had the ball
■ The Patriots played the opening series in a 3-4 — interestingly, Sealver Siliga played nose tackle while Vince Wilfork and Chris Jones played defensive end — but after giving up an easy touchdown, they switched to a four-man front the rest of the way and dominated the Vikings offensive line. Chandler Jones was obviously much more effective coming off the edge than he was playing inside against the Dolphins last week. And the combination of Jones and Dont’a Hightower rushing the passer from the same side is a devastating combination, and directly led to three sacks Sunday.
■ The Patriots blitzed a little more this week — we counted 12 in 40 dropbacks, compared with just seven a week ago. Jerod Mayo was very active in the first half blitzing through the “A” gap, and he was in on several tackles at or behind the line of scrimmage. Kyle Arrington got a strip-sack coming off the edge, and Hightower was able to tee off on Matt Cassel in the second half.
■ On the Vikings’ touchdown, Patrick Chung picked up tight end Kyle Rudolph, who already was being covered by Mayo, instead of taking running back Matt Asiata out of the backfield, leading to an easy walk-in score.
■ The first drive was a testament to Norv Turner, who schemed up an impressive combination of plays to confuse the Patriots with crossing routes and misdirection and get the Vikings 80 yards down the field for a touchdown. The rest of the game was a testament, though, to how little talent the Vikings have without Adrian Peterson. Cassel’s accuracy was terrible — he would have had an easy touchdown to Cordarrelle Patterson late in the first half after Duron Harmon was late coming over to pick him up, but Cassel’s throw took Patterson out of bounds. On the next play, Jones blocked a field goal attempt and returned it for a touchdown, and what could have been 17-14 or 17-10 suddenly was 24-7 Patriots. Cassel also never saw Devin McCourty playing deep center field or Logan Ryan undercutting the route for their interceptions, and Greg Jennings stopped running his route on Darrelle Revis’s interception.
■ The Patriots cornerbacks not only can cover, but they are excellent tacklers, which is a real benefit to the run game. Revis, Ryan, and Arrington all had impressive “sticks” in the run game or short passing game to prevent big plays. Revis shadowed Jennings for 95 percent of the game, while Ryan did an excellent job on Patterson. Revis hurt his shoulder on one play, possibly a stinger, but he stayed in the game.
Special teams
■ Siliga and Wilfork deserve credit for Jones’s blocked field goal. With Wilfork lined up in the “A” gap and Siliga in the “B” gap, they took care of three Vikings blockers to allow Jones to scamper free through the “B” gap for the two-handed swat. Arrington almost got there for the block around the edge, too.
■ Stephen Gostkowski banged four kickoffs out of the end zone, and did a really good job of limiting Patterson in the return game. Don Jones made two nice special teams tackles, and Matthew Slater did a great job of downing a punt on the 4-yard line.
Patriots snap counts
Defense | ||
---|---|---|
Player | Vs. Vikings | Percent this season |
LB Donta Hightower | 66 | 100% |
LB Jerod Mayo | 66 | 100% |
DE Chandler Jones | 66 | 97% |
DE Rob Ninkovich | 66 | 73% |
CB Logan Ryan | 66 | 60% |
FS Devin McCourty | 58 | 94% |
CB Darrelle Revis | 58 | 86% |
CB Kyle Arrington | 41 | 51% |
DT Vince Wilfork | 37 | 62% |
DT Sealver Siliga | 37 | 56% |
SS Patrick Chung | 35 | 58% |
DE Dominique Easley | 30 | 40% |
SS Duron Harmon | 27 | 23% |
LB Deontae Skinner | 20 | 14% |
DT Chris Jones | 16 | 11% |
SS Nate Ebner | 14 | 11% |
SS Tavon Wilson | 11 | 24% |
CB Malcolm Butler | 8 | 25% |
SS Don Jones | 3 | 2% |
DT Joe Vellano | 1 | 24% |
LB Jamie Collins | 0 | 52% |
CB Alfonzo Dennard | 0 | 36% |
Offense | ||
Player | Vs. Vikings | Percent this season |
LT Nate Solder | 65 | 100% |
QB Tom Brady | 65 | 100% |
RT Sebastian Vollmer | 65 | 99% |
RG Jordan Devey | 65 | 85% |
LG Marcus Cannon | 57 | 95% |
C Dan Connolly | 54 | 93% |
WR Julian Edelman | 50 | 88% |
TE Michael Hoomanawanui | 42 | 48% |
WR Brandon LaFell | 36 | 50% |
RB Stevan Ridley | 36 | 38% |
WR Aaron Dobson | 31 | 21% |
TE Rob Gronkowski | 27 | 43% |
OT Cameron Fleming | 27 | 21% |
FB James Develin | 21 | 25% |
RB Shane Vereen | 19 | 53% |
WR Danny Amendola | 18 | 52% |
C Bryan Stork | 11 | 7% |
RB Brandon Bolden | 10 | 13% |
TE Tim Wright | 8 | 19% |
G Josh Kline | 8 | 5% |
WR Kenbrell Thompkins | 0 | 30% |
C Ryan Wendell | 0 | 15% |
More coverage:
■ Gasper: Expect slow progress from Patriots offense
■ Julian Edelman still Tom Brady’s go-to guy
Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenVolin