That’s how it used to be all the time around here. A lousy team would come to Foxborough on a beautiful fall afternoon and the Patriots would win in a laugher that had people heading to the parking lot in the third quarter to drink beers you don’t need to sell a kidney to pay for. We saw it a few times last year, once against the Jets and again versus the Browns, but it used to be such a frequent occurrence that you could set your watch to it.
Coming into this game, there were two prevailing questions you saw and heard all week were 1) Is this Lions offense as good as they’ve been through four weeks and 2) Will the Bailey Zappe-lead offense be able (or allowed) to take advantage of a historically bad Lions defense. After the 29-0 beatdown the Patriots served the Lions yesterday, the answers to those questions are, resoundingly, absolutely not and absolutely yes.
Let’s get into the three sides of the ball.
Offense: The offense was pretty good yesterday, but I encourage the 3 people who will read this to keep what we all saw yesterday in perspective. The Patriots gained 364 yards on the day, but that’s 80 yards less than the 444 yards the Lions defense averaged giving up coming into this game. Points, you ask? The 29 points the Patriots scored yesterday is 6 less than the 35.3 the Lions defense gave up weekly through their first four games, and 7 of the 29 points the Patriots scored came on a Kyle Dugger scoop and score, so the offense actually scored 22 and only found the endzone one time on the day. Once again, they were able to move the ball pretty much at ease but had to settle for field goal after field goal, a disturbing trend through 5 games.
Now that I’ve let the air out of the balloon a bit, I will give credit where credit is due. The Patriots offense and their rookie quarterback controlled this game from the beginning. Zappe looked comfortable and, with the predictably conservative playcalling, did everything he was asked to. But that wasn’t a whole lot. In fact, to put it bluntly, I don’t think the offense was even trying to score touchdowns for the majority of the game. Bill simply asked the offense not to turn the ball over, and short of Nelson Aghalor’s terrible no-catch that resulted in an interception, they did just that. The Patriots thought that the Lions would make mistake after mistake, both physical and mentally, and lose the game themselves as long as the Patriots didn’t turn it over and put up some points. This turned out to be a perfect plan even if it still left us with questions about the offense. Offense Grade: B
Defense: One negative before I spend two paragraphs praising them. They did let the lions move the ball on them a lot yesterday. It didn’t hurt them, obviously, but the Lions moved the ball to the tune of 312 yards of total offense yesterday AND if the Lions had a competent head coach, they would have scored mid-teen points and would not have surrendered the scoop and score. Not a problem, but this defense is not the 2000 Ravens.
Much like their offense, the Patriots defense took advantage of a truly bad opponent and let them make mistakes. And did they ever. Detroit was 0-6 on fourth down, opting to go for a first down, repeatedly, in field goal range. The Patriots get credit for pitching a shutout, but this feels like a rain-shortened, 6-inning shutout as opposed to a 9-inning, 14 strikeout masterclass. Both are shutouts, but both feel different.
Judon is a beast, and Jack Jones continues to help us forget about JC Jackson. Dugger and Adrian Phillips were all over the field, and the defense as a whole was able to pin their ears back and play “down hill” without any fear of being beat over the top. I was wonderful to watch, and I down-low think it was a performance they can look to moving forward when things may not go as well for this unit. Defense Grade: A-
Coaching: Week 5 was a good week for the coaching staff. It can be hard to just sit back and let the other team beat themselves, but that was the gameplan on both sides of the ball and it worked spectacularly. This was no masterclass in coaching, but more of a “less is more” situation. Bill dialed up pressure on Goff all game long and dared him to beat the Patriots on balls down the field. That never happened, and, predictably, Goff threw an interception on one of his only down-field shots. Offensively the Patriots lined up in running formations and ran the ball down the Lions throat, seemingly at will. If Stevenson was the main course yesterday, Zappe was put in position to be a solid side dish. The Patriots played with an extra linemen for most of the game, and when Zappe dropped back to pass, the route concepts were simple which limited how much the kid had to process. Nothing revolutionary on either side of the ball, but was absolutely the right way to attack this terrible Lions team.
I’ve had my issues with Bellichick and the coaching staff over the last few years, especially with how conservative they have been with offensive playcalling, but Sundays game against the Lions prooves that the Patriots won’t ever bottom out like the Lions/Brownws/Jaguars have recently. The Lions coaching staff is full of absolute bafoons, lead by Dan Campbell, who made head-scratching decision after head-scratchign decision all afternoon and basically removed any chance his team had to win. THOSE are the types of teams who pick in the top-5 of the draft every year. As mentioned above multiple times, the Lions came to town with the highest scoring offense in the NFL, and were facing a painfully average offense with a rookie making his first NFL start at QB. The fact that they couldn’t score a single point and let the rookie QB move the ball up and down the field at will is a reflection of the coaching staff and the coaching staff alone.
Maybe, just maybe, the 7-9 Cam Newton Patriots was Bill’s version of bottoming out, and although they are not “back” yet in terms of competing with the NFL elite, but they can certinally stomp the true bottom feeders. I still don’t agree with a lot of Belichick’s conservative playcalling, but I’ll happily admit that his presence is enough to keep the Patriots competitive under almost any circumstance.
Coaching Grade: A+
The Patriots look to stay in the win column this Sunday in Cleveland against the Browns. Full writeup coming Friday!