The 15

By Vinny Jace, Special to the15net dot com:

Suffice it to say, the Patriots’ original plan heading into the season did not survive first contact. Injuries have plagued this team dating back to training camp, when veteran tight end Julian Hall was ruled out for the year. This loss, followed by losing A.J. Brown and Mike Onwenu, is steadily pushing offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels into places he does not want to go—namely, putting the game more in Drake Maye’s hands.

For the past two weeks, Maye has thrown into double coverage, backed his way into sacks, and exhibited poor footwork. Last season, he threw a measly 8 interceptions. This year, he already has four. Each interception can be attributed to the same problem: throwing into double coverage and diverting from the conservative game plan.
Maye is not the first quarterback to regress this season. If your name isn’t Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, or Lamar Jackson, virtually everyone is regressing. For Maye, the story behind his step backward is a lack of patience and maturity. Now, I don’t mean maturity in terms of being a good teammate or a hard worker; there is nothing to suggest Maye is anything but a model coworker. Rather, he lacks the maturity to put mistakes behind him so he does not repeat them in the same game. He will beat himself up, get down, and then make the same mistake a quarter later. Say what you want about Rhamondre Stevenson—the man can be a fumbling machine—but in the Pittsburgh game, he got benched after losing the ball, came back, and ran with power.

The numbers from Next Gen Stats indicated that Maye was pressured on 48.1% of his dropbacks against Pittsburgh. But I watched that game. While the protection could certainly be better, the stat does not reveal that those pressures are also partly Maye’s fault. He is backing into pressure, bailing from clean pockets, and failing to step up. His new habit of fadeaway, off-balanced throws is also maddening. We can blame the offensive line, the receivers, and the coordinators all we want, but the bottom line is that even if they aren’t perfect, they aren’t a hindrance to the degree that lets Maye off the hook.

The Patriots are 1-1 heading into a battle against Jacksonville when they should be 2-0. The concern is that Jacksonville, while flawed, knows who they are, and their quarterback isn’t as mistake prone as ours. A well-balanced, defensive-oriented game should notch a win for Jacksonville. The good news is that the Jaguars’ defense tends to blitz at a high rate (36.7% through two weeks), and Maye’s primary issue is that he struggles when teams rush four or fewer defenders. Three of his four interceptions came against that exact scheme. If Jacksonville decides to blitz, perhaps it will actually limit Maye’s mistakes.

This offseason, you could have made the case that the Patriots were quietly mismanaging their wide receiver group. While keeping Stefon Diggs on his original three-year, $69 million deal right as the cap hike was about to happen would have been malpractice. His age and history of knee problems was enough to scare teams away. But there was a possibility they could have cut him and taken their chances that he would return on a deal similar to the one he signed with the Washington Commanders.
I get the rationale and respect the idea that cutting a player just to re-sign him to a smaller deal is rare. I don’t blame management for cutting Diggs; I would have done the same thing. The mistakes I believe they made are ones I likely would have made too: letting Diggs walk and signing Romeo Doubs. It all felt like a pragmatic upgrade designed to take advantage of having an elite quarterback on a rookie contract.

It is too early to properly evaluate the A.J. Brown trade. While I previously pointed to scenarios where it could be very profitable for New England, his age and asking price made me hope the deal wouldn’t happen. Not to mention, it created a glut at the wide receiver position that painted New England into a corner. Suddenly, Maye’s deep threat, Kayshon Boutte, was shipped off for a solid backup safety, Jaylen Reed, who will get playing time due to injuries in the secondary. However, I felt it was understated just how much the continuity Maye built with his players last season mattered.

Last year, the Patriots spent the offseason building a rapport in training camp, scrimmages, and preseason games. This preseason, the starters on offense did not play at all. Back in the Brady-Belichick era, even though the offense would run a vanilla, bare-bones operation in August, it got everyone reacquainted with game speed and presented them with opportunities to solve problems on their own without wasting schemes needed for games that counted.
That preparation was severely lacking this preseason. Not only has it led to a standard September where games are treated like an extended exhibition, but it has also put New England squarely behind the 8-ball. Go watch Maye in November and December of last year, look at the poise he possessed, and compare that to him now. It is like all his development went out the window.

Much has been said about McDaniels “not having a feel for this team,” but it is hard to take that argument in good faith. For one, I think McDaniels possesses an intimate knowledge of what this team can and cannot do. Until Maye’s footwork stops looking like a baby deer, he will have to play a conservative style that grinds out wins. Every interception is simply validation that he has not yet earned the right to throw 50 times a game and play on the same tier as the elite quarterbacks we want him to emulate.

Vinny Jace is a special contributor to The15net.com. 

By Vinny Jace, Special to the15net dot com:

New England has a history of dynamic tight ends who, in the barest sense, acted as security blankets for their quarterbacks. Of course, that is a criminally minimalist way to explain the contributions of Rob Gronkowski, Ben Coates, and Russ Francis. They could block, catch, run, and open up the game. They’re either enshrined in Canton, waiting for their gold jacket, or at worst qualified to be inducted into the Hall of Very Good (Coates).

Hunter Henry, now entering his age-32 season with the Patriots, likely won’t receive a gold jacket or be widely remembered. The fandom of this current Patriots team is centered on Drake Maye—and understandably so. Eventually someone who catches his spirals will become a Twitter darling to the hyper-online community. But that won’t be Henry. Something about how he plays, looks, and conducts himself doesn’t register. Yet on the field he’s been the team’s most dependable player in an era plagued by instability.

Since Bill Belichick signed Henry in the rare Robert Kraft green-lit splurge of 2021, his quarterbacks have been plentiful and mostly bad: Mac Jones, Bailey Zappe, Jacoby Brissett, and then finally Maye. Despite that, his raw numbers never dipped, and he has compiled an impressive résumé over his five seasons in Foxborough.

In five years, Henry ranks among franchise tight ends third in receptions (259), fourth in yards (2,973), fourth in touchdowns (26), first in catch percentage (68.3%), and fourth in total games (81).

While Gronkowski excelled in the vertical game, Coates specialized in brute force across the middle, and Francis was a trailblazer in utilizing raw, imposing speed, Henry has exercised spatial awareness and acts as a high-IQ chain mover.
He cannot duplicate the blocking ability of Gronkowski, though he does excel as a positional blocker, accumulating an above-average block win rate of 75.8%. Everything Henry does is in the shadows and easily forgotten.

On third downs he is primarily the safety blanket his quarterback will look to if things break down. Over his career, an elite 84.4% of his third-down receptions have resulted in a first down. In third-and-medium settings, Henry can use his football IQ to find and exploit soft spots in zone coverage.

He can use his body to shield off trailing defenders, giving Maye an open, low-risk window to throw into. Even when defenders lock down in man coverage on third down, Henry’s strong hands stand out. He ranked fourth among all tight ends with 13 contested catches last season.

In the red zone, Henry can find his way through traffic, boasting an impressive 63% catch rate inside the 20-yard line. Twenty-four of his touchdowns in a Patriots uniform have come from inside the red zone. What he does is actually similar to what A.J. Brown does, only from the inside rather than the outside.

Just recently he signed a two-year extension and will be expected to shoulder the brunt of the load at his position, as he has throughout his entire tenure. Co-stars at the position have come and gone: Jonnu Smith, Mike Gesicki, Austin Hooper, and now rookie Eli Raridon is expected to suit up next to him as the second tight end.

Henry represents dependability and leadership both on and off the field even as the team around him burned.

It’s all about Drake Maye in Foxborough. As it should be. And Brown eats up what little oxygen is left. Henry exists on the fringes, but when you look at what he’s meant to this franchise that’s been in flux, you can’t put a price on that level of peace of mind.

Vinny Jace is a special contributor to The15net.com.