7 takeaways as the Patriots extend their winning streak against the Saints – 98.5 The Sports Hub

With their 25-19 win over the New Orleans Saints on Sunday afternoon the Patriots also reached four wins, tying their total from the previous two years. They’re multiple games over .500 for the first time since finishing the 2021 season 10-8. It was another step forward and another sign of progress as they look to build the organization back up behind Mike Vrabel.

While the Patriots ultimately avoided what was billed throughout the week as a ‘trap game,’ it wasn’t easy at times – for a number of reasons. We’ll get into all of them as we go through this week’s takeaways…

Another week, another standout performance from Drake Maye. Overall, he finished the game 18-for-26 for 261 yards and thee touchdowns. He was also once again the Patriots’ leading rusher, carrying the ball nine times for 28 yards (really six times for 32 yards without the end-of-game kneel downs).

What Maye is doing though goes beyond the numbers. It seems like each week we’re seeing an element of his game improve in real time. Last week, it was his throws on the run that really stood out. This week Maye was still moving, but moving within the pocket to buy time and hit receivers. His ability to navigate the pocket looked significantly improved from last year, and even earlier this season.

Then, of course, there were the tight-window downfield throws (even the ones called back by penalties, which we’ll get to in a bit). In particular, Maye and Kayshon Boutte seem to have a real chemistry in contested-catch situations. Maye also showed good poise bouncing back when an apparent touchdown was called back on a late flag, to continue the drive and deliver a strike to Boutte for a touchdown a few plays later.

Just about an hour west of the Superdome in Baton Rouge, the LSU Tigers football team had a successful Homecoming game on Saturday night. No. 10 LSU beat South Carolina 20-10. The next day, a few former Tigers had a successful homecoming of their own.

Boutte – who grew up in New Iberia, Louisiana – had a big week after a few quiet games. He caught five passes for 93 yards and two touchdowns. That made him the 22nd former LSU Tiger to score an NFL touchdown in the Superdome. Boutte had a couple of major contested-catches – one in the first quarter for a touchdown, and another late in the game to set up the final first down the Patriots needed to kill the clock.

Moving the chains has become a habit for Boutte. Not only did all five of his catches in this game go for first downs, but his last 10 receptions – going back to the Steelers game – have all moved the sticks. In total 16 of his 18 catches this year have gone for first downs, with one of the non-first downs being a 14-yard gain on 2nd & 15 (the Patriots got the first down on the next play).

It was also a home state return for Monroe, Louisiana’s Will Campbell. The Patriots’ first-round pick out of LSU turned in another strong performance. PFF’s initial charting had him with just two pressured allowed, and in a game where refs were throwing flags left and right he had his first penalty-free game of the year.

On defense there’s K’Lavon Chaisson, who isn’t from Louisiana but did attend LSU like Boutte and Campbell. Chaisson led the Patriots with five pressures in this game per PFF’s initial charting.

This is the second week in a row the Patriots have had a major ‘homecoming’ story pay off, after Sefon Diggs’ big performance going back to Buffalo last week. They’ll go for the trifecta on this road trip next week, with Vrabel’s return to Tennessee.

One non-LSU player that stood out was wide receiver Pop Douglas. The past few weeks Douglas has gotten credit for what he’s done as a blocker, but had yet to have a standout receiving game this season.

That changed on Sunday. Douglas caught an early deep ball from Maye, making a defender miss to turn it into a touchdown. He did the same later on, but that play was called back on a phantom offensive pass interference call on Diggs.

In the end, Douglas finished with three catches for 71 yards and the score. It was a good reminder of the dynamic he brings when his game is on. It looked like he and Maye might not be on the same page earlier this year, but this game was an encouraging sign for that connection.

A major talking point around the Patriots this week was the run game. While the Patriots’ run game hadn’t been losing the team yards, it was lacking explosive plays and consisted of mostly three or four yard gains.

On Sunday, that unit took a step back. The Patriots had nine runs go for no yards or negative yards (excluding the kneel downs at the end of the game). They didn’t have a traditional run play go for more than seven yards, and had just one run longer than five yards in the entire second half. Rhamondre Stevenson had 13 carries for 18 yards and TreVeyon Henderson had nine carries for 27 yards, with traditional runs combined averaging just 2.04 yards per carry on the day.

That inability to run the ball handcuffed the Patriots, especially late in the game. The Saints were able to stop the run without sending much added help, forcing the Patriots to be one-dimensional into a defense that often knew what was coming. It was on Maye’s shoulders to close out the game – he did with his final throw to Boutte – but against tougher opponents the Patriots will need to be able to run the ball in those situations. For now though, the run game remains a work in progress.

The Patriots are running a different defense schematically than they used to for the last two decades, but one of the philosophies from that era seemingly made a return on Sunday. This was a defensive performance that would have fit right in with the ‘bend-don’t-break’ era.

While it was a frustrating effort to watch at times, it seems like the Patriots’ defense funneled the Saints into doing what they wanted them to do. Receivers were often open underneath and had room to run after the catch, which allowed New Orleans to move the football. That looked to be by design though with the Patriots often playing off, cushion coverage – perhaps trying to avoid being burned by the Saints’ speed after Chris Olave‘s opening-play 53-yard catch.

At the end of the day though, all of that movement didn’t result in much. The Saints scored just one touchdown the entire game, despite all but their final two drives reaching the Patriots’ half of the field. They settled for four field goals, while the Patriots’ defense forced a key turnover late with Christian Elliss forcing tight end Juwan Johnson to fumble around midfield with just under nine minutes to go.

That was a theme of the game. While it wasn’t always pretty, the defense got stops when it needed to get stops. The Saints were 3-of-9 on third down, and finished with under 300 yards of total offense. They averaged 5.8 yards per play while the Patriots, sans run game, managed 6.1 yards per play before the final kneel downs.

One of the players often coming up with those plays for the Patriots in big moments was cornerback Marcus Jones. Jones had three pass breakups, and also notched his first career sack on a 3rd down corner blitz in the fourth quarter.

Jones is now the fifth player in Patriots history to have at least three pass breakups and a sack in a single game, per Pro Football Reference. He joins…

Richard Seymour: 2003 Week 12, 4 PBUs, 1 sack
Tedy Bruschi: 2003 Week 2, 4 PBUs, 1 sack
Willie McGinest: 2002 Week 2, 3 PBUs, 1 sack
Otis Smith: 2001 Week 17, 5 PBUs, 1 sack

In reality, one of Jones’ pass breakups probably should have been a forced fumble on Olave, but the Patriots elected not to challenge the call on a 3rd and long. It was the second time in two weeks Jones has shown tremendous hops to meet a taller receiver at the catch point.

Alright, let’s talk about it.

Did the referees ultimately impact the outcome of this game? No. Did they come close? Perhaps.

Did they impact this game as an entertainment product? Absolutely.

In my eyes, NFL referees have three main jobs, ranked in order of importance…

1. Be consistent with the calls (ideally letting the players play, but being consistently strict is better than inconsistent calls)
2. Keep the game moving
3. Let the players be the story/don’t become the story

Adrian Hill’s crew went 0-for-3.

Penalty calls were inconsistent, unclear, at at times not even apparent. When flags were thrown or other instances where the officials had to step in procedurally, it often led to long, drawn-out conversations that halted the action. And some calls, such as the phantom OPI on Diggs that took away the Douglas touchdown or the roughing call on Saints cornerback Alontae Taylor that happened on Boutte’s second touchdown, seemed to come out of nowhere with very late flags.

Non-calls were suspect too, like the non-DPI on a late deep ball to Mack Hollins. That also came after a different questionable OPI call on Diggs, which again showed this crew lacking consistency.

It’s not just the Patriots, and not just one game where refs have had issues with these things in the NFL this year, but this game was especially bad. In the end the referee crew comes away as a major story from what was otherwise a good and entertaining football game, which is always unfortunate.