Patriots offense hoping to go back to its ‘non-negotiables’ against 49ers
The Patriots offense is trying to bounce back after a disappointing outing in Week 3.
The New England Patriots may have gotten a bit greedy last Thursday night against the New York Jets.
Entering their Week 3 matchup as one of the better running offenses in the NFL, they tried to capitalize on their previous success and catch the Jets off guard. As a result, offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt called seven passes on the first nine offensive plays.
The plan backfired. The Patriots were forced to punt twice, and as a result ended up holding the ball just 4:34 in the first quarter. The next time they were back in possession, they found themselves trailing 14-0 — a deficit too big to overcome at this point in New England’s offensive development.
Heading into their upcoming Week 4 game against the San Francisco 49ers, the team therefore has a simple plan in mind: get back to the basics, something starting center David Andrews mentioned on this week’s episode of the Quick Snap podcast.
“One of those games where we got away from what we were having success at, for different reasons. That’s fine, it is what it is. But I just want to go back to playing how we play,” he said.
“We’ve seen — obviously Seattle, we talked about, there are no moral victories. But you’re in a place to win that game. We didn’t even give ourselves a shot Thursday night. So, going back to how we want to play, things like that. And that’s kind of what we touched on [Monday]: What are our non-negotiables as a team? We did not do those on Thursday night, and that will get you beat.”
Over the first two weeks of the season, the Patriots looked competitive on the offensive side of their ball. While their passing game left plenty to be desired, they moved the ball well on the ground and were therefore able to control the tempo of the game and keep their defense fresh.
That was not the case against the Jets, and the result was a 24-3 shellacking.
“Just thought it was a situation where we had run the ball well the last two weeks, and we tried to take advantage of some of those run plays with the run-actions and the play-action, the bootleg off of that,” explained Van Pelt.
“Really just trying to marry the run game with the run-actions. Didn’t got the way we wanted to, and then by the time you get back out there you’re down a couple of scores and kind of have to abandon the run, unfortunately, at that point. But definitely, in hindsight looking back, probably should have flipped that and run it more early to set it up later.”
The Patriots entering Sunday’s game against the 49ers with a similar plan in mind might be a recipe for disaster yet again. San Francisco, after all, also seems to be well-equipped to capitalize on any and all insufficiencies New England’s offense currently has to deal with.
Right at the top of the list at the moment is passing the football. And until the Patriots find a way to improve in that area, they cannot afford to move off those “non-negotiables.”
