Another win, but some cracks have emerged

“I’ve got to play better for this team down the road,” quarterback Drake Maye said. “It’s tough in a game where you win, and you can feel in that locker room that guys know we can play better.”

Inside the final minute of the second quarter, the Patriots led, 21-7, held the ball at midfield, and were set to get it again after halftime. Midway through the third quarter, they were practically doubling up the Falcons in yards, first downs, time of possession, and points.

This should have been a blowout, but a team that could do no wrong the last month suddenly couldn’t do anything right.

“We took a little nap,” as Patriots coach Mike Vrabel put it.

Maye fumbled on two straight snaps, one of which gifted the Falcons a touchdown before halftime. He took a sack inside the red zone to ruin one drive, and threw an interception on a miscommunication with Hunter Henry.

The Patriots punted twice in the fourth quarter when they needed points. If not for Falcons kicker Parker Romo missing an extra point with 4:40 left, and Michael Penix taking an intentional grounding penalty late, they could easily have lost.

They finally finished off the win with Henry’s third-down catch inside the final two minutes. They deserve credit for doing so when they were minus-2 in the turnover battle and clearly not at their best, but for the first time since Week 3 against Pittsburgh, a few cracks in the veneer showed.

A better opponent — like, say, the Buccaneers, whom they visit next week — would have made the Patriots pay.

“We’re going to learn from winning so that we don’t have to learn from losing,” Vrabel said. “You can make mistakes, and you have to be able to come back and finish the game. Give [the Falcons] credit, but also give our guys credit for battling back when we had to.”

⋅ The Football Gods have a sense of humor. All training camp long, Romo matched or outperformed rookie kicker Andres Borregales, but the Patriots kept Borregales anyway.

Naturally, Romo missed an extra point wide left to cost his team the game. (Borregales hasn’t missed a kick since Week 2.)

⋅ A Jekyll and Hyde day for Maye, who still compiled nice numbers and made several big throws, but was sloppy with the football. He finished 19 of 29 for 259 yards, two touchdowns, and a pick, moving the ball efficiently despite Kayshon Boutte missing most of the game with a hamstring injury and Stefon Diggs getting blanketed. (Diggs had just three catches for 38 yards.)

Maye had 172 yards at halftime against a defense that came in allowing 149 passing yards per game, the fewest in the league. Maye had a great 21-yard throw to Diggs on a third-and-12, hit DeMario Douglas for 58 yards on a deep crosser on a third and 7, and had three big completions on third down to Henry, the last of which sealed the win. (The Patriots were an impressive 8 of 12 on third down.)

But Maye needs to be more careful and better at escaping the rush. He coughed the ball up late in the first half by not keeping two hands on it, then fumbled again on the first play of the second half.

“Free rusher, first thing I got to do, got to grip the ball to the chest,” Maye said. “Got into a bad habit of trying to break tackles against these guys.”

Maye also took six sacks, giving him a whopping 34 through nine games. He’s going to have a tough time staying healthy taking all those hits.

⋅ A great example of Josh McDaniels’s effect on Maye and the offense came on the opening touchdown of the game, a 17-yard pass to Douglas.

Fullback Jack Westover was lined up out wide, running back TreVeyon Henderson was in the slot, and Douglas was in the backfield. This gave Maye all the info he needed on the defense. He called a check at the line of scrimmage, then floated a perfect pass to Douglas on a wheel route.

The Patriots also did a solid job replacing Rhamondre Stevenson and moving the ball with their secondary pieces. Douglas had his first career 100-yard game and has developed into a sneaky good deep threat, with catches of 53, 44, and 58 yards this year. Henderson was solid enough running the ball between the tackles, rushing 14 times for 55 yards, and Terrell Jennings added 35 yards and his first career touchdown on the ground.

⋅ The defense came to play in the first three quarters, but kind of fell apart in the fourth, allowing an 85-yard touchdown drive plus a field goal. The Patriots held the Falcons to just 1 for 10 on third down and 288 yards total, but the pass rush was nonexistent all game — one sack in 40 drop-backs — and Penix threw for 96 yards and one of his three touchdowns in the fourth.

Drake London had all three of those touchdown catches among nine receptions for 118 yards. He caught two jump balls over 5-foot-8-inch cornerback Marcus Jones and one over Carlton Davis. Add in a head injury for Christian Gonzalez that forced him out of the game late, and it was a tough ending for the secondary.

⋅ The Falcons talked all week about wanting to establish the run and get Bijan Robinson the ball, but abandoned that plan quickly against the Patriots’ No. 2-ranked run defense. The Falcons called a pass on 13 of 16 plays to open the game, and overall ran for just 71 yards on 16 carries.

The Patriots still haven’t allowed an opposing running back to crack 50 rushing yards this year, with Robinson going for 46 on Sunday.

Click here to read article