The New England Patriots are pretty thin at wide receiver, so the bar already was set low entering Sunday’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
But New England’s wideouts still fell short of that bar at TIAA Bank Field.
Only three Patriots receivers caught a pass from Tom Brady in the team’s 31-20 loss: Phillip Dorsett (5 catches for 44 yards), Chris Hogan (3 catches for 42 yards and two touchdowns) and Cordarrelle Patterson (3 catches for 18 yards). Almost all of those receptions were short catch-and-runs; Brady didn’t connect on a pass over 30 yards and threw a team-high seven completions to running back James White out of the backfield.
According to Brady, those stats all were part of the Jaguars’ plan.
“The backs were going to have a lot of catches just based on how their linebackers were playing,” Brady said Monday morning on WEEI’s “Kirk & Callahan” radio show. “They were getting a lot of depth. They were trying to take away the deeper part of the field, and we didn’t have any opportunities for big plays.”
The Patriots took a few shots downfield, but for the most part, Jacksonville’s ferocious pass rush combined with their speedy, athletic linebackers and secondary relegated Brady to checkdown mode: His 6.69 yards per pass attempt (234 passing yards on 35 attempts) was his third-lowest mark in his last 18 regular-season games.
“I missed Phillip on a go route; he ran a good route,” Brady said. “But it was just one of those days were the ball wasn’t going to the perimeter as much as it probably could have been.”
The Jags also virtually eliminated Rob Gronkowski, holding the All-Pro tight end to just two catches for 15 yards. That was part of the gameplan, too.
“I thought they did one or two things a little different,” Brady said. “He was double-covered most of the day on third down, which gives other people opportunities, but we could never really get into a rhythm at the (receiver) position.”
Of course, it’s hard to develop that rhythm with a thin group of wideouts missing Brady’s favorite target, Julian Edelman. But Brady wasn’t in the mood for excuses after New England’s first loss of the season.
“We just didn’t perform to our level of expectation in any way,” he added. ” … There’s no area of the game where we performed the way we needed to be. They beat us basically in every area, first down, third down, red area. It just was not a very good day for us.”
