New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels accepted responsibility for his team’s failure to complete what would have been a game-tying touchdown drive in the final minutes of Sunday’s 17-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“Whenever we don’t finish the drive, it’s never good,” McDaniels said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. “You could put that right on me. Obviously, I didn’t do well enough at the very completion of the drive.”
After Pittsburgh kicked a field goal to extend its lead to seven with 2:34 remaining, New England, which had exhausted its timeouts, drove 64 yards in six plays to the Steelers’ 11-yard line, thanks in large to a 34-yard completion to Julian Edelman.
A holding penalty on right guard Shaq Mason on second-and-5 bumped the Patriots back to the 21, however, and McDaniels’ play-calling on the next three plays has faced scrutiny in the days since. The Patriots sent four receivers on vertical routes on each of their final three snaps, with quarterback Tom Brady throwing incomplete into the end zone on all three.
“I thought we were doing really well moving the ball,” McDaniels said. “We got it into the scoring zone quick enough that we didn’t have to do anything dramatic. I think we made it to the 10- or 11-yard line. Whenever you have any negative situations, it kind of resets the whole scenario, and we had a penalty there and put us in a situation that’s a little bit longer yardage, obviously, in that scenario.
“I have to do a better job than we did at the end of that drive to get that thing in the end zone and to give our team a chance to win the game. Hopefully, I’ll learn from that one as best I can and try to apply it here going forward next week.”
McDaniels also explained why Josh Gordon, the Patriots’ best outside receiver, was not on the field for the team’s final offensive play. Cordarrelle Patterson replaced him on fourth-and-15.
Gordon had played all but four offensive snaps up to that point, and Patterson had been on the field for just four, though he’d caught passes on three of those. McDaniels said he opted to use the fresher player, despite the fact Pittsburgh had called a timeout before the play
“We had just run quite a few plays in a row,” McDaniels said. “I know there was a timeout before that. Both of those guys have worked at that spot and in that type of situation based on what we were doing. We just made the choice to go with CP at that point. No ulterior motive on that at all. Just put a fresh guy in to go ahead and do something on the last play to see if we could get into the end zone. It is what it is.”
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick also discussed the final series Tuesday, defending Brady’s decision to throw into the end zone rather than check down to running back James White on second and third down.
“You can second-guess it all you want,” Belichick said, “but that’s the person that we have doing that, and we have great confidence in him doing it.”
