Patriots
“I just thought that was going to be a strength of this team.”
A lot went wrong for Mike Vrabel and the Patriots in their season-opening loss to the Raiders on Sunday at Gillette Stadium.
After a promising first half, Drake Maye and the Patriots’ offense flatlined down the stretch — punting or turning the ball over on six of the team’s final seven drives of the afternoon.
New England’s defense did only allow 20 points, but Geno Smith and the Raiders still managed to generate plenty of explosive plays in Foxborough — with Las Vegas closing out the game with nine plays of 20-plus yards.
But for former Patriots center David Andrews, the most disheartening result from Sunday’s 20-13 loss revolved around New England’s poor showing in the run game.
“Watching the game from an O-line perspective, an offensive perspective, I wasn’t that disappointed in the pass blocking but more disappointed in the run game,” Andrews said on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Zolak & Bertrand on Monday. “I just thought that was going to be a strength of this team.”
The expectation entering the 2025 season was for New England to rely heavily on a ground-and-pound approach on offense — especially given the talent found on that area of the roster.
Rhamondre Stevenson and Antonio Gibson were already expected to play key roles this season, but New England seemingly had another top playmaker in place with 2025 second-round pick TreVeyon Henderson — who emerged as a breakout star during preseason play with his dynamic speed and versatile skillset.
But even with those weapons available in Josh McDaniels’ offense, New England opted to focus more on the pass game against the Raiders.
Drake Maye ultimately attempted 46 passes on Sunday, which marks as the third-highest passing attempts by a Patriots QB in the post-Brady era (since 2019).
Some of that emphasis on an aerial attack might have been a result of poor results with the ground game, as New England generated just 60 total rushing yards off of 18 attempts — amounting to just 3.3 yards per carry.
Both Stevenson and Henderson did not record a carry in the second half as New England’s offense sputtered.
The Patriots generated just 137 total offensive yards over the third and fourth quarters of play, with a hefty portion of that (54 yards) coming off of a garbage-time drive in the final minutes of play as the Raiders switched to a prevent defense.
For Andrews, those struggles with generating chunk yardage on the ground was a result of New England’s offensive line being unable to clear the way for Stevenson and Henderson.
“There’s old adage in offensive line play, ‘Take care of the down guys,’” Andrews said. “When you say that, you’re hoping you drive that D-lineman six yards down the field and dump him on a double team. Now, he’s in the linebacker’s lap. You might not have blocked the linebacker, but it’s still going to be a really good play.
“But when you’re not moving those guys, and maybe you’re ‘taking care of them,’ but you’re not getting the linebacker,” Andrews said, “that’s where you see the two-, three-yard runs.”
Speaking on Monday, Vrabel explained why New England opted to abandon the run game as Sunday’s game carried on.
“It just wasn’t one of our better plays,” Vrabel said. “Again, we just have to take advantage of the plays that we do call and hit it when we have guys open, and just being able to start the second half, being able to go down there and continue that drive, unfortunately not turn it over and be able to create some momentum in that situation.”
“The bottom line is we have to run the ball better and we have to run it more efficiently,” he added. “Because then I think that all opens up some more of the stuff that we’re doing, can do and want to be able to do so that it’s not just a drop-back passing game.”
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