Patriots 4 Down Review: Week 2 at New Orleans
The New England Patriots returned to their winning ways on Sunday when they beat the New Orleans Saints 36-20 in New Orleans.
Despite a handful of moments during the game what New Orleans were hot, the New England Patriots dominated from the get-go. New England had everything clicking on offense while the defense struggled at time but stood tall against Drew Brees and his offense.
1st Down: Will New England play a full game?
1st Half:
The New England Patriots offense came out firing on all cylinders in the first half. Tom Brady led the offense on three scoring drives all in the first quarter. Right off the bat Brady included James White, Rob Gronkowski, Rex Burkhead and Chris Hogan in on the offense. Burkhead, Gronkowski and Hogan all were on the receiving ends of Tom Brady’s three touchdown passes in the first quarter. The second half was more of the same aside from one series. New Orleans put a lot of pressure on Brady and the Patriots were forced to punt.
The defense for New England had its fair share of struggles in the first half. There were times that the defense applied decent pressure on Drew Brees but it was still inconsistent. Deatrich Wise, Jr and Trey Flowers led the pressure for the New England Patriots. This pressure led to two consecutive three and outs. The deep ball was a problem for New England throughout the first half. The defense gave up a red zone touchdown and the secondary continued to struggle. However, the run defense for the New England Patriots was decent as well. Kyle Van Noy made some good plays.
2nd Half:
The second half for the offense was not the same as the first half. It almost seemed that the Patriots were using the strong first half to ease up on the second half. They knew the game was in their hands so they went into clock management mode. They ran the ball quite a bit with Mike Gillislee, Dion Lewis and James White. Philip Dorsett got into the fray with some crucial catches that kept momentum in their favor.
New Orleans’ offense could not capitalize on a hot and cold New England Patriots defense. The secondary continued to struggle with the deep pass. There was little to no pressure on Drew Brees and the run defense was not as strong as it was in the first half. However, when New Orleans was searching for points, the defense shut it down. They seemed to be in a bend but don’t break attitude.
2nd Down: Offense should get back into rhythm
As previously stated the offense came out on fire yesterday in the first half. They were scoring every chance they could get. The New England Patriots scored 30 points in the first half. This is more than what they scored the entire game against Kansas City. The offense racked up 555 yards of total offense and 436 of those yards were through the air. 119 of those yards were on the ground. Last week they only managed to get 371 yards total and Brady only threw for 247. As a team, they ran for 124 yards. Brady was also able to distribute the ball to Gronkowski, Hogan, White, Dorsett, Burkhead and Brandin Cooks. Last week the offense was struggling to find a consistent rhythm.
3rd Down: Who will step up in place of Hightower?
The New England Patriots defense is definitely a question mark after the first two weeks of the season. There is no consistent pressure on the quarterback. Alex Smith and Drew Brees had plenty of time to throw the football. Even though Brees had a tougher time with the decent New England pressure. The secondary is struggling a lot with the deep pass.
There seems to be no one on the defensive side of the ball that wants to step up in place of Hightower. Trey Flowers and Deatrich Wise, Jr did make quite a few plays yesterday including a sack for Wise Jr. Kyle Van Noy made some plays and Jonathan Jones made some gave saving pass deflections.
4th Down: Final thoughts:
The New England Patriots needed this game after being blown out by Kansas City. The offense got back on track and the defense improved slightly from last week. Improvement is all that is asked of this team and they will continue to improve, especially under Bill Belichick.
Up Next:
New England heads back home to face the Houston Texans in a rematch of the Divisional Round of the 2017 Playoffs. The game will be at 1pm on CBS from Gillette Stadium.
