Four months into the season, and the Patriots are nonetheless having spacing points with receivers on offense.
Against the Bengals Saturday night time, on the very first third down conversion try within the first quarter, Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith each ran crossing routes, and slammed into one another leaving Henry injured.
Also on that play, which was a Third-and-4 state of affairs, there was nobody remotely within the neighborhood of the primary down marker. Four of the 5 receivers used on the play, which included working again Rhamondre Stevenson, ran routes that took them greater than 10 yards down area.
Quarterback Mac Jones wound up taking a sack, which killed the primary drive.
So between play design and continued spacing issues, was there any concern with the coaches about these points nonetheless taking place so late within the season?
Wide receivers coach Troy Brown, who was obtainable throughout a video convention Tuesday, addressed spacing.
“Sometimes the details may be a little off, but I wouldn’t say it’s something that’s been a major problem for us,” Brown mentioned. “Sometimes the details may be a little bit off, but that happens. I watch film all the time. It happens to just about every team around the league from time to time. So obviously, you want to go out there and be perfect. Detail mistakes aren’t acceptable. We do everything we can to get them corrected.”
On the second drive, dealing with one other third down, there additionally appeared to be a miscommunication between Jones and the receivers, main to a different punt.
Play caller Matt Patricia was requested why such issues are taking place so late within the season, and who wasn’t getting it?
Patricia, who barely had a voice due to a case of laryngitis, tried to elucidate.
“We went into that play, we had a play that we practiced, and thought we had a couple of good options on it,” mentioned Patricia, concerning the primary failed third down. “I feel we noticed the play just a little in another way on the sphere. We simply have to scrub that up from that standpoint.
“Certainly, those plays came up later in the game, and we executed them well. We obviously didn’t do a very good job on third down in the first half, trying to get a feel for some of the different looks they had. But we came out in the second half, and I think we went 6-for-6, somewhere around that. So we got a lot of that cleaned up at halftime . . . but not the way you want to start, certainly from that aspect of it.”
How about play design and execution nonetheless being a difficulty 15 weeks in?
“It’s definitely something you don’t want to have happen during the game,” mentioned Patricia. “You gotta get it fixed.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com