What we learned in Pats-Bears: Defensive wrinkle among coaching staff’s wins

What we learned in Pats-Bears: Defensive wrinkle among coaching staff’s wins originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

CHICAGO — Drake Maye didn’t like what he’d seen from the Patriots in their Wednesday practice. The offense was lacking in its attention to detail. There were mental errors. A snap was mishandled. An assignment was missed in pass-protection.

Soon thereafter Maye sought out Alex Van Pelt to ask if he could address the unit, and his offensive coordinator gave him the green light. Not all that far removed from his 22nd birthday. Just four games into his tenure as starting quarterback.

Four days after his speech, Maye helped lead the Patriots to a 19-3 victory in Chicago.

Maye’s leadership — and how his teammates responded to the rookie QB asserting himself — was a major development for the rebuilding Patriots.

Let’s get to what else we learned from the Patriots in Chicago on Sunday…

Monsters of the Midway

Think the Patriots felt as though they liked their plan on the defensive side of the ball?

They spammed Caleb Williams and the Bears with man-to-man coverage calls and stifled Shane Waldron’s passing game from the very start. The No. 1 overall pick ended up finishing the game with just 120 yards passing, 4.0 yards per attempt, and what looked like two frustrated veteran receivers in DJ Moore and Keenan Allen.

The Patriots’ coverage on the back end also helped their linebackers and defensive linemen feast near the line of scrimmage. They racked up a whopping nine sacks from seven different players, including two each from Deatrich Wise and Anfernee Jennings. Williams couldn’t deal with immediate pressure at times, and at others held onto the football and absorbed 13 hits total in the game.

Against the run, the Patriots stood tall, holding Chicago to just 3.7 yards per carry and 73 yards total, breaking a seven-game streak of allowing opponents to run for at least 100 yards.

The Bears were without three starters on the offensive line after losing left guard Teven Jenkins mid-game, but the Patriots took advantage of the situation in ways they haven’t for much of the season leading up to their Week 10 near-shutout.

“We wanted to stop them from running the ball and make them one dimensional, and [the defensive line] did a great job,” Deatrich Wise said.

“Once we stopped them, guys like Anfernee Jennings — first two-sack game, which is phenomenal, he’s been balling all year — Keion White, hitting the edge and doing his thing, (Jeremiah) Pharms had a great game. It’s really a testament to us playing together.”

Coaching wins within the win

The Patriots’ performance on the defensive side helped highlight what was a strong day for Mayo, defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington and the rest of the coaching staff.

Perhaps no gameplan wrinkle stood out more than what Mayo termed their “Longhorn package,” with special teams ace Brenden Schooler getting work defensively on third downs. Functioning as a spy — at times aligned at the line of scrimmage but also deploying from different depths — Schooler played just five snaps but came up with a quarterback hit and his first-ever sack, going all the way back to his days in Pop Warner.

“It started early on in the week,” said Schooler, who played at Texas. “They told me this is what we were going to be doing… Every single time third down was up, I was looking over at [Covington] to see if he was going to throw the Longhorn signal up. Super excited to get in there and help the team in any way we could today.”

Other coaching wins?

The Patriots’ decision to stick with their running game qualifies after a meager performance on early downs the previous week in Tennessee, where they gained one yard or fewer on over half of their first downs. On Sunday, they ran for 3.9 yards per carry with their backs — far from dominant, but well enough for the Bears to have to respect that element of their attack. They ended up averaging 5.1 yards per play on first down and, on average, needing to pick up just four yards to convert on their 14 third-down opportunities.

That ability to stay on schedule when it came to down and distance also allowed Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt to be more flexible in his play-calls. With the run a legitimate option, play-action passes were more impactful. Maye ended up completing four of his six play-action attempts for 71 yards, a touchdown and a pick, giving him a rating of 106.9 on those throws.

The Patriots staff also should get credit for how the end of the first half was managed.

After a short touchdown pass from Maye to Polk with 1:46 remaining in the second quarter, the Patriots forced a punt after five Bears plays that ran just over a minute off the clock. With two timeouts left, Maye completed two passes for 32 yards — including a 23-yard dart to Kayshon Boutte with time winding down — and was able to spike the football to stop the clock with just one second left to allow Joey Slye a shot at a 37-yard field goal.

“We practice two-minute every week,” Douglas said. “How we work on it, it actually happened. This was the same situation we practiced last week. Almost halftime, gotta get a field goal. That’s crazy. Now that I think about it, we just practiced it and it came up in the game. That’s why I say we brought the practice field to the game field. Same deal. That’s crazy.”

Lastly, because the team they played Sunday appeared to be in a state of disarray, the buy-in the Patriots continued to exhibit was evident.

The Bears had the more talented roster and were still fighting for their playoff lives. They hadn’t lost at home in over a year. But it was the Patriots, grinding out yards offensively and flying around defensively, who looked like the more motivated group.

For a staff that has been learning on the job in many respects, looking for answers to squeeze what it can out of its roster on a week-to-week basis, they can safely say they out-coached their opponents in this one.

Drake Maye bounces back

When Maye threw his lone touchdown of the game, he made his way back to the sideline and heard from Mayo, “Way to bounce back!”

Two series prior, Maye threw a mind-numbing interception when trying to send a pass out of bounds in the direction of tight end Austin Hooper. Instead, he feathered it in bounds and was picked easily by TJ Edwards.

Quickly turning the page, Maye answered by going 5-for-5 for 54 yards on the only touchdown drive for either team in the game. And soon thereafter he made one of his best throws of the day, hitting Boutte over the middle with a fastball to set up a half-ending field goal to go up, 13-3.

Asked after the game how he’s able to put bad plays behind him in short order, Maye reflected on his upbringing.

“I think just being a competitor and having confidence in myself,” he said. “I know that’s not my style of football, turning over the football like that. Just growing up and playing different sports and having older brothers and being able to bounce back and getting dunked on on a mini-hoop and having to come out here and bounce back from older brothers.

“Whether it’s that or just facing adversity throughout the season. I think more and more, at times, not everything is going to go right. Not everything is going to go perfect. I think you saw that from the offense today. Being able to bounce back and do what we needed to do with a defensive performance like that.”