Defense a cause for concern
Matthew Judon tried to resort to clichés and put a good face on the Patriots’ defensive performance in Sunday’s 25-22 win over the Texans. But even Judon knew the truth.
“We never got down on ourselves … I got a little down on us,” Judon acknowledged in an aboutface. “A little frustrated, and I think we all felt it. But we all just gelled together, came together as a team.”
The end result was a win, which is all that matters. And the defense did shore up in the second half, allowing no points and just two first downs over the final 28 minutes of the game.
But Bill Belichick definitely wasn’t thrilled with his defense. The Patriots were carved up in the first half by a Texans offense that entered the game 27th in points, and a rookie quarterback in Davis Mills who last week threw for just 87 yards and four interceptions in a 40-0 loss at Buffalo.
Mills threw for 312 yards and three touchdowns against a Patriots defense that had every key piece except for cornerback Jalen Mills, who missed the game with a hamstring injury. Belichick usually feasts on rookie quarterbacks, but Mills’s 141.7 passer rating was the eighth highest against Belichick in the coach’s 382 games with the Patriots.
The Texans scored 15 points on their first three drives, gaining at least 75 yards on all three. Two of the drives reached 20 plays thanks to penalties.
“I don’t think we played well in the first half, period,” Belichick said. “We’ve got to do a lot better than that — give up two 20-plus drives, another 80-yard touchdown. It’s not very good.”
The Patriots’ defense was supposed to be the team’s backbone, and it was coming off a mostly excellent performance in last weekend’s loss to the Buccaneers, holding Tom Brady & Co. to just one touchdown and 19 points.
But Sunday’s win was a perfect storm for a disappointing day. The Patriots faced a Texans opponent that knew them inside and out thanks to GM Nick Caserio and several other former Patriots on the Texans’ staff. And the Patriots had a tough time bringing enough energy following last Sunday’s emotional game.
“We didn’t come out with the right amount of energy, and they did,” said linebacker Jamie Collins, who had a key sack midway through the fourth quarter. “They took advantage of it, and it took us a while to put that fire out.”
The Texans seemed to have an answer for everything the Patriots did in the first half. They churned more than 10 minutes off the clock on the opening drive, and scored points on all three of their drives before halftime. The Texans went 5-for-9 on third down in the first half, and 3-for-3 on fourth down. Texans receiver Chris Moore, called up from the practice squad for the game, finished with a career-high 109 yards, including a 67yard touchdown, the longest allowed by the Patriots since 2018.
The only time the Texans were stopped in the first half was when Judon came up with two big sacks within three plays once the Texans got inside the 20.
“Just couldn’t do anything on third down,” Belichick said. “It was really third-down conversions that ended up being a big difference for us.”
The second half was a different story. The Texans hit the Patriots for a touchdown on a flea-flicker with 13:31 left in the third quarter, but that would be the end of their scoring. After halftime, the Patriots held the Texans to 1-for-5 on third down, while Mills threw for only 110 yards.
The Texans needed to pull out all of the stops with a shorthanded roster and a rookie quarterback, but the gimmicks stopped working after the flea-flicker. A cat-andmouse game with the Patriots’ punt team resulted in the Texans punting the ball off the back of their own player for 0 yards. Texans coach David Culley also apparently forgot that his team went 3for-3 on fourth down in the first half, and his decision to attempt a 56-yard field goal (which went wide right) instead of going for it on fourth-and-4 probably cost the Texans, as well.
“We always talk about starting fast, and we didn’t. We started very slow,” Collins said. “We were frustrated a little bit, but we kept fighting. And the end result, man, is the best thing. It worked out for the greater good.”
The Patriots didn’t seem to make many schematic changes, sticking with man-to-man coverage throughout the game. They just bet on the Texans not being able to execute so flawlessly for the entire 60 minutes.
“Maybe those guys got complacent over there,” Collins said. “They got too excited, maybe looking too far ahead, and we just took it one play at a time.”
The Patriots’ defense can’t afford to play this poorly next week against the Cowboys and Dak Prescott. Or in three weeks against Justin Herbert and the Chargers.
While Belichick may have been down on his defense’s performance, several players were just excited to get back in the win column.
“It was just freakin’ juiced up, man,” Judon said of the locker room. “And it felt good to get that win, especially when you felt like you were playing some good ball and felt like some things weren’t going your way.”
“Regardless of the score or the record, we’re a really good football team. We’re going to make that clear here in the upcoming weeks. But we’ve just got to continue to grind.”