The New England Patriots improved to 2-3 on the season with a strong all-around performance on Sunday, shutting down the Detroit Lions 29-0. With that said, here are seven Patriots Week 5 takeaways from the brilliant win.

7. Bailey Zappe fever is upon us

The Patriots' rookie quarterback held his own in his first career NFL start.

Zappe completed 17 of 21 passes for 188 yards with a touchdown and an interception. While the Patriots didn't ask Zappe to do much, he made a handful of impressive plays.

One of his first came in the first half when he broke away from a pressure by Aidan Hutchinson, shifting out of the way to not only avoid the sack but also run for a five-yard gain.

As the first half went along, Zappe remained poised to help the Patriots move the ball down the field, leading New England to three scoring drives on its four first-half possessions. Possibly his best moment of the game came during New England's two-minute drill, in which he completed three passes for 38 yards and gained 22 more yards via defensive pass interference, helping New England kick a field goal before halftime.

Zappe led New England to another field goal drive in the first drive of the second half, which was nice but it was another drive that fell short of the end zone. He finally broke through midway into the third quarter when he threw a tight 24-yard touchdown pass to Jakobi Meyers along the sideline to give the Patriots a 26-0 lead.

Zappe's touchdown pass capped off his beginning stretch in which he completed 16-of-19 passes for just under 200 yards. His lone interception came when Nelson Agholor dropped a pass over the middle from Zappe that bounced into Lions defensive back DeShon Elliot's arms for the interception.

By the time the Patriots were kneeling the ball, Zappe was ushered with “Zappe! Zappe! Zappe!” chants by the New England crowd. While a quarterback controversy likely isn't in our hands, the Patriots at least have something interesting going on at quarterback.

6. Patriots defense steps up in the clutch

Obviously, the Patriots' defense must have had a good day if it didn't give up any points. But two stats tell the story of the day.

The Lions made it over midfield six times and didn't score once, showing that the Patriots were able to have some resistance a week after the Green Bay Packers scored 27 points on them. They also didn't allow a single first-down conversion on the Lions' six fourth-down attempts, an NFL record.

The Patriots' interior defensive line was responsible for a pair of those stops, helping shut down the middle gaps on Lions' rushes. The pass-rush was responsible for the biggest one of them all. Toward the end of the second quarter, Matthew Judon hit Jared Goff right as he was about to throw it. The hit caused a fumble, which safety Kyle Dugger scooped up and scored for a 59-yard touchdown to put the Patriots up, 13-0.

5. Matthew Judon's sack galore

The Patriots' pass rusher has been nothing short of incredible through the first five games this season. After recording a sack in each of the first two games, Judon recorded two sacks on Sunday (including the strip sack).

But those two plays weren't the only times Goff had to deal with Judon. He recorded four quarterback hits along with a tackle for loss as he was able to constantly get into the backfield all day long.

Following his two-sack performance on Sunday, Judon became the first Patriots player to record six sacks in the first five games of the season.

4. Rhamondre Stevenson steps up

Starting running back Damien Harris went down with a hamstring injury early in Sunday's game, but it didn't matter for the Patriots.

Rhamondre Stevenson had his best game out of the backfield, rushing for a career-high 161 yards on 25 carries and added 14 receiving yards on two receptions. He had one of the early plays of the day for New England, breaking out for a 49-yard run as he shed roughly four tackles on the play to not only get the Patriots out from deep in their own territory, but also get them into field goal range.

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Stevenson also ran for an eight-yard gain right before Nick Folk's field goal, adding in a clutch play himself.

3. Welcome back Jakobi Meyers

It might not have shown much in the two weeks he was gone, but the Patriots missed their veteran receiver. Meyers was consistently a threat in short-yardage situations and was exactly the kind of receiver Zappe needed in his first NFL start.

Meyers picked up six first downs on receptions against the Lions, with a couple of coming in third-down situations. In the third quarter, he broke open loose along the right sideline in order for Zappe to throw him a tight ball for a 24-yard touchdown grab.

Meyers finished the day with seven receptions for 111 yards.

2. Patriots' linebackers, defensive line have their strongest performance yet

For much of the first four games of the season, New England's revamped linebacker room and defensive line got burned a bit too much. Against the Packers last week, they allowed 183 combined yards to Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon in the loss.

That changed on Sunday.

On the game's opening drive, Christian Barmore and Davon Godchaux converged to get a tackle for loss on a 4th-and-one for the Lions. Godchaux ended with a handful of tackles that resulted in just short carries for the Lions.

At linebacker, Raekwon McMillan had his best game yet of the season. He had three tackles on Sunday, including a tackle for loss that came on another 4th-and-short for the Lions. He also made a couple of strong plays in pass coverage. Mack Wilson broke through into the backfield to help prevent Detroit from moving the ball, too.

Those kinds of plays are the reason why Detroit had just 101 rushing yards on 27 carries Sunday. Not bad.

1. Jack Jones continues to show up

Another week, another interception for the rookie corner.

Detroit was moving the ball well into New England territory and appeared like it was going to score a touchdown on its second drive of the game. Goff searched out reliable tight end TJ Hockenson in front of the goal line to try to set the Lions up at the 2-yard line. But Jones read the pass well, jumping in front of Hockenson to get the interception while tip-toeing along the sideline to stay in bounds.

Josh Reynolds had a strong day for the Lions (six receptions for 92 yards) but their two biggest passing weapons, Hockenson and Amon-Ra St. Brown, did not. Hockenson only had one catch while St. Brown recorded four catches for only 18 yards.