FOXBOROUGH — Mac Jones showed his frustration on the sideline during the New England Patriots' 24-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills. He wasn't the only offensive player for the Patriots to express their frustration on Thursday night.
Wide receiver Kendrick Bourne was pretty blunt in his assessment of Thursday's game, which saw the Patriots' offense put up just 242 yards and go 3-of-12 on third-down attempts.
“Yeah, man, we need to scheme up better,” Bourne said. “We need to know what they’re doing. We need to know what they wanna do on third down. We’re kind of sporadic. They call this, and we call that, and it falls right into what they want. We need to have it where they’re falling into what we want and things like that.”
“No Von Miller, we gotta take advantage of that. No Micah Hyde, things like that. We have to take advantage of those things,” Bourne said. “They’re playing a different scheme. They’re more soft in what they’re doing, so they’re more conservative. We’ve gotta take advantage and not just have five-yard throws and moving slow. We need to be able to attack and put pressure on the defense.”
There were multiple moments where it seemed like the Patriots lacked urgency to get the ball down the field, particularly in their final drive of the game. While New England came away with three points, it took 17 plays to move the ball 57 yards in nearly six minutes.
Patriots quarterback Mac Jones, who completed 22-of-36 passes for 195 yards with a touchdown on Thursday, was sacked on that drive and was under pressure and running all over the field several more times during on that drive alone.
Bourne seemed to call out the pass protection Jones had on Thursday.
“We’ve got to get the ball downfield,” Bourne said. “Mac needs more time. He’s obviously running around. It’s hard to get the ball downfield when you can’t really have time to throw. No knock to the line, it’s just what we need to work on. The receivers can’t do nothing if the ball can’t get downfield, if we can’t throw it past five yards, it’s going to be a long game.
“Shout out to the Bills, they did a great job controlling the clock, keeping us off the field, keeping us cold and stagnant. It was a great game plan they had. We have to be able to get the ball downfield. We have plays, We can’t get to them. We’re calling them. They’re just not working, so we’re throwing five-yard routes and that’s what we catch so it looks one way. Hopefully, we can get Mac more time so he can make the plays.”
"I think Mac needs more time. He’s obviously running around, so it’s hard to get the ball downfield."
– Kendrick Bourne pic.twitter.com/ZI8Mjof49V
— NBC Sports Boston's Patriots Coverage (@NBCSPatriots) December 2, 2022
The Patriots' offensive line has been an issue just about all season. It became worse on Thursday as the top two right tackles on the depth chart (Isaiah Wynn and Yodny Cajuste) were out due to injury and starting left tackle Trent Brown played while dealing with an illness.
Patriots tight end Hunter Henry thinks it's déjà vu for the offense each week.
“It's the same story every week,” Henry said. “It's not good enough across the board. I wasn't good enough today. We all weren't good enough on offense.”
Henry also seemed to imply that the blocking is an issue for the Patriots' offense, among other things.
“[We're] not sustaining drives,” Henry said. “Not getting first downs and getting things going. Not possessing the ball, beating ourselves, not blocking the right guy, not communicating well or whatever it is. Penalties, turnovers, early on in the season, It's not been good.”
As the Patriots are 6-6 with five games to go, Henry expressed just general frustration that the offense has been stagnant in its growth all season long.
“We should be playing better. We're not,” Henry said. “We’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror and decide what we want to do. We put some good things together last week and weren't able to carry it over tonight. We got to give the credit to them tonight. They have some really good players but we need to be better too.”
The Patriots will have some more time than usual to change things. They don't play again until Monday, Dec. 12, against the Arizona Cardinals.
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