Image courtesy of Jordan Bank/Getty Images
FOXBOROUGH – For at least one Sunday, the Patriots made football fun again for 60,000 fans at Gillette Stadium.
The Panthers jumped out to a 6-0 lead, but it was all New England after that. The Pats scored 42 unanswered points en route to an absolutely dominant 42-13 win.
All things considered, this one was big for a couple reasons. The first one being that the Patriots get out of September at 2-2 and feeling good about themselves. The other reason is because against a team like Carolina, this was a game the Pats simply couldn’t lose. Not at home. Not only did they not lose it, but they did what good, growing teams do against the true cellar dwellers of the NFL.
“When we don’t beat ourselves and we take care of the football and we play complementary football and we get stops on third down, the return, the special teams are a factor, and we score touchdowns in the red zone, it can look like something,” Mike Vrabel said when asked if he learned anything about his team with this win. “Again, that’s not guaranteed every week, but certainly we can see the difference in how critical those phases are and putting them all together.”
Carolina waltzed downfield in seven plays, using just over four minutes of game time to go up 6-0 on a Bryce Young seven-yard TD pass to Tommy Tremble with a missed PAT.
After trading punts, the Pats got their first big spark when Marcus Jones had an exhilarating 87-yard punt return for a touchdown, giving the Patriots a 7-6 lead after Andy Borregales’ PAT, a lead they never relinquished. Following another Carolina punt, Drake Maye (14-17/203 yards/ 2 TD) led a six-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a five-yard TD run by Maye early in the second, making it 14-6.
The Panthers’ next drive ended in a missed 55-yard field goal and New England quickly made it hurt eight plays later. The biggest play of the drive was a 33-yard toss to Stefon Diggs (6/101) that soon set up a five-yard touchdown run for TreVeyon Henderson for a 15-point lead with 5:48 left in the half.
The Panthers immediately went three-and-out then inexplicably kicked to Jones again, who ripped off a 61-yard return, setting the offense up at the Carolina 14. Four plays later, Antonio Gibson rumbled in from a yard out for a 28-6 halftime lead.
“Yeah, it’s nice. Golly, it’s fun seeing that,” Maye said of Jones’ return. “You kind of always know, I think when he’s back there, you’ve got a chance to get a great return. I think the best thing about it, it makes you feel comfortable when he’s back there making a great decision, whether it’s touchback or whatever he’s doing. I sure hope they keep kicking it to him because he’s fun to watch.”
“He’s not the biggest player, but he’s got great play strength, I think, with the football in his hand. He’s got great vision, and, again, you have to be fearless at some level to catch that punt and know that you’re going to make the first guy miss. We’re confident in that,” Vrabel added.
“I think he kind of just — it’s just a natural skill. It’s hard to teach. It’s hard to teach with all those bodies in traffic and catching it first and making great decisions with it back there. It’s a lot of comfort with him back there, and we need to continue to make it a weapon.”
The Pats put the game away early in the third with an eight-play, 78-yard drive that took 4:43 and ended with a 31-yard catch-and-run touchdown for Hunter Henry. After some lack luster, ‘let’s just get through this’ offense from both teams for the rest of the third quarter, the Pats added one final score 47 seconds into the fourth quarter on a four-yard TD catch by Mack Hollins.
Joshua Dobbs made his first appearance of the season with just over 10 minutes to go during true blowout time. The Panthers added a meaningless TD in the final two minutes.
The 42 points were the most the Patriots have scored in four years. Are they suddenly Super Bowl contenders because they blew out a terrible team? Of course not, but Sunday’s performance was a lot better than the alternative.
Now, maybe, just maybe, New England can carry momentum into Buffalo for a primetime matchup next Sunday night and at the very least make things interesting.
“I know last week, we didn’t play clean and complementary enough football to win the game. We harped on it all week,” added Milton Williams. “You see the results today. So, improvement, but it’s a long season. It’s only game four. We’ve got to keep it going, keep being consistent and see what happens.”