It wasn’t pretty but the Patriots beat the Arizona Cardinals 27-13 in a must win. The defense led the way with six sacks, a turnover and a defensive score but the offense did its part as well despite being down its top four offensive players.
With the Patriots skill group depleted due to injury, back ups needed to step up and they did. Rookie running backs Kevin Harris and Pierre Strong scored their first NFL touchdowns to pace the offense. Strong was particularity impressive rushing for 70 yards and a touchdown on five carries. He also caught two passes for 20 yards.
Patriots Coach Bill Belichick was pleased with the young running backs stepping up.
“Yeah. It was great. They got an opportunity and made some big plays. We’ll see if they can sustain it, show up week after week and people will start looking for them.”
Mac Jones also stepped up and while it might not show up in his stat line, he still completed 24-of-35 passes for 235 yards. He made two big time throws to tight end Hunter Henry that set up the Patriots inside the 20. Both resulted in touchdowns. Jones talked about his connection with Henry and how the Patriots tight ends could continue to have an expanded role as the season goes on.
“Hunter (Henry) and (tight end) Jonnu (Smith) have done a great job for us in the tight end room. Hunter has a great feel for the game. He wants to help the team any way he can. Same thing with Jonnu. Love those guys and we have to continue to grow their roles. When they’re on the field together they’re really good, so we definitely want to expand on that and do those things.”
After weeks of speculation about this relationship with Matt Patricia being rocky, Jones addressed the question of whether or not he’s frustrated with the offense.
“No. The biggest thing is not letting it affect my play and bringing the best out of my guys. Today, I thought we all did a good job trying to play the next play, play the next series and (Senior Football Advisor/Offensive Line Coach) Matt (Patricia) did a great job.”
Jones continued: “He’s trying to call the game so that we can win. Sometimes, it might be this thing that people don’t know about, like the quick passes for whatever reason and that’s our game plan. We knew what we had to do to win and he called a great game and stayed calm. He’s a calm person, very stoic. We’re just going to continue to grow together and do what we can to win games.”
The Patriots were resilient on offense and for the first time in a long time, they appeared to be having fun. Jones however credited the team’s ability to execute as the reason for their success tonight.
“It’s great. That’s what we want to do, just try to win the game however we had to do it, and those guys made some great plays. The offensive line gave them the big holes and the receivers got the blocks on the outside. That’s how we want to play offensive football in the run game. We have to watch the film and see where we can do better. But that’s a good defense, (they) blitz a lot from different places to try to confuse you and you just have to stick to your rules, so props to those guys.”