The Patriots are Heading across the Pond this Week
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The Patriots play in London against the Jacksonville Jaguars (9:30am EST) for their week seven matchup. The Pats are currently on a five game losing streak and now face a team that is largely underperforming in the public eye. Talking heads are calling for Doug Pederson to be fired and asking if Trevor Lawrence will ever take the next step in being a consistently good quarterback.
While the Jags have been bad, they have also had a few tough injuries. In their preseason matchups, the Jags offense featured tightend Evan Engram quite heavily in the redzone and found some good success with it. I understand that it's the preseason, but Engram made his first appearance last week against a tough Bears defense and went for 102 yards on 10 recptions. In this weeks matchup it looks like the Jags will be without their starting runningback Travis Etienne due to a hamstring injury he suffered in last week's game, but he still remains a "game-time" decision.
If Etienne can't play, it could be a tough loss for the Jag's offense considering the Patriots run defense has been mediocre at best this year. This comes without Christian Baremore and Ja'Whaun Bently. Every team has injuries, thats football, especially at this point in the season. Even last week, Joe Mixon came back from an ankle injury and rushed for 102 yards on 13 carries and a touchdown against the Pats next week. Mixon also was thrown a touchdown completing a phenominal return from his injury. All of that to say that Etiene had a chance against a weaker matchup than in the weeks past. If Etienne doesn't play, the Jag's will turn to a committee of Tanks Bigsby and D'Ernest Johnson. I personally am a fan of Bigsby and thought that he would have had a bigger role on their team at this point.
The Patriots come in with a lot of distractions. Rhamondre Stevenson is believed to be playing after early week speculation that he wouldn't be. Jerod Mayo challenged rookie Jaylin Polk's mental struggles in a press conference, Drake Maye had an MRI on his knee, both Mayo and team owner Robert Kraft decided to once again take shots at former head coach Bill Belichick, and Kenrick Bourne's name is circulating in trade rumors for the billionth time.
It's hard to not get frustrated after 20 years of this kind of fiasco being unimaginable. These distractions didn't happen under Belichick's tenure. I dont want turn this into a blog about why it was a mistake to fire the greatest coach of all time, but it's hard to watch this team and see that he is missed and Mayo doesn't seem ready for the challenge. Mayo this week complained to the media about the roster just not being good enough. An odd thing to say not even halfway into the season and the Patriots had around 100 million dollars of cap space to spend this offseason and only really used it to re-sign players that Belichick drafted.
There are some bright spots on this team that will keep me watching week in and week out. Drake Maye was fun last week. He threw for three touchdowns and showed that he can run the ball and create plays with his feet. Demario "Pop" Douglas finally got consistent targets and showed that he can be a main target in the receiver room. Stevenson continues to run the ball well and second-year cornerback Christian Gonzalez locks down his matchup every week. Kayshon Boutte looked like a solid target for Maye last week. I hope that he can put two solid weeks together and prove himself a good receiving option going forward.
It's hard to predict these oversees games. The Jag's have the luxury of being in London for nearly two weeks now, and the Patriots are playing a game at 9:30 in the morning. That usually leads to slow starts and low scoring games. Last season, the Patriots failed to score a touchdown in their Frankfurt, Germany game and might've had more punting yards than offensive yards. After looking, they didn't but they were within 100 yards of each other.
I think this is another low scoring game. Give me 17-13. No winner picked because both of these teams are very unpredictable. I hope to see the Drake and Pop Douglas connection grow, but I'd like to see Maye try to get the ball to Polk and Bourne a little bit more. Polk has had a hard go of it the last few weeks. He had 10 targets and only had two receptions the last two weeks. I'd also like to see Boutte build on last week. Get ready folks, its an early one tomorrow but if it turns south, at least we get it out of the way early.