Mike Vrabel Reminds Us All He Came Here Just to Coach Drake Maye. Bonus: Here's What's Wrong With the McOffense That ISN'T Maye's Fault

Logan Bowles. Getty Images.

How am I doing, you ask? (Or didn't ask, but I'm running with the rhetorical premise.) Well, let's see. I have my health. A happy marriage that just hit the 33 year mark. Two sons who are men I'm proud of. I'm probably financially secure enough to stop working, but I like my job too much to walk away. I have a house on a beach. I spent last night watching baseball with guys I've been friends with since first grade. And I live in the freest, richest, country in the best time to be alive in human history. 

And I'm fecking miserable. Because that baseball we watched was fetid garbage. And because my football team isn't any better:

That's how I'm doing. And it's only going to get worse as this talk about Drake Maye and the coaching staff badmouthing each other to media sources picks up momentum over the days and weeks to come:

Mike Vrabel - who's had some experience when it comes to trying to make controversies go away - tried to take the air out of story today:

… Drake was the quarterback." 

Which is a nice sentiment and all. It's good to be reminded that chose the Patriots over all his other job options because the chance to work with Maye was so appealing. But it's hard not to notice all the past tense in that answer. Most of the 1970s horror movies you'll be watching in October about some family wanting a child before the kid turns out to be the spawn of Satan. I'm not suggesting that's how toxic this situation is, by any stretch of the imagination. (And that was quite a stretch.) But you're the cynical type, the way Vrabel cleverly framed it definitely qualifies as a non-denial denial. And it's not going to quiet the "riff" talk at all. 

And while that talk just gets louder by the hour, let's establish two incontrovertible facts:

1. Maye looks lost. Hesitant. Confused. Uncertain. Utterly lacking in confidence. 

2. There is plenty enough blame to go around to explain how they're the lowest scoring offense in the league. 

Let's list some of them. Not to let Maye off the hook in anyway. But just to meet this problem head on. 

No One is Getting Open

Don't go by my opinion. Those are Rob Gronkowski's words, not mine. And he spent the best years of his career getting open in this system, even when he was triple-covered. Troy Aikman agrees:

With one exception, the numbers bear it out:

We're consistently seeing the sorts of situations we got in the Alex Van Pelt Era, when two (or more) receivers would be in the area of the field, making them easy to cover. Here Maye has to escape as the pocket collapses around him, and has Hunter Henry and Pop Douglas not practicing social distancing, while three defenders have them blanketed:

A play design like that should've been erased while it was still on the whiteboard, never mind make it onto the playsheet or sent into the huddle.

Even on a designed bootleg, the kind of call that was routinely getting guys open deep last year, Maye had nowhere to go with the ball but under his armpit and run with it, everyone's got a defender on him:

The week earlier, Douglas ran back and into the inside zone guy, when the entire field was available to him:

At times, opponents are dropping practically dropping everyone, forcing Maye to step up to the line to draw a defender so someone comes free. As he did with Douglas. Who promptly bobbled it for an incompletion:

And when there is a completion:

No One's Making Defender's Miss

To be fair, not "no one." Rhamondre Stevenson has. In addition to breaking tackles in the run game, according to Pro Football Focus, he's made tacklers whiff on three of his nine receptions. That's the good news. The bad news is that he's got a majority of the misses on the entire roster. Corey Kiner and Hunter Hunter Henry have one each. And that's it on the team. Meaning not one of the wide receivers or 3rd down back TreVeyon Henderson has juked a single tackler on any of their combined 38 catches. 

As a result:

There Isn't Enough YAC

The Pats rank 17th in Yards After Catch per Reception, with 4.9 per play. Most of those have come off a few chunk plays, like the broken coverage on Doubs in Week 2. Though the numbers would've improved if Kyle Willams didn't put his pinkie toe out of bounds last week. But the fact remains a system that was designed to create opportunities for open field with Slants, Sticks, Hitches and Smash-Seam combos isn't operating as designed. 

Continuing:

They Can't Run the Ball Consistently

Particularly on the right side, where some combination of injury (losing Michael Onwenu), age (Morgan Moses) or both (Greg Van Routen) have created a pandemic of negative run plays. Sharp Football has them with the 6th-lowest yards before contact in the league on RB rushes, at just 0.8 yards. With the 10th most runs stuffed for zero or negative yards at 18.1%. And ranks them lowest in "successful" run plays, with just 28.4%.

As a result:

The Patriots Offense is Predictable.

Unless this is all been some elaborate, long con, sting operation to lull opposing defensive coordinators into some false sense of security, these are all terrible signs that point to widespread, catastrophic, systemic problems in every aspect of what was the No. 2 scoring team a year ago. 

It all starts with Maye. But the problems extend out in all directions. Sideline-to-sideline. From the backfield to the second and third levels of the secondary. And from the green dot on Maye's helmet to the guy talking into the headset connected to it. 

But at least we know Vrabel wanted to coach this particular Franchise QB. What we'll soon find out is whether he still wants to.

Although it's been said, many times, many ways, it bears repeating. This sucks right now.