Despite coming up short in the end, the New England Patriots played one of their better games of the season against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday. Even after falling behind 15 points in the late third quarter, they rallied back to find themselves with a chance to drive for the victory late.
That comeback bid failed, resulting in a 28-22 loss, but there was a lot to like especially on the offensive side of the ball. In fact, the Patriots were in control throughout the game — that is at least what head coach Jerod Mayo claimed during his postgame press conference.
“Kind of what I told the guys in the locker room: I never really felt like they had control of the game. I felt like we had control of the game,” Mayo said.
The rookie head coach pointed to the Patriots controlling the ball and time of possession as a basis for his statements. Indeed, his team was on the field for 37 minutes and 20 seconds compared to the Rams’ 22:40 while also running 73 offensive plays to Los Angeles’ 51.
However, volume does not necessarily equal control. A closer look at the game and some of the statistics coming out of it illustrates this.
The Patriots did take the lead with 5:05 left in the first quarter on a Drake Maye touchdown pass to Kendrick Bourne. The Rams then tied the contest with 7:18 to go in the second period and shortly thereafter went up 14-7. They never looked back: L.A. was ahead on the scoreboard for the final 35:45 of game time, and never saw its chance to win dip below 70 percent at any remaining point in the game.
The Rams also made the most out of their time on the field. Even though they had a disadvantage in terms of possession stats, they averaged 7.9 yards per play versus the Patriots’ 5.2. They also had a 53 percent play success rate and 79.2 percent series conversion rate (i.e. turning a drive into a new set of downs or touchdown).
The Patriots were competitive in those final two statistics at 51 and 78.8 percent, respectively. Does that mean they controlled the game, though?
While that part of Mayo’s postgame statements fails to pass the smell test, he was right when it comes to his overall assessment after watching his team drop to 3-8.
“Do we need to get better? Absolutely, and that’s my job as the head coach of this football team,” he said. “It starts with me. I have to do better. We have to demand more from our assistant coaches. We’re going to demand more from our players. We have enough talent in our locker room to be a very good football team, we’ve just got to be able to put it together.”
On Sunday, the Patriots were not able to do that. As a consequence, they lost a game they were competitive in but did not control to the degree Mayo claimed they did.
