The New England Patriots only put up 177 total yards of offense on Sunday afternoon, and Mac Jones threw two interceptions in the largest shutout defeat at home in team history as the New Orleans Saints rolled to a 34-0 win at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
New Orleans (3-2) got the only score they needed almost halfway through the first quarter, when Tyrann Mathieu intercepted Jones deep in New England territory and returned it 27 yards for a touchdown. The pick six was the fourth for Jones at home in his career, the same amount Tom Brady had in 140 more games. One of the better chances that the Patriots had to score on the entire afternoon occured later in the opening 15 minutes on a 48-yard field goal attempt by Chad Ryland that was missed wide left. The Saints scored twice early in the second on a 2-yard run by Alvin Kamara, and then after a NE punt Derek Carr found Chris Olave for a 5-yard TD pass in the back of the endzone as they led 21-0 at the halftime break. Basically in what was the story of the day and summed up the Patriots performance happened on the first possession of the second half. On a third play and deep on their own side of the field at the 26, Jones made a bad pitch to Rhamondre Stevenson on a run play as Stevenson couldn’t handle it and Cam Jordan recovered at the New England 29-yard line. New Orleans turned that into a 54-yard Blake Grupe field goal. Carr would toss another touchdown pass to Foster Moreau of six yards, and Grupe hit another long field goal of 53 yards to cap off the scoring in the fourth quarter. For the second straight week, Jones was pulled out of the game as Bailey Zappe played the entire fourth period. Despite the offensive struggles in which New England has been outscored 72-3 in their last two games, head coach Bill Belichik said after the game that Jones is still the starting quarterback moving forward. The team hasn’t scored a touchdown since the second quarter of their lone win vs the Jets in week three.
Jones went 12-22 for 110 yards with the two interceptions, as the Patriots dropped to 1-4 on the season. The run game was missing once again as they only rushed for a total of 45 yards on 18 carries. Elliott had the most receptions on the day with four of them for 17 yards, while Kendrick Bourne had the most yards (two catches, 43 yards). Ja’Whaun Bentley, Myles Bryant, and Kyle Dugger had four tackles each to lead the defense. Bentley and Bryant also had one sack each. Carr was 18-26 passing for 183 yards and two touchdowns in the New Orleans win. Kamara rushed 22 times for 80 yards and a score. Michael Thomas and Kendre Miller had four receptions each for 65 and 53 yards respectively. Miller also added in 37 rushing yards out of the backfield. New England heads to Las Vegas to play the Raiders next Sunday at 4:05 p.m. The shutout loss at Gillette Stadium by the Pats was the first since 2016 (16-0 to Buffalo), and only the second since the stadium has been built.
Recap/photos by Chris Lessner who was in attendance at Patriots/Saints Sunday afternoon
