The Patriots ran 54 offensive plays in Sunday night’s loss to the Buccaneers and only seven of them were rushing attempts.
Mac Jones threw 40 passes, took a knee once, and got sacked four times while wide receiver Jakobi Meyers completed both passes he attempted. The Buccaneers were also flagged for defensive pass interference three times, so things were pretty imbalanced offensively for New England.
Jones completed 19 straight passes at one point, so there were moments of success but offensive imbalance was also an issue in Week Three against New Orleans and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said on Tuesday that the team has to find ways to have better balance in their offense in the future.
“I never want to be one-dimensional,” McDaniels said, via Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald. “I don’t think we ever do, here. There’s certainly been games in the past we can all point to and say we probably didn’t give it a chance, and had to lean on the passing game. But I would say as a rule of thumb, that is not a sustainable method of playing offense. You can’t bail on it every week because somebody makes it difficult . . . we gotta do better than we did Sunday.
The Texans have given up 548 rushing yards through four games, so the Patriots should have an opportunity to get their ground game going in Houston this weekend.