By Andrew Callahan |
acallahan@bostonherald.com
PUBLISHED: October 3, 2025 at 5:00 AM EDT
Welcome to the Friday Five!
Each week during the NFL regular season, I will drop five Patriots-related thoughts on Friday to recap the week that was in Foxboro and look ahead to kickoff.
Ready, set, football.
1. McDaniels’ Bills problem
A not-so-fun fact: since Buffalo hired head coach Sean McDermott in 2017, Patriots quarterbacks have thrown more interceptions than touchdowns against the Bills.
That’s right. Sixteen picks to 15 touchdowns. And no quarterback, not even Tom Brady, has been immune to the Bills curse.
Granted, several factors are at work here, starting with Buffalo’s roster growing into one of the NFL’s best and the Patriots’ roster, for the most part, crumbling during that same time. But the one constant spanning their battles from 2017-21 is back again: Josh McDaniels.
McDaniels coached Brady over his last six games against the Bills. when he tossed four touchdowns and five interceptions. He coached Cam Newton and a young Mac Jones, who only beat Buffalo when the Pats literally took the ball out of his hands by passing three times in a windstorm. On Thursday, McDaniels offered some insight into the problems that have fed into his Bills problem over the years, starting with disguise and ball security.
“They might show you what they want you to think (the coverage) is, and then they try to do the best they can to change that once the ball snaps,” McDaniels said. “So we’re going to have to be very disciplined once the ball is snapped to make sure that we confirm whatever we thought it was, or confirm that it changed. And there’ll be a number of snaps on Sunday night where whatever we looked at before the ball was in Drake’s hands is going to change once we have it.”
Ironically enough, almost four years after Jones sat out his own victory, McDaniels’ solution might be to take the ball out of his quarterback’s hands again.
The Bills are allowing six yards per carry and own the league’s third-worst run defense by the opponent-and-situation-adjusted metric DVOA. Maye, of course, must throw more than Jones did that night.
But if the Patriots are running more often than not Sunday, that might be the surest sign of a victory Monday to come.
2. Secret red-zone weapon
After last Sunday’s 4-of-4 showing inside the red zone against Carolina, the Patriots rank eighth in the red-zone offense.
They have a new assistant to thank for that: wide receivers (and RZ planning) coach Todd Downing.
Downing has carved out an interesting niche over his career with red-zone game-planning. Before he spent his last two years coaching the Aaron Rodgers Jets, Downing spearheaded Tennessee’s red-zone offense under Mike Vrabel. In those years, the Titans punched their way to the league’s No. 1 spot in 2019, when they made the AFC Championship Game, then ranked second, ninth and sixth in each of the following three seasons.
This year, there seems to be a curious change.
Vrabel revealed Wednesday part of the staff’s game-planning process involves him meeting with Downing and passing game coordinator/tight ends coach Thomas Brown to discuss red-zone plays, then the three of them pitching said plays to McDaniels.
“I like to go in and talk with Todd and Thomas (Brown), and get some preliminary thoughts, some things that we may like and then be able to present it to Josh (McDaniels) as we work through the week,” Vrabel said.
The picture Vrabel painted suggests a rare setup where the head coach backs two assistants during midweek meetings with their direct boss. I can’t say I’ve heard of that before. But hey, Downing’s track record speaks for itself.
3. Will Pats man up on Allen?
In the final years of the Bill Belichick era, you could always bank on the greatest coach of all time drawing up the same game plan against elite quarterbacks.
Man-to-man coverage, and creative four-man rushes.
Belichick attacked Patrick Mahomes the same way he did Tom Brady in Brady’s return as a Buccaneers and later on, Josh Allen. He forced them to make tight-window throws against tight, physical coverage instead of soft zone. Because long as you have the right cornerbacks to call man coverage, as Belichick did with Stephon Gilmore, J.C. Jackson, then briefly Christian Gonzalez, why would you run anything else?
“Hopefully, we can just play cat coverage,” Vrabel said in March. “Like, you got that cat, I got this cat, and we can go to work.”
Which begs the question: now that Gonzalez is back, shouldn’t it be time for him and Carlton Davis to play “cat coverage” against Allen?
This is what Davis had to say on the matter Thursday: “Yeah, for sure. You know, I feel like this is kind of a loaded question in a way. I don’t want to give you too much, but yeah, we’ll kind of do a little bit of that.”
4. Maye learning fast
Earlier this week, the Herald’s Doug Kyed out-lined how Maye is statistically ahead of where Allen was through the first 16 games of his career.
The trouble for Maye is Allen made a solid leap from Year 1 to Year 2, then a massive, almost unprecedented jump in Year 3. If Maye eventually makes the same leap, he might thank Allen for it.
This week, he revealed what he’s tried to copy from the MVP’s game.
“Any time you watch those quarterbacks around the league playing at a high level like that, you try to learn something. (I) learn how he’s looking off defenders, or learn what he’s doing with his pump fakes when he’s out in the perimeter, stuff like that that he’s so good at.” Maye said. “From there, he’s great throwing down the field and great at extending plays, moving guys and scramble drill. He’s great.”
5. ‘Who is this guy?’
Long before Marcus Jones scored an 87-yard punt return touchdown, and took another punt back 61 yards in the same game, Jeremy Springer marveled at the player now saving his special teams.
In 2021, Marcus Jones was playing out his senior season at the University of Houston, while Springer worked as the special teams coordinator at Marshall. Over a six-game stretch, Jones scored four return touchdowns, which put him on video reels Springer used to assemble each week so he could study the best special teams plays from around the country. No one appeared on those reels more than Jones.
“(One game) he had, like, two touchdowns or he had two big returns. And I’m like, ‘Dude, who is this guy?’ ” Springer said this week. “Because no one could tackle him, no one could stop him.”
Jones currently leads the NFL in punt return yards and is tied for the league lead with one touchdown. If he keeps up his pace, Jones should earn the second All-Pro honor of his career, and along the way help propel the Pats to another blowout or two. Or, maybe, an upset win.
“I don’t have to coach him. He just does his thing,” Springer said. “I’m just being serious. He’s one hell of a player.”
How Drake Maye is learning from Josh Allen, Josh McDaniels has a Bills problem, the Patriots’ secret red-zone weapon and more thoughts in the Friday 5!
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