Josh McDaniels has a simple solution for Patriots troubles against the blitz: ‘Block ’em!”

Both the Falcons and Titans were effective in using blitzes, and delayed blitzes from their corners and safeties to get to Mac Jones.

He was sacked three times against the Falcons on blitzes, and twice against the Titans.

Asked what the Patriots could do differently against those looks to beat the blitz, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels answered: “Block ‘em.”

McDaniels said sometimes the solutions to problems are really not that complicated.

“When there’s a man that’s running towards the quarterback, and there’s not a Patriots guy on him,” said McDaniels, “I’m not very happy with that.”

While McDaniels gave credit to both the Falcons and Titans for devising those plays, as well as the players carrying out those blitzes, he also put the burden on the Patriots, namely the offensive line.

“Everyone kind of looks at it, and says, ‘well, Mac didn’t see this, or Mac didn’t do that.’ Most of the time, it has nothing to do with Mac,” said McDaniels. “He sets the protections, and we have to follow our rules. If our rules don’t accommodate handling the blitz, then we need an adjustment.

“We had one or two of those come up the other day, and he handled them fine. Then there was a couple of other ones where we just didn’t react quick enough in the protection part of it to handle our responsibility.”

McDaniels said there’s communication that needs to take place once the ball is snapped to handle some of those exotic pressures.

“We either win or we learn. And on some of those plays we didn’t win, and certainly we have a lot to learn from them,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll do that this week.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3oaqQaQ