New England Loses 20 To 13 To The Raiders In Week One Of The 2025 Season.

Week one is in the books. What I saw Sunday did not look like a team that was ready for the regular season. There were mistakes on all three phases. I'll be honest; it looked like a backup quarterback running the Patriots/Brady offense but that's what happens when a team chooses a gun slinger mentality and big play potential over Football IQ and accuracy but Maye's the quarterback, so... Agree or disagree: Here is what I saw:

On Defense: Eight runs the Patriots defense should have had stopped in the game but allowed the Raiders to pick up yards; four were on the IDL, three on the front seven as a unit, and one was a team failure. The Patriots got beat by either soft cover or by playing zone, as the Raiders seemed to find holes, and the Patriots had blown coverage plays, one by Hawkins that led to a Raiders touchdown. The team's overall tackling and awareness on defense, while only giving up 20 points, wasn't consistent. The Patriots had some positive plays; Landry, Davis, and Hawkins after the touchdown had good days.

On Offense: The left side of the Patriots line seemed to struggle with pass blocking, especially Campbell, who showed he's still a rookie. I didn't like Maye's decision-making, and I thought he was throwing to tight or covered targets too often. And there were eight times Maye's accuracy was off. The interior of the line did block well enough in the run game for the team. Boutte, Henry, and Henderson had good days. Henderson touched the ball 11 times on offense for a combined total of 51 yards; Boutte had 6 catches for 103 yards; Henry had 4 for 66; even Diggs surprisingly had 6 catches for 57 yards.

My overall thoughts: Although the Patriots had a decent first half, what I saw was an uninspiring team. If they were going to make a push at the number seven seed, they needed this one. I thought there were awareness and recognition issues on both sides of the football, and while I didn't have issues with the Patriots' punting, their play-calling on both sides of the ball was questionable. No disrespect to the Raiders, who walked out with the W, but the Patriots lost that game; the Raiders didn't win it; they just opportunistically took advantage of bad football and squeaked out a victory.