Patriots vs Jaguars @9:30 EST

QB Drake Maye

Maye is making his 2nd start for the Patriots in London in this game. He threw 3 TDs in his debut last week, which was more than the amount of passing TDs in the first 5 games combined with Jacoby Brissett. The Jaguars have been in man coverage at even a higher rate than the Patriots. At 43.9%, the Jags have been in man the 3rd most of all NFL teams. Also similar to the Patriots defense, the Jags have not generated much pressure at all, but Maye actually did succeed relatively well against pressure in his first start, with a 6.80 YPA when facing pressure, ranking 10th in the NFL, although much of this was due to YAC, as Maye had 72.1% of his yards come after the catch on throws where pressure came. This tells me it may not be incredibly repeatable, although the Jags have also struggled in giving up YAC from their end as well (4th highest YAC% in the NFL at 56.7). It is tough to determine Maye’s outlook in this game. He had some nice moments in the opener, but is going to need to be able to make sound decisions from a clean pocket in this one, which can be a challenge sometimes for a rookie QB

Suggested Play:
Pass

RB Rhamondre Stevenson / RB Antonio Gibson

Stevenson is the clear RB1 under normal circumstances, but he is listed as questionable in this game, and even if he does play, he may not get his typical workload. That is why we will have to break down the Pats run game in a bit more depth. The Jags defense has been relatively susceptible to explosive runs, ranking 10th in the NFL with a 6.3 explosive run rate allowed. This is where someone like Stevenson could take serious advantage, as he ranks 18th out of 100 RBs with 100 explosive yards total, and that is while battling injuries. Gibson is not far behind either, with 88 explosive yards.

Another area that both RBs could potentially take advantage of the Jags in this matchup is in the receiving game. The Jags allow an average of 59.33 receiving yards per game on the season to RBs, and also give up 6.50 receptions per game to RBs. Both Gibson and Stevenson are excellent receiving backs, and it would make sense for the Patriots to draw up some designed passing plays for the RBs with a rookie QB start.

Suggested Play:
Pass

WR Demario Douglas
Douglas leads the team in target share vs man coverage at 21.9%, which the Jags are in at the 3rd highest rate in in the NFL at 43.9%. Maye in particular found comfort targeting Douglas in his first start last week, as he got 29.0% of the total targets. Douglas lines up in the slot 71.7% of the time against man coverage, however this will be an interesting matchup because one area the Jaguars have had some success against in defending are those slot WRs (although this is somewhat because they have been hit hard by outside WRs). They have the 9th lowest slot target % in the NFL at 31.3%. With that, we are seeing a matchup of a QB who likes to target one position, vs a defense that typically prevents that position from being targeted in the first place. Douglas has an aDOT of only 6.8, but also averages 5.33 YAC per reception. From that standpoint, he is a solid target for rookie QB who wants to make some simple throws and allow the playmakers to make plays for him. Look for Douglas to continue to be targeted often.

Suggested Play:
Demario Douglas o44.5 receiving yards (-115)

TE Hunter Henry 

Henry has been the guy the Patriots have loved to go to in the opponent’s red zone. He has a 21.7 target share in the red zone, which is by far the highest on the Patriots. Not only is this the highest mark for the Patriots, but it is actually the highest among all NFL TEs. He also leads his team in end zone targets, and now plays a Jaguars team that has allowed a 12.1% touchdown rate to TEs, and has given up a TD to a TE in 3 of the last 4 games. The Patriots QB (whether it be Brissett or Maye), has a 105.8 passing rating when looking towards Henry in the red zone

Suggested Play:
Hunter Henry ATD (+380)
Hunter Henry 1st TD (+1165)

QB Trevor Lawrence

Lawrence sees a Patriots defense that is in man coverage 37.9% of the time, which is the 5th most in the NFL. They do not, however, get much pressure on opposing QBs, and only force it on 29.7% of dropbacks, ranking 26th in the NFL. Lawrence has struggled this year against man, having just a 47.9% completion percentage against it (27th), and only 6.4 YPA (22nd) against it. With that being said, he has been pretty solid with a clean pocket, which he could have for much of this game. Lawrence has a 7.77 YPA when not facing any pressure, which is the 14th best in the NFL. Even though he has struggled against man, the Patriots have overall struggled in being that effective in man, as their CBs have gotten beaten quite often. These conflicting factors make it hard to have a real feel on the overall performance of Lawrence, but if his WRs are able to get open and win those 1 on 1s, then Lawrence certainly would have enough time to find them, and this will be something Lawrence looks to do most with a 9.4 aDOT that ranks 4th in the NFL when not facing pressure. Whether he has the vision and accuracy to hit them consistently is an entirely different question, but I do think the volume on deep balls is going to be there.

Suggested Play:
Trevor Lawrence o35.5 yard long pass completion (-115)

RB Tank Bigsby

Trevor Etienne is presumably out in this game with a hamstring injury, but even before that it appeared that Bigsby was beginning to cement himself as this team’s best option at RB. The Pats have struggled against the run at times as well, with a 4.63 YPC against that ranks as the 13th highest in the NFL. They also have been vulnerable at times to explosive plays on the ground, with an EXP % of 6.3, ranking as the 10th highest in the NFL. This could be a massive problem against Bigsby, who has the 3rd most explosive yards in the NFL at an impressive 207. Tank Bigsby also leads the NFL with 7.24 YPC among RBs with at least 25 rush attempts. He is being stuffed at the line at a very high rate unfortunately as well, at 51.7% of the time. That means he is living and dying by the explosive runs, which is certainly something he can do in this matchup. Last week Bigsby could never really get going vs the Bears, but this was primarily due to a losing game script in which the Jags threw the ball on 80% of downs in the 2nd half. I expect Bigsby to get a genuine chance to prove his worth in this one against the Pats against a rather lackluster rush defense and in what should be a closer game as well.

Suggested Play
Tank Bigsby o rush yards

WR Brian Thomas Jr.

Thomas has exploded over the last 4 weeks in terms of targets, getting 9, 9, 8 and 6 targets in each of the last 4 games after only getting 4 targets in each of the first 2 games. He has been incredibly efficient when being targeted against man coverage, which the Pats play at a high percentage of 37.9% of the time. He leads the Jaguars WR corps with 2.20 YPRR vs man coverage, even over Christian Kirk who leads the team in overall targets. He has a 14.7 aDOT vs the man, which is the 2nd highest on the team over Gabe Davis, but has much larger of a sample set of targets against man coverage than Davis does well. Thomas will likely see a lot of Christian Gonzalez in this game, who has been boom or bust with the Pats this year. Due to the high aDOT, I do like Thomas’ chances of being the beneficiary of one of Lawrence’s deep balls.

Suggested Play:
Brian Thomas Jr. o21.5 longest reception (-115)

WR Christian Kirk

While Kirk has seen 28.6% of the targets against man coverage, the highest on the team, there has been a significant discrepancy in targets with and without Evan Engram also on the field, with Engram who has taken many of Kirk’s former inside routes from a guy in Kirk who has lined up as a slot WR in just over 90% of snaps on the year, and has only lined up out wide 9.3% of the time. With Engram, Kirk’s target rate has fallen to 18.8%, which is why I think Thomas has taken over as Lawrence number 1 WR target. Kirk also only has 13.2 receiving yards per game against man coverage, which ranks behind Thomas’ 15 despite a much higher overall target share. The books don’t seem to quite be valuing the presence of Engram and the impact it has on Kirk, and I do like this as an under spot as a result.

Suggested Pick
Christian Kirk u43.5 receiving yards (-117)

TE Evan Ingram
Engram is coming off a massive 100 yard game as a TE last week vs the Bears, which on the surface provides some hope headed into this week. However, much of his success in that game was due to the zone-heavy Bears defense, and Engram will see an entirely polar defensive set with the Pats in this game. Engram has also been a bit fortunate in the fact that literally 100% of his targets so far this year have been deemed relatively catchable, which is by far the highest among the Jags receiving options. He may be due for some regression there, and certainly Lawrence will regress in his ability to hit Engram as perfectly as he has. New England has struggled against TEs overall, giving up the 22nd most yards per game to them, and the volume should be there as well as he ran a route on 74.4% of dropbacks last year. Overall, however, it is tough to see where Engram will fit in against a defense drastically different than he has seen so far this year (Dolphins 17th in Zone %, Bears 6th in Zone %).

Suggested Pick:
Pass

This game could be ugly, with neither team showing a lot of life on the season. In this particular matchup however, I am going to roll with a minor upset and for Drake Maye to continue some momentum from last week against a much worse Jags defense than what he faced last week with the Texans. You also factor in the ability for Stevenson to return in this game, and now facing a Jags team that is laden with distractions with Doug Peterson on the hot seat.

Best Bet (Patriots +7.5 -150)
Lean (Under 43.5 -125)
Patriots 23 Jaguars 20