Patriots' dominant defense made life easy for Bailey Zappe in rookie's first career start

BOSTON -- Without a doubt, rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe showed some exceptional poise while making his first career NFL start on Sunday at Gillette Stadium. He was calm in the pocket, he delivered passes with confidence, he knew when to pull the ball down and run, and he more or less did everything the team asked him to do.

It was a very good day for Zappe. But it was also an easy one.

With the way the Patriots were playing on defense, they likely could have won if the famed quarterback of Foxboro High was lining up under center in place of Mac Jones. The defense was that good.

While it's difficult to give the Lions' offensive operation too much credit after the 29-0 drubbing delivered by New England on Sunday, it's important to recall this very important fact: The Lions entered this game with the No. 1 offense in the entire National Football League.

The Lions ranked No. 1 in yards and No. 1 in points. Jared Goff was tied with Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes for the league lead in touchdown passes, with 11. Jamaal Williams led the league with six rushing touchdowns, too.

Through four weeks of the season, the Detroit Lions' offense was potent.

On Sunday at Gillette, it was useless.

Some of that might have been self-inflicted, sure, but the Patriots' defense made sure that on this day, with their rookie QB starting a game a little bit before he's fully ready to do so, the Lions would not be piling up points.

It was apparent right from the get-go, too. Head coach Dan Campbell decided that it was a good idea to go for it on a fourth-and-1 at the Detroit 45-yard line on the game's opening possession. Christian Barmore and Davon Godchaux disagreed, clogging the middle of the Lions' line on a fourth-and-1 handoff to Williams, a run which went for no gain and resulted in a turnover on downs.

That would become a common theme on the day.

By the end of the game, the Lions went for it on fourth down six times. They went 0-for-6. They became the first NFL team to ever do that.

One involved a Matt Judon strip-sack that resulted in a 59-yard fumble return for a touchdown by Kyle Dugger. One came after Jonathan Jones blew up a quick pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown on the outside. Myles Bryant broke up a pass on another, Raekwon McMillan stuffed Justin Jackson on a fourth-and-1 run up the gut, and the final futile attempt led to a pass breakup by rookie cornerback Jack Jones in the end zone.

Throw in an interception by Jack Jones on Detroit's second possession of the game, and the Lions did absolutely nothing all game long.

The Lions were without D.J. Chark and D'Andre Swift, which certainly didn't help matters. But they were also without Chark and Swift last week, when they also played without St. Brown. They still managed to put up 45 points and 520 yards of offense against the Seahawks.

No, there's no real way to diminish the dominance of the Patriots' defensive performance, and even notoriously harsh critic Bill Belichick sought to do that in his postgame press conference.

"Give those guys a lot of credit. Obviously, defensively, top scoring team in the league, top everything in the league: yards, points, red area, you name it. And to go out there and keep those guys off the board, whatever it was -- five, six fourth downs -- just a lot of good competitive defensive football was great. So really proud of that whole unit, the staff, the players, pass rush, coverage, our tackling," Belichick said. "It was really a strong effort there."

Belichick added that after the Patriots were flagged for roughing the passer -- a "tough call," as Belichick saw it -- to negate a third-down stop in the red zone, the defense stiffened and kept the Lions from scoring after a first-and-goal from the 8-yard line.

While the stars -- like Judon -- were certainly stars, Belichick spread the credit evenly among the entire defensive roster and coaching staff.

"Great coaching by the staff, they had a good plan. Well-executed by the players. They have so many go-to guys, it's hard to stop. They're a good sub-run team," Belichick said. "Team defense, pass rush disrupting the quarterback, covering the receivers -- [T.J.] Hockenson, St. Brown, [Josh] Reynolds, they're all tough -- and you've still gotta play the running game. So, I mean, there's a reason why they're the highest-scoring offense in the league, and most yards, and all the accolades that they've had. But I think the majority of the credit needs to go to our players. They're the ones who went out there and defeated blocks, tackled 'em, covered, and all that. Just no one guy. Just a good team effort."

Defensive captain Devin McCourty shared one factor in how the Patriots were able to play such effective defense against the league's top-ranked offense.

"We had -- I would say -- a less physical practice on Wednesday, and I think sometimes that like, everybody's like, 'Oh my goodness, they're not in full pads.' But I think the good thing about that is guys being locked in, we were able to talk about a lot of different plays, see a lot of different looks, kind of figure it out then come back in, the play calls and the things that we had scheme-wise," McCourty said. "We were able to watch the film together, talk about it, what we liked, what we didn't like. And I thought you saw that progress throughout the week with our play calls. And I thought then Sunday, today, we were able to come out and play fast."

Lions head coach Dan Campbell was a bit lost for words when trying to explain the offensive futility of his team.

"I mean, we felt like -- I mean, they did a couple things. But nothing that we haven't -- weren't prepared for or hadn't seen," Campbell said. "We could just really never get Goff in rhythm. So we were doing things that we wanted to do in the run game. It was going very much like we kind of thought it would and hoped it would. We just, when it came time to throw it, we just -- we could never get him quite comfortable. And then we end up getting behind and the numbers things there. But, so, yeah, for different reasons, you know, it was never always one person or one thing. It's protection. Well, you know, it's just the little stuff. And the little stuff has continued to get us, which is on me."

As for the six unsuccessful fourth-down attempts?

"Yeah, I mean, it hurts," Campbell said.     

The defensive day was massive, yes, but Judon made it clear postgame that it won't help the Patriots one bit next week in Cleveland.

 "It just means we got the one win," Judon said, after becoming the first Patriot to ever record a sack in each of his first five games in a season. "And as much as we want to ride this game or build off this game, next week's gonna be different. And we've gotta show up again next week."

That is, obviously, a very Patriot-like outlook after a big win. And after a 1-3 start to the year, it's understandable. Still, the Patriots absolutely need to take advantage of this portion of their schedule, and Sunday's dominance was a distinct step toward making that happen.