Finding an opening in the Chicago Bears defense, Rhamondre Stevenson made one of the most spectacular plays of the New England Patriots season so far on Thursday night. With time winding down on the first half, he took the ball 48 yards to the house for an improbable touchdown.
That, of course, was Rhamondre Stevenson, the receiver. He finished with a career-best 93 yards and a touchdown on five catches.
Rhamondre Stevenson, the ball-carrier, on the other hand, didn’t enjoy the same success. He received six handoffs and turned them into only 22 rushing yards.
The story of Stevenson’s day is the story of the Patriots offense as a whole on Thursday. Despite going up against a run defense ranked near the bottom of the league in multiple metrics, the unit could not generate a consistent push on the ground. Excluding scramble plays by quarterback Drake Maye, New England finished with only 44 yards on 13 carries, an average of 3.4 yards per run.
This kind of production was not good enough against the Bears, as head coach Mike Vrabel pointed out after the Patriots’ 30-24 defeat.
“We didn’t run the ball well enough,” Vrabel said during his postgame press conference at Soldier Field. “But, we moved it however we needed to move it and sometimes you are going to have days like that. I thought we’d be able to run it a little better. We didn’t, but then our best players were putting the ball in good spots most of the time and making good decisions. That’s how it goes, we’d have liked to run the ball a little bit better, but it didn’t happen tonight.”
The Patriots gave all three of their running backs opportunities against the Bears. While Stevenson got most of the action both in terms of snaps, carries and targets, TreVeyon Henderson and Corey Kiner were also involved.
Henderson played 13 snaps on the night, gaining 9 yards on three runs. Kiner fared marginally better, finishing with six snaps as well as 13 yards on four carries. The two and Stevenson all finished firmly in the red in terms of expected points added per rushing attempt, with a combined average of -0.39.
Not all of that can be pinned on the running backs. The ground game is a collaborative effort and on Thursday it featured third-stringer Walter Rouse going wire-to-wire at left guard and fourth-stringer Matt Pryor doing the same on the right side. Rouse and Pryor did what they could, but for a unit built on cohesion the near-constant personnel turnover it experienced has been an issue.
Ultimately, though, the Patriots remain steadfast in their determination that the run game needs to improve regardless of circumstance.
“We have to find a way to run it a little better, for sure,” said Drake Maye. “But sometimes when they’re loading the box and forcing us to throw it, we’ll go out there and throw for a bunch of yards. And trusting me, and trusting me with good decisions, that’s kind of the way sometimes the ball rolls. But I think we definitely got to get the running game going, and I don’t think it’s the only thing to do. We just run it and try to be effective and knowing that we got the right guys. And I thought the guys up front that stepped in and stepped up, did a nice job.”