Patriots offensive coordinator's Week 3 regrets come far too late

After an avoidable, disappointingly close loss to the Seahawks in Week 2, there was some hope the Patriots would be able to replicate their season opener winning performance against the Jets on a short week on Thursday Night Football.

They had already defied the odds by beating the Bengals in enemy territory, and based on how the Jets had fared through two games, it looked like they could be competitive with a longtime AFC East rival. Unfortunately, they were the furthest thing from game-ready as soon as the opening kickoff took place, and it didn't get much better for the rest of the 59 minutes and 59 seconds remaining in the game.

After each team went 3-and-out to start, the Jets scored (or tried to) on all but two of their drives the rest of the night, leading to an absolute demolition of the Patriots on national television.

It was the first time the Jets beat the Patriots at home since an overtime win on December 27, 2015, a game in which both teams looked drastically different than they did on Thursday night. But that was just one of the many reasons their loss was devastating.

Besides the obvious issues with the quarterback, offensive line, tackling, and pass rush, just to name a few, the offensive game plan was a significant problem that didn't even create opportunities for Rhamondre Stevenson to make plays. The run game was essentially scrapped after the first quarter, leaving many questioning Alex Van Pelt's decision-making in real-time.

It became one of the main questions asked of the new offensive coordinator when speaking to reporters on Friday morning.

Alex Van Pelt regretting Week 3 game plan is good to know, but...

Jerod Mayo and all three Patriots coordinators were available to reporters after their Week 3 loss. After the head coach was grilled about the offense in its entirety, it was time for Van Pelt to answer for a disastrous night.

When asked about the decision to abandon the run game so early on, after Stevenson and Antonio Gibson's impressive first two weeks, Van Pelt admitted he made a mistake and should have leaned on it more instead.

“We were really just trying to marry the run game with the run actions, and it didn’t go the way we wanted to. And then by the time you get back out there, you’re down a couple scores and then you have to kind of abandon the run, unfortunately, at that point.

But definitely in hindsight, looking back, we probably should have flipped that and run it more early to set it up later. You earn the right to run those actions when you’re running the ball well, and it didn’t go our way last night.”

While it's great to hear him take responsibility for a big mistake, it's a little too late, and the adjustments weren't made in the game to at least look like he was aware as it was happening.

Maybe he will make adjustments as the season goes on since Stevenson and Gibson have proven to be weapons for the offense and should be utilized as often as possible, but we'll have to wait and see. Regardless, it would be better not to have more of these "in hindsight" conversations ever again, at least not to this extent.

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