Inconsistency, mistakes send Patriots back to offensive drawing board after loss to Raiders

FOXBOROUGH Mass AP The New England Patriots came out of a busy offseason feeling like they d addressed the deficiencies on their offensive line and with their overall playmaking ability But their first competition of the Mike Vrabel era indicated New England s offense is very much a work in progress New England s offense had a promising start then sputtered in the second half as the passing encounter struggled to find consistency and make big plays It added up to a - loss to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday We ve got a long way to go Vrabel revealed After falling behind - the Patriots had their largest part efficient drive of the day capping a -play -yard drive with a -yard touchdown pass from Drake Maye to DeMario Douglas The series included a -yard reception by tight end Hunter Henry and a -yard catch by Kayshon Boutte But New England only had one more play of at least yards the remainder of the challenge while going just of on third down After taking a - lead into halftime the Patriots scored just three points over the final minutes We just didn t do enough in the second half Vrabel reported The reason was two-fold First the rebuilt offensive line featuring four new starters led by rookie left tackle Will Campbell surrendered four sacks It also got little push at the line of scrimmage contributing to an offensive output of just yards per play By comparison the Patriots band which finished ranked st in the NFL in total offense averaged yards per play Secondly Maye struggled to find consistency through the air throwing behind and high above his targets at times Maye was of for yards for the contest It included an interception that set up the Raiders go-ahead touchdown Maye believes going three-and-out on their first possession of the battle set a tone the Patriots never really recovered from I think I ve got to do a better job of getting the guys and making throws he stated I thought the guys up front battled hard I think they blocked pretty well up front I think getting points out of that first drive would have been huge Boutte who had a team-high six catches for yards noted the conditions never allowed them to get into a groove I think we all have to be on the same track more he reported I don t know if we felt settled in at halftime because we were up or the weather wasn t how we demanded it was rainy I feel like we could have had more force going into the second half Still Maye declared his comfort level adjusting to new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels scheme remains high I felt pretty good out there I felt like I was seeing it well Maye revealed Got to make selected better throws Just got to be better on my part AP NFL https apnews com hub NFL