Brian Hoyer said it himself: “I look at it as I cost us at least six points.”
The New England Patriots quarterback botched a pair of drives against the Chiefs on Monday night so badly that he killed his team’s chances of kicking a field goal (twice). Hoyer’s second error was a foolish one — he held the ball too long and took a strip-sack in the red zone. It’s hard to let him off the hook for that, but it happens, particularly against a great pass-rushing team like the Chiefs. And it cost New England three points, at least. It was bad enough that the Patriots benched Hoyer. But it wasn’t his worst sequence on Monday night.
That came at the end of the first half when Hoyer squandered the team’s final drive. With no timeouts left on a third-and-9 at the Chiefs’ 13-yard line, Hoyer took a sack, something no quarterback should ever do. Though he attempted to call a timeout (showing his lack of awareness), the clock ran out. A three-point scoring opportunity slipped away.
Hoyer thought back to that final play of the first half.
“Josh (McDaniels) said to me in the helmet, ‘Let’s take a shot and no bad plays.’ Like I said, I looked, and I knew I was in the pocket, so I didn’t want to intentional ground,” Hoyer said after the game. “I’ve just got to do a better job of throwing over someone’s head.”
Bill Belichick was asked whether there was a communication error that led Hoyer to try to call a timeout.
“No, we were out of timeouts,” Belichick said.
The Patriots coach, who benched Hoyer in his second drive of the second half, said there was “not a lot” of consideration that the Patriots would pull the quarterback for Jarrett Stidham at halftime.
“We were down by three points and we had some missed opportunities in the first half,” Belichick said. “We tried to find ways to keep playing well. It was a three-point game.”
The fault for the loss hardly falls solely on Hoyer. As good as the defense played — and it was brilliant — cornerback J.C. Jackson and safety Devin McCourty each dropped a potential interception. Stidham threw two interceptions, one of which was the fault of receiver Julian Edelman. The second interception might have been a touchdown to Damiere Byrd if Stidham had placed the ball properly. Even the officials had their part, with referee Tony Corrente saying Patrick Mahomes’ progress was stopped for a sack, just a nanosecond before he threw an interception. Not only was the call wrong, but it made it impossible for the Patriots to challenge.
Did the Patriots feel like they had a chance to win but they let too many opportunities slip away?
“Yeah, for sure,” Hoyer said. “I look at it as I cost us at least six points,” he said. “I’ve got to do a better job there. We knew it was going to be a tough game that was going to go for 60 minutes. We had to be physical with them. I thought we did a good job, I thought the (offensive) line did a good job, obviously, running the ball, with protection. There were definitely missed opportunities there.”
With both quarterbacks missing plenty of opportunities, New England may have a hard decision to make when it determines which signal-caller starts in Week 5 against Denver while quarterback Cam Newton recovers from COVID-19.
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