Marcus Jones and the Patriots Secondary send New England to their first AFC Title Game since 2018

In what felt like a continuation of Wild Card weekend, the Patriots, a team who largely won games on high offensive output in the regular season, have now won in the postseason thanks to some lights out defensive performances. C.J. Stroud wasn't just bad, but all-time historically bad in the analogs of NFL postseason history. Four interceptions on a day where he was horrifically inacurate against the blitz sunk the Houston Texans, and while Drake Maye wasn't anything to write home on the whole either, he ultimately did enough to send the Patriots to their first AFC Championship Game since 2018.

Once again, far from perfect from an offensive standpoint, and it's going to be tough winning like this from here on out, but it's legitimately in play that the New England Patriots will represent the AFC in the Super Bowl; something that the most optimistic of fans didn't expect. Here's some a few quick thoughts on the big win.

Release the Hounds

The uptick in blitzes called by Zak Kuhr these last two weeks, compared to the regular season, has been one of the key elements of why the Patriots are now only a game away from a Super Bowl berth. The interesting thing is, looking at percentages, the sack and pressure rates the Patriots have generated the last two weeks are practically identical to their regular-season numbers, despite a 12.2 percent increase in blitz calls from regular to postseason play.

After the first few blitz calls by Kuhr didn't go super hot in the opening 18-ish minutes of action (Stroud went 3/4 for 24 yards, a TD, and two third-down conversions), but after the Christian Kirk score that made it 10-7, things couldn't have gone worse for one Coleridge Bernard Stroud. Back-to-back interceptions kicked things off right after that, and Stroud would only go on to complete two more passes against five or more rushers for the rest of the afternoon.

The interesting thing here is that the Patriots didn't get a single sack when they sent five or more, but again, two picks, probably could've/should've been more, and there was a near fumble off of one of the completions. Especially after how things started, Kuhr deserves props for sticking to the script, but the real key is that the Patriots had guys like K'Lavon Chaisson, Milton Williams, and Christian Barmore be productive on and off the stat sheet on those non-blitz snaps. Hard to say those don't go hand in hand.

Drake Maye's Turnover Woes Continue

Comfortably, the most disappointing aspect of this win was that we saw no improvement from last week in Drake Maye's ability to hang onto the ball in the pocket. Not going to blame him for the Hail Mary interception or Will Anderson's insta-pass rush win strip sack, but every other fumble in this game squarely falls on Maye's shoulders, and much to what Greg Bedard said postgame over on CLNS, this is a case of not correcting something crucial, and frankly, it was worse here than it was vs. the Chargers.

I can give some grace, given that the Texans have two Hall of Fame pass rushers in Anderson and Danielle Hunter, but at a certain point, you have come to terms with the fact that you don't have as much time to operate in the pocket as you'd like, and Maye had to be safer handling the ball and sensing backside pressure. While he deserves a ton of credit for three touchdown passes with a high degree of difficulty on each of them, this was a regression week over week for the second-year QB. Hard to win playoff games like this consistently, and that's amplified the further we get.

Forced into Surrender

While a win was the expected outcome for my money this week, seeing just how things ended for Houston was jarring. Firstly, that call to punt with four minutes to go was as much of a "waiving the white flag" moment as anything I've seen this postseason. The same thing can go for that last real drive the Patriots ran on offense, where they took 6:03 off the clock with over 11 minutes to go. Not that the Texans completely gave up defensively, since they did get into the backfield a few times, but they weren't as aggressive or as into the game as they were on that drive in the first half, and I think that showed.

That's all a credit to the Patriots by the way. This Texans defense deserves every shred of credit and praise they've gotten this year, and because of both the Patriots' offense and defense, they all but surrendered late. Obviously, this is a bit of an outlier because of just how bad Stroud was, but I can't say many teams did that to Houston this year. Don't take this run for granted folks.

Final Score: New England Patriots 28, Houston Texans 16

Gaffney's Three Stars from Patriots-Texans

1st Star: Carlton Davis (2 INTs, 1 Reception Allowed for 9 Yards on 7 Targets, 1 DPI Penalty)

2nd Star: Marcus Jones (Pick-Six, 3 Receptions Allowed for 62 Yards on 6 Targets, 1 TD Allowed)

3rd Star: K'Lavon Chaisson (1 Sack, 6 Pressures, 3 Stops, Hockey Assist on the Pick-Six)

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