Patriots Boat Race the Panthers After a Slow Start, Thanks to Marcus Jones' Return Game Excellence

One play will never win or lose you a game in pro sports, but one can always be the start of something big, and in football, that can especially apply on the special teams front. The Patriots experienced that first-hand thanks to Marcus Jones' sensational punt return score that got them out of an early first-quarter rut. From there, New England throttled Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers for the ensuing 50 minutes and change as they put up 40-plus points in a game for the first time in nearly four full seasons.

Vibes, as you can imagine, are sky high as the Patriots gear up for their biggest test of the year against the Buffalo Bills next Sunday night, but let's go back and go over the laundry list of things that ended up going right for New England yesterday.

Game Changing Plays

It cannot be overstated how much this punt return score, much like the blocked extra point return later in the day by Dallas vs. Green Bay, completely flipped the momentum in this game. 42 straight points, Carolina only made one trip into the red zone for the rest of the game, and that return for Marcus Jones became contagious because he was maybe one (1) Carolina Panthers punter away from a second.

Hindsight is 20-20, and Jones did nothing wrong in the moment or in general, but he probably could've shaken the punter inside and stuck to the sideline and been good here. Of course, no harm, no foul since the Patriots only needed four plays to get into the endzone after that second return, but what a day for Jones. The 167 total punt return yards Jones put up aren't only a single-game franchise record, but good for the 15th most ever put up in a single NFL game.

Christian Gonzalez's Return Outing

It wasn't exactly a shutdown outing for Christian Gonzalez in his return, giving up a couple of "smaller" chunk plays to Tet McMillan on an island, but no restrictions in terms of his snaps, and simply getting him out there on a guy like Tet McMillian for about a dozen snaps is a good starting point, and ultimately a good setup going into a matchup with Buffalo who doesn't have anyone on the boundary who's as dynamic as him.

More than Meets the Eye with Christian Barmore

Sunday was a very unorthodox, great outing for one Christian Barmore. Zero tackles, zero sacks, but he had five pressures on 20 pass rush snaps, racking up a pass rush win rate of 25%, and pass rush grade of 79.1 per PFF.

Mike Vrabel was quick to praise his fifth-year interior defender on Monday, and I liked what he said about not wanting Barmore to be too hard on himself for not getting on the statsheet, because by all acounts he was one of the five best Patriots on the field yesterday, and it clearly wasn't an effort issue as to why he wasn't getting into the traditional stat collums.

Drake Maye's Hyper-Efficient Afternoon and Diggs' Breakout

On just 17 pass attempts, Drkae Maye had one of the most efficient QB outings of the last three years, becoming just the seventh quarterback to put up an EPA per dropback of .95 or greater since 2023, joining Lamar Jackson (twice), Brock Purdy, Jared Goff, Tua, and, believe it or not, Drew Lock. I will also note that Maye did cross the 20 EPA mark despite just 17 throws, becoming only the fourth QB of 2025 to do so, joining Goff from Week 2, Jordan Love, and Dak Prescott from last night.

A big reason for Maye's big day (outside of the Panthers defense keeling over by the second quarter) was that we did, in fact, get Stefon Diggs involved as a downfield factor, picking up a pair of chunk plays on Mike Jackson, who had been really good before Sunday, and then one on a deep in against a standard cover three look. The 4th Down fade down the sideline was nothing short of a thing of beauty.

You could make the argument he slightly pushes off if you really wanted to get nitpicky (plenty of fair hand checking here in my view), but Diggs does an excellent job getting a release win to the outside and all but ensures he's going to have virtually no shot to make a play on this ball by the time he gets his turned around—nice time to get Diggs warmed up, too. Sunday night is his first time back in Buffalo since Kansas City ended its season in January of 2024 in a game where he only got three grabs for 21 yards. I can't imagine he'll be getting a warm reception, but it should make for a fun atmosphere.

Final Score: New England Patriots 42, Carolina Panthers 13

Gaffney's Three Stars from Patriots-Panthers:

1st Star: Marcus Jones (3 Punt Returns for 167 Yards and a TD)

2nd Star: Drake Maye (14/17 for 203 Yards and a TD, 3 Rushes for 11 Yards and a TD)

3rd Star: Christian Barmore (5 Pressures on 20 Pass Rush Snaps with a 25% Pass Rush Win Rate)

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