The Patriots are heading down to Central Florida, where a rested Tampa Bay Buccaneers team awaits them for a Sunday afternoon showdown at Raymond James Stadium.

Although it extended its winning streak to six games last week, New England is coming off a one-point home victory over the Falcons that almost felt like a loss, leading to head coach Mike Vrabel saying, "We're going to learn from winning so that we don't have to learn from losing."

As much as you want to keep an ugly win, which was still a win, in perspective, we're leading off our preview for the second consecutive week discussing QB Drake Maye taking sacks at nearly a league-high rate. After being sacked six times last week, Maye has now been sacked 34 times this season, the second-most in the NFL behind only Titans rookie Cam Ward (38). Maye is being sacked on 10.7% of his drop-backs, 30th among 32 qualified QBs, and has the second-highest pressure-to-sack rate (27.4%).

The second-year quarterback has put himself in the MVP conversation due to his outstanding play. However, the final hurdle in his development is managing his time in the pocket more wisely. To his credit, Maye has been very good at moving the chains after taking a sack. Following his six sacks last week, the Patriots offense moved the chains four times, which is remarkable. Still, being behind schedule is a tough way to live in the NFL, and some of the sacks on the quarterback seem avoidable.

"A lot of the sacks I have taken have been my fault," Maye said this week. "Just trying to get the football to the guys running the routes because they're better players than I am with the ball in their hands. It's just knowing the faster that I get the ball out and into their hands the better it is for the guys up front, for me, and the Patriots organization. At the end of the day, try to stick the point of the play and if something breaks down, just keep playing like myself."

This week, Maye will face the blitz-happy Bucs defense under head coach Todd Bowles. Tampa Bay has the fourth-highest pressure rate (39.8%), the seventh-highest blitz rate (35%), and is tied for eighth in sacks (25). The Bucs come after quarterbacks; it's Bowles' thing. Last Sunday, another pressure-heavy defense in Atlanta threw the kitchen sink at the Patriots with 23 blitzes on 40 drop-backs (57.5%). Although he's been good against the blitz this season, you know Tampa Bay is watching Maye take 12 combined sacks over the last two games, some of which were his own doing, and is preparing to come after him on Sunday.

From a Patriots perspective, seeing how Maye responds is the fun part about him hitting some adversity. The Pats QB is very good at taking coaching to improve week-to-week, so there's little doubt that Vrabel and OC Josh McDaniels are working with him tirelessly on taking fewer sacks to avoid putting the offense behind the sticks. In Tampa Bay, Maye will face one of the league's best pass rushes — we'll see how he does.

Let's break down the chess match between the Patriots and Buccaneers ahead of Sunday's trip to Tampa Bay for a Week 10 tilt.

Patriots Offense Key: Prep for Bucs HC Todd Bowles' Exotic Blitz Package

The words that come to mind when thinking about the Bucs head coach as a defensive schemer are pressure, pressure, and more pressure.

Tampa Bay's defense ranks seventh in total DVOA (sixth against the run, seventh against the pass), and Bowles is very good at disguising blitzes. Unlike other defensive schemes with one or two base coverages, the Bucs don't have many coverage tendencies, with the sixth-highest disguised coverage rate in the NFL (25.5%). Tampa Bay's most used coverage is cover-three, but they only call it 33.1% of the time, which ranks near the middle of the pack. This is the definition of a "spin the dial" defense with coverage and pressures coming from all different directions.

As for their personnel, NT Vita Vea is an elite interior rusher, while EDGE Yaya Diaby leads the team in pressures (28). The Bucs also have a great secondary: CB Jamel Dean is Pro Football Focus's top-ranked corner, fourth-year CB Zyon McCollum is solid on the other side, and NCB Jacob Parrish is a promising rookie who was one of my draft crushes. At safety, Antione Winfield Jr. is an elite ball-hawker, and Tykee Smith is a great blitzer and run defender in the box – this is a very good defense.

Sunday's game for QB Drake Maye isn't a matter of if he'll be under pressure, but rather a chess match of how he can handle pressure. For example, Bowles is well-known for running his pressure package out of mug fronts, where he has two standup linebackers line up in the A-Gaps to simulate pressure. At the snap, LBs Lavonte David and Sirvocea Dennis play a cat-and-mouse game with the offensive line.

In this clip, the Bucs drop both linebackers out to form a standard four-man rush in man coverage. David takes the running back out of the backfield while Dennis falls into a low-hole help zone to close off the middle of the field. Lions QB Jared Goff tries to throw the flat vs. man coverage first, but it's well defended by Winfield, and Dennis's zone drop eliminates the backside crosser, forcing Goff to hold the football. Due to the pressure disguise, the Bucs defensive line has three 1-on-1s, and Diaby strip-sacks Goff on third down.

Along with playing man coverage behind their mug fronts, the Bucs will mix it up by playing zone structures. This time, Dennis and Diaby drop into the quarters coverage. David blitzes to occupy the center, and the Bucs bring Smith on a safety blitz, overloading the right side of the Lions O-Line for a huge sack on first down. To repeat, they brought a disguised safety blitz on first down, speaking to Bowles' willingness to dial up pressure.

The obvious question for the Patriots offense is, how does Maye and company beat Tampa's blitzes? The good news is that Maye has been terrific, ranking fourth against the blitz in EPA per drop-back. Maye typically beats the blitz thanks to OC Josh McDaniels giving him easy answers, which is how the Lions eventually generated some positive offense in a win over the Bucs in Week 7, or by extending the play.

For example, the Bucs bring another quarters pressure with LB Deion Jones blitzing from over the slot. Goff drops back from under center, and the Lions run off the coverage to his right, opening the flat for RB Jahmyr Gibbs. Dennis has to cover the flat from a two-man short zone distribution with the Bucs blitzing, so he has a lot of ground to cover, and ends up over-pursuing, inviting a cutback for Gibbs to hit an explosive play.

Tampa Bay's aggressiveness can also make them vulnerable to play-action and misdirection. The Bucs surrender 10.3 yards per play-action pass attempt, the third-most in the NFL.

Above, the Bucs run a replacement pressure where Smith blitzes from over the tight end to the quarterback's left, and EDGE Anthony Nelson drops off the line into the short zone distribution of an inverted cover two zone. Saints QB Spencer Rattler gets a good blitz pickup from RB Alvin Kamara to keep his eyes downfield to hit WR Chris Olave in the honey hole for a 28-yard gain.

After struggling to manage pressure last week, the Patriots offense will be put to the test against a stingy Buccaneers defense on Sunday.

Patriots Defense Key: Is More Man Coverage Coming vs. the Bucs Vertical Passing Game?

Moving over to the Tampa Bay offense, the Bucs started the year red-hot with QB Baker Mayfield in the MVP conversation in the first six weeks of the season.

Since he arrived in Tampa Bay in 2023, Mayfield is on his third coordinator in three years because he keeps helping his OCs get head coaching gigs. Mayfield's first coordinator, Dave Canales, is now the head coach in Carolina, while Liam Coen rode Mayfield's career rival to land the Jaguars head coaching job last offseason. Now, Josh Grizzard is calling plays for Tampa Bay's offense after joining the staff from Miami in 2024. Although they're running the same West Coast system, each play-caller has their own twist on things.

In the first six weeks of the season, Mayfield had the Bucs averaging 27.5 points per game at 5-1. The former No. 1 overall pick completed 66.2% of his passes with a 12-1 touchdown to interception ratio, ranking seventh in EPA per drop-back (+0.23). However, injuries to Mayfield's top receivers, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, saw his game slip over the last two weeks. In the Bucs last two games before their bye, Mayfield's efficiency dropped to -0.44 EPA per drop-back with just a 58.1% completion rate.

In their loss to the Lions in Week 7, Evans broke his collarbone, knocking the future Hall of Famer out for the foreseeable future. Godwin re-aggravated a leg injury stemming from a season-ending dislocated ankle that cut his 2024 season short. Tampa Bay has also been without lead-back Bucky Irving (foot) and starting RT Luke Goedeke. The injuries to key contributors have left the offense short-handed. In recent weeks, Mayfield has been throwing to rookie WR Emeka Egbuka, TE Cade Otton, and first-year WR Tez Johnson, while veteran Sterling Shephard has been their third receiver.

Tampa Bay's offensive line has also been pedestrian this season, ranking 16th in pass-blocking win rate and 28th in run-blocking win rate. The Bucs are a downhill running team that still calls many of the same runs they did under former head coach Bruce Arians (duo, power, counter/trap). They've had mixed results in the run game, producing a 37.2% success rate on the ground (24th in the NFL). As a result, there has been a lot on Mayfield's shoulders while his supporting cast is banged up.

In the passing game, the Bucs are mostly a vertical-based passing system, which suits Mayfield, who has great arm talent. The Bucs QB has the second-highest rate of vertical pass attempts (23.4%) and the fourth-highest rate of out-breaking route attempts (36.1%). Mayfield also extends plays well and ranks fourth in EPA added on scrambles (+19.1). Schematically, Tampa Bay likes to run its offense out of condensed formations. More specifically, they're running bunch/trips formations at the second-highest rate. After the Patriots struggled in the red zone with sorting out two-receiver stacks and bunch alignments vs. the Falcons, one would expect Tampa Bay to test them on those coverages this week.

For example, you see a lot of 3x1 concepts by the Bucs with Egbuka coming in short motion to gain favorable leverage into his route. The talented rookie motions into the formation before releasing upfield into a flood concept, where the vertical clears out the sideline for Egbuka to run the deep out, and the tight end runs into the flat to give the concept three levels. Between the motion causing traffic and Egbuka's route-running, the first-rounder wins against man coverage for a chunk play.

However, one possible strategy to slow down the Bucs passing offense is man coverage. Although they've dialed up some solid man-beaters on film, Tampa Bay's depleted receiving corps is struggling to beat man coverage consistently. Out of 32 qualified passers, Mayfield is 31st in EPA per drop-back (-0.36) and yards per attempt (4.3) vs. man coverage.

Mayfield targets similar areas of the field as Falcons QB Michael Penix, which suggests that both quarterbacks are near the bottom of the league in terms of efficiency against man coverage. We have more faith in a veteran quarterback like Mayfield hitting open receivers between the numbers, while Tampa Bay's scheme attacks the middle of the field more than Atlanta's offense. Still, using a similar blueprint of dictating matchups to test the Bucs ability to beat man coverage could work again this week.

Without his star receivers, Mayfield has been erratic at times throwing the ball to fresh faces, so one would think that the Patriots will challenge Tampa Bay's receivers on Sunday.

Key Matchups

CB Christian Gonzalez vs. Bucs WR Emeka Egbuka

Egbuka is well on his way to being the next star receiver out of Ohio State. He's explosive, runs routes with great pacing, is adept at varying his stride lengths to attack leverage, understands how to find space vs. zone, and is strong at the catch point. He runs mostly go routes, outs, corners, and digs as the intermediate threat in the Bucs offense. This should be a fun matchup with Gonzo, similar to when Gonzalez shadowed Cardinals WR Marvin Harrison Jr. during his rookie season.

C Garrett Bradbury/LG Jared Wilson vs. Bucs DT Vita Vea

The two-time Pro Bowler has rare ragdoll power, which you don't see often at this level. He's a menacing bull-rusher, a problem on line stunts, is quick into blocks as a run defender, and complements his raw power with an effective swim move. Tampa Bay lines him up mainly shaded in the A-Gaps with some reps straight-up over the guard, but Vea doesn't usually align head-up on the center. Vea's a size mismatch for Bradbury and Wilson, so the Pats will need a plan for managing those matchups.

LT Will Campbell vs Bucs EDGE Yaya Diaby

Campbell is grading out as the top rookie pass-protector this season, and was solid last week vs. Atlanta. This week, he'll face Diaby, who leads the Bucs with four sacks and 28 total pressures. Diaby is a long rusher with nearly 34-inch arms who plays with raw power and a nice ghost/rip as a secondary rush move. It'll be another good measuring stick game for Campbell.

Pats Safeties/Linebackers vs. Bucs TE Cade Otton

Without Evans and Godwin, Otton has become one of Mayfield's chain-movers on third down. The Bucs run him on option-style routes underneath the defense. He's very good at using his frame to bump defenders off his routes, boxing out at the catch point, and has some wiggle after the catch. Over his last four games, Otton ranked second among tight ends with 88 yards after the catch. Last week, S Craig Woodson covered Falcons TE Kyle Pitts in man coverage situations, so the rookie safety could be on Otton this week.

DISCLAIMER: The views and thoughts expressed in this article are those of the writer and don't necessarily reflect those of the organization. Read Full Disclaimer