Patriots’ Josh McDaniels takes accountability for goal line struggles

Drake Maye joked that he would be willing to take a whiff of smelling salts in order to help the Patriots end their goal line woes. But offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels doesn’t believe they have to go to that extreme in order to solve their goal line and red zone issues.

McDaniels took some accountability for the Patriots’ inability to score from the 1-yard line over a six-play sequence in their Week 12 win over the Bengals on Friday. However, McDaniels also stressed that several things have to go right in order for New England to score in situations like it failed to do against Cincinnati.

“At the end of the day, that’s not an easy place to score from if you don’t execute a lot of little things well,” McDaniels told reporters on Friday. “There was one we probably shouldn’t have called based on the defense presented it. That was on me. We had the one where we scored and were called for [offensive pass interference]. So, there’s a lot of little things that have to happen to get 36 inches down there sometimes.

“I think we learned a very valuable lesson from watching the tape. There’s a lot we can do better in the short area, to try and get it in. We can’t take anything for granted down there, regardless of what the play is, or how many times we think we’ve repped it.”

In the six-play sequence, Maye threw two incompletions, although one was called for a defensive pass interference. There was also the play the Patriots scored on that was called back, thanks to an offensive pass interference on Mack Hollins. The other three plays were runs up the middle with Rhamondre Stevenson and Terrell Jennings that went for no gain.

That sequence, which ended in a turnover on downs, exploited one of the few weaknesses the 10-2 Patriots have this season. They were 20th in red zone scoring entering Week 13, turning 54.8 percent of their red zone trips into touchdowns.

“We certainly have to do a better job of converting those opportunities into touchdowns,” McDaniels said. “Those eventually determine the outcome of games. We were fortunate we weren’t on the losing end.”

That actually wasn’t the only instance in which the Patriots failed to score from within the 5-yard line in their win over the Bengals. They got a first-and-goal from the 4-yard line in the fourth quarter, including a third-and-goal play from the 1-yard line. But Maye was stuffed on a quarterback sneak on the third-down play.

Instead of going for it again on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel instantly made the call to go for a field goal to put the team up by 10 points and give them a crucial 10-point lead at the time.

McDaniels took no offense at Vrabel making that decision, saying, “I trust Mike and what he’s doing implicitly on every situation.”

“Without question, I have zero concerns about him making those choices because I think he has an incredible understanding of our team, where we’re at, what kind of game it is, and what do we need to do to win the game,” McDaniels said of Vrabel’s fourth-down decisions. “It’s not about having some sort of blind bravado or anything like that.”