FOXBOROUGH — When Rhamondre Stevenson flipped the ball to Jakobi Meyers, who tried to throw it back to Mac Jones but was picked off by Chandler Jones, it wasn’t just a disastrous play that cost the Patriots the game last Sunday, and potentially their season.
It was a surprising breakdown in the chain of command. With just three seconds on the clock in a tie game, the Patriots called a draw play to Stevenson — “a play just to kind of run the time out, just get down,” Stevenson said.
By all accounts, there were no orders from Bill Belichick or Matt Patricia to lateral the ball and try to create a scoring play.