LONDON — Welcome to the Friday Five, English edition!

Each week during the NFL regular season, I’ll drop five Patriots-related thoughts on Friday to recap the week in Foxboro and look ahead to kickoff.

Ready, set, football.

1. Great first quarters

The Patriots opened practice this week with an unusual stretch.

The starting offense faced the starting defense in the red zone. Full speed, full contact, full throttle.

The idea, Jerod Mayo explained Wednesday morning, was to jump-start one of the slowest-starting teams in the NFL and address another area where the Pats have been struggling. Offensively, they score touchdowns on a league-low 35.7% of their trips inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. Defensively, life isn’t much better, with a tied-10th-worst touchdown percentage allowed in the red zone.

As for their slow start, the Patriots trailed Houston 14-0 after the first quarter last weekend and dug double-digit holes against the Jets and 49ers at halftime. Overall, they are allowing almost as many points in the first half (11.3 points per game) as they are scoring per game (13.8).

It’s tough to win like this in general in the NFL, but especially as a run-first offense with pass protection issues.

2. Maye King’s Period

Drake Maye’s performances off the schedule were some of the most impressive he made in his starting debut last weekend. Maye gained 30 yards on an unplanned pitch-and-catch with tight end Hunter Henry and scrambled for 11 yards on another extended play. On dropbacks where he held the ball for more than 2.5 seconds, Maye achieved a first down 42% of the time, compared to 28% when he lost the ball in 2.5 seconds.

Most of all, Maye’s ability to escape and stay alive plays a role in helping a receiving corps that has trouble separating.

Because, as Patriots defensive end Jonathan Jones put it to me this week, “You know, if you can give (receivers) six seconds, at some point even Grandma will open up.” They don’t need a lot of space, the way these quarterbacks can throw the ball. The quarterbacks are getting outside the pocket, and as a defensive back, I know the whole world is angry, but I don’t think you can even defend Grandma forever.

3. Play-action attack

Under offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, the Patriots offense is designed to generate explosive plays with deep action shots.

So far, thanks to issues at quarterback, receiver and pass protection, the Pats haven’t completed a single deep pass-off play. While Maye’s arm has breathed new life into the offense, play-action dropbacks are still relatively new for the former college quarterback who worked exclusively from the shotgun. Maye said this week that he’s feeling more comfortable making those drops — his footwork has shown marked improvement in recent months — but the ability to read a defense a second time after making a play- has turned its back on fake is another challenge.

Callahan: The Patriots are making more changes after Drake Maye, so who’s next?

“Our defense does a good job of flipping coverages and changing shot after shot, and that’s something I’m really starting to understand and learn,” Maye said this week. “The image that I see when I first get the snap, compared to when I turn around and look at it, may be different. So if I’m just trying to find my checkdowns or find an outlet, that’s going to be something that I will find friendly Then try to exploit them with matchups.’

Last year, the Browns passed for the fourth-most yards in the league outside of play with Van Pelt. This season, the Patriots have the fewest completions and the second-fewest passing yards out of action. Expect to see more bombs on Sunday, thanks to Maye’s comfort and Jacksonville allowing more completions and yards vs. play action than any defense in the NFL, according to Sports Info. Solutions.

4. Underdog history

The Jaguars are 5.5-point favorites heading into Sunday’s game, the first time since 2006 they have been favored to beat the Pats.

At the time, the Patriots held on for a 24-21 victory in Jacksonville on Christmas Eve to capture the AFC East title. Tom Brady’s leading receiver was rookie tight end David Thomas, who had 83 yards and a touchdown. Meanwhile, Mayo was a young linebacker in college in Tennessee and Maye was just four years old.

Before that regular-season victory, the Jags were last favored over the Patriots in a 1999 Wild Card playoff game. At kickoff, more than half of the Patriots’ current players were not yet born.