Originally Posted by Deus Irae

Why would you have Bodden starting? It's certainly not because of stellar play on his part. Hell, he's still looking for Chad85 to try covering him.

Originally Posted by patfanken

TJ O'Sullivan was the best QB on the field last night. He made several very good throws in the face of some good pressure by the Pats.
Agreed; the TD & the overturned TD were excellent throws. I still haven't seen the OPI on that first one, though.

Clearly the bad tackling by the Pats tarnished a pretty good night by the defense, especially by the first unit and the packages that ran. But I can understand WHY the tackling was so bad. The Pats do VERY little live tackling in camp. In fact the ONLY live tackling I saw were one-on-one open field drills with each guy getting just one or two reps during the time allotted. I even understand WHY that's the policy. These days there is just too much money tied up in these players to risk an injury. What I DON'T understand is why they don't use the MANY tackling drills that AREN'T fully live, that would promote some of the fundamentals that we cleary DIDN'T see last night.

This is a pet peeve of mine, since I believe across the ENTIRE league, the level of tackling skills gets worse every year. This isn't just a Pats problem. On the plus side, as they do more live tackling in games, they will get better. Not good, just better.
The tackling was indeed piss-poor, again. This ***** needs to stop - now.

One the Brady sack - I'm assuming Kazcur is getting killed on the boards, however quite frankly (after looking at the tape more than a few times) I don't think it was entirely his fault. Clearly he looks inside FIRST, which allows Gathers to get by him untouched. You might notice that after the play he throws his arms up in surprise that no one else had him.

Later on the side line they caught Brady and Nick laughing and fist bumping. I THINK that either Brady or Koppen made a bad call at the LOS that caused the error, probably Brady. It was not a lack of talent, but communication. If anyone cared to look, on the very next play, Kaczur engages Gathers on another pass play and PANCAKES him.
I really hope that's all it was - a miscommunication easily correctable for the rest of the season. Because Brady can't afford to take many more of those hits.

Cincinnati has a pretty good team. They put decent pressure on the QB, and have good corners. On offense Benson likes like the real deal, while they have a WR corps that is as good as there is in the league (Chad, Coles, Henry) You can't help be impressed with the catches a couple of no names made and the back up RBs. People better not sleep on the Bengals this year. They might actually be as good IN the season, as they hype tthey get in the off season.
They looked pretty good to me, too. And the broadcasters - the PBP guy & Anthony Munoz & the sideline guy - sounded much better to me then the bozos last week. The challenge that the bungles face is the same, however - how do they handle adversity after they drop a couple in a row?

Its official, IMHO, the Pats have become the Colts. We no longer even look comfortable running the football. We are totally a finesse team who passes to set up the run. Virtually all of our running plays are delays or counters. Slow developing and not aggressively blocked. The toss sweep to Taylor was perhaps the only running play that was still left from the 2004 playbook.
Or 2003 playbook. Antowain ran the toss sweep a lot; Dillon not as much.

Running the football is a mind set, not just a play call. All you have to do is look at the kind of plays the Bengals were running and compare them the types of plays the Pats ran to see the difference. To see the difference in the COMMITMENT to the run. People may want to complain about the RBs or the OL, but I think the problem starts at the top.

Now that being said, I know I AM complaining about an offense that was 6th in the league WITHOUT the best QB in the leaue, and broke records WITH him. I also agree with the Football outsiders view that it is more efficient to move the ball thru the air than on the ground. However I also agree that the way to win games (especially in the northeast in winter) is to score with your passing game in the first 3 quarters, and seal it with a good ground game in the 4th. Right now I wonder if we are capable to pound the ball at a defense who is expecting us to pound the ball. Not only don't I think we have the right plays to do it, I don't think we have the right mind set. However I DO believe we have the right talent, both on the OL and in the backfield.
Sad, isn't it? The very same style for which we used to ridicule the 2001 Rams & '03-'04 Dolts, is now our base offense. My hope is that Fred Taylor changes this suicidal mindset in time for a post-Thanksgiving run. Who knows, maybe Bill will sign a true Lead Blocker by then...nahh.

KOC - I think in the first couple of series he was hamstrung by the play calling. However I liked the fact that he staying in the pocket against a heavy rush and ignored the instinct to take off and run. At the end of the half, when they got back in the shot gun, he did as well as expect. He might have done better if Edelman had run a smarter route on the 3rd down play.
I remember that catch, and was disappointed by it. One of those 2 did not execute correct situational football. And KOC's staying in-bounds to end the game was another bad example.

Hoyer - Looks like he'll make a fine PS QB, and might even develop enough over the next few years to find a place in the league for the long run, but he's not someone you want to actually get into a real game. I hope people see it.
Agreed.

I'm encouraged by the play of the secondary, especially Butler. There was a lot less separation by the receivers, even on completed passes, than there was last season. Even on the TD pass, Wheatly had his hand ON THE BALL, just a second late. You can see the need for improvement, but at least the amount of improvement that is needed, is in the realm of reality.
I'm not getting my hopes up for Wheatley.

Springs played like his name WAS Ron, and he was 50+. He looked as slow and unsure of himself as he did the first practice I saw him at. The possible good news is that he improved immensely the more he practced. I don't know how many practices he got in before this one, but I doubt it was many. Personally I hope that was the problem. However if there isn't a great improvement next week, then HE might be the surprise Vet that gets cut.
I doubt that Springs will be cut; there's nobody left on the street to replace him.

We aren't cutting ANY of our TEs. However trading one won't be out of the question. There are a number of teams who have had injuries at the position and SHOULD be willing to give up a 4th or 5th rounder for a legit TE. Smith would be my guess.
Mine, too. Damn, he looks bad.

Pryor keeps on impressing as well as Brace. Volmer less so, this game. He looked lost out and unsure of himself on occassion
Agreed, on all 3 players. But Pryor will be limited to 4-man fronts, wouldn't you say?

The 2 main Binkyiots, Chung and Edelman came back to earth. But neither changed his status on the team. Both are works in progress, and both will prove to be excellent STers this season.
I wouldn't use Chung as a PR, though.

Tully better find another move beside "run around the QB". Woods got a sack, but it was a coverage sack. Ninkovich showed me enough that he deserves another 2 weeks to see if he can find a place on the team. On the negative side, Burgess underwhelmed me AGAIN.
Completely agree. I can't recall any of our OLBs winning a 1-on-1 battle, exc. for maybe TBC early in the game.

Glad to see Ty Warren back, and when the 3 amigos are all together, it won't matter WHAT their alignment is. they'll be tough.
I'm pleasently surprised at the way Warren played. I had thought that he actually should've been a PUP candidate .

THere was some other stuff I commented on last night, but I forgot it, and this is long enough as it is. I await your comments

Originally Posted by robertweathers

Hard to argue at this point. If the season were to start today, you'd have Bodden on one side and Willhite/Butler on the other. Springs & Wheatley may step it up, but there is some distance there no question.

Originally Posted by patfanken

That's it. When you have a 3rd and 6 IIRC, you DON'T run a 4 yard sideline route, you run it at SIX yds. No big deal, it was a rookie mistake, on BOTH parts. Because if you have 6 yds to go, you don't throw it to a receiver who is 4 yds deep on the sideline. BTW- how often do we see experienced guys make the same mistake, eh Box

Originally Posted by patchick

I'm interested to get the DVR perspective on that play, because my impression at the time was that Edelman got the ball as a last-option dumpoff, that he was desperate to stay in bounds and pick up the final yards with running room ahead, but that the throw was so high it carried him out of bounds. That's not to say that he shouldn't have run the route deeper, but he looked very aware that he wasn't at the marker yet.

Originally Posted by patchick

I'm interested to get the DVR perspective on that play, because my impression at the time was that Edelman got the ball as a last-option dumpoff, that he was desperate to stay in bounds and pick up the final yards with running room ahead, but that the throw was so high it carried him out of bounds. That's not to say that he shouldn't have run the route deeper, but he looked very aware that he wasn't at the marker yet.