Flatout

http://www.nbcsports.com/portal/site...tcurrchannel=1
I thought this was pretty interesting. Curran is one of the better reporters who actually knows about the game and knows the Pats and BB well enough to pick up something like this. If he says it I would tend to believe it.

What do you guys think?

FrontSeven

I feel a bit uncomfortable with the notion that they held back defensive looks in a playoff game. I know that the vanilla argument may be true, but I just feel uncomfortable with the idea that it was missing by some sneakiness instead of some pragmatic reasons.

Perhaps the age of the LBs and Colvin's injury has something to do with that, or perhaps they still miss Ty Law. I don't know. I just think that it's iffy to presume that they are holding something back that they didn't show in Indy or in a playoff game.

Fencer

The Pats sure used a couple of trick plays on offense -- not just the fake direct snap, but also the fake Evans plunge that turned into a pitch.

moosekill

Feel uncomfortable all you want. They didn't blitz at all, until late in the game against the giants, they haven't shown anything at all special defensively, or offenisvely since the Pittsburgh game, the last game that mattered at all, and last night they played a very vanilla game. So for more than a month they haven't shown anything whatsoever to anyone who will be preparing for them. Seems pretty smart to me.

Cannon Arm

It wasn't that the Pats held back defensively, period. It was that they went into it thinking they could get away with it and that if things got out of hand, that they could go to that option. The game never dictated the need to get fancy on defense. Also, if you get fancy, you can give up big plays on gambling that way. Belichick thought the Pats D could just be patient and wait for mistakes by Garrard, just like with Eli Manning and other QBs we dealt with who almost did what they needed to do... almost. Belichick merely wanted to win the game. No blowout was necessary to him.

__________________
"He said he was bringing something for Rodney Harrison. I don't know. Maybe it was the two dropped passes."

arrellbee

I don't know. There might be something to the idea of holding some defensive sets 'back' so as not to tip their hand for next week.

I think I would be much more inclined to figure that the Patriots were simply employing a base defense that they figured would give them the best chance to limit the Jags. You have to admit that it worked pretty well. To limit the RB tandem to 66 yards total ? What would you do differently than that ??

Perhaps if the Jags were having more success running the ball you would have seen some adjustments to more 'exotic' defensive sets ? Don't think Belichick is into the approach of looking forward to next weeks game -----

Also perhaps it is pertinent to consider that 'fancier' defenses are also more subject to being exploited if the offensive play call happens to run at the weakness of such a defense. Dunno. Bend but not break seemed to work fairly well again. Let's see what next week brings.

Edit: LoL. After this posted, read Cannon's post. Seems we have a similar thought -