Iron Helmet

Was rewatching the game on NFL Network (only made it through half before I had to stop), but I heard that Spagnuolo's strategy was to have 2 defensive plays ready. His D would show 1, and after Brady made his O-Line adjustments, his D would run the another. Did anyone else hear this? Thoughts?

signbabybrady

That is pretty common it is called disguising coverages

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Watson's IQ

All defenses do this to some extent or another. Our D does it all the time.

Spags didn't reinvent the wheel out there, he just came up with a great gameplan and his players executed it. That's what it takes.

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dhamz

He called a good game but the real credit beongs to that Dline.

At the end of the day, the calls weren't the reason Justin Tuck beat Logan Mankins who was the best interior lineman in the league like he was a HS kid down after down.

Iron Helmet

Did anyone hear exactly what he was saying on the sideline during the film?

He obviously called a great game and we lost a lot of one on ones, but there was something more going on than that. I believe his post Brady adjustments at the LOS were the key.

Thats why I want confirmation on the comments made about Spags confirmed/elaborated on.

Keegs

This is pretty common.

It's a very deceptive defensive strategy called "not running the same defensive plays every snap".

It usually works very well.

It throws the other team off guard in way, because if they were expecting to see the same defense every play, they wont.

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Iron Helmet

I was under the impression from watching the film that they were changing the defensive call after Brady made his line adjustments based on what he saw.

In effect allowing the Oline to be assigned blocking schemes by Tom, then going to a radically different play immediately there after.

A bit different from faking an A gap blitz and dropping into coverage versus faking an A gap blitz and blitzing the B gap instead.

Keegs

yeah it's also not very similar to a 3 technique 2 A gap b-presence middle linebacker with dropback responsibilities.

I won't get into that though. I don't want to confuse everyone here with my vast football knowledge.

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Fencer

When the opposing defense manages to confuse Brady -- which happens in some games -- why not go to extremes like the hurry-up or a power-plus-Moss set?

DocE

If the Patriots were being bothered by this strategy, going to the 5 WR/no back set would have alleviated the problem. I thought we would go in to this game and run a ton of empty backfield sets and go no huddle frequently. This would have limited the Giants options defensively and forced them to put more db's on the field (where they were weak). For those that say we couldn't pass protect in this formation, I'd counter by saying that usually Brady gets the ball out quick out of an empty set. The Pats usually attack the short or middle areas of the field, rather than use deeper routes out of that formation.