ausbacker

Just work from the premise that a player in the front 7 is just rated on the amount of sacks they get in a year supafly. It takes the heart out of the need to justify being a well rounded defensive footballer.

RhodyPatriot

I'm not a big fan of arena football (that's what we saw last night in Miami, the other night in Green Bay)
Agree with you wholeheartedly about running the ball. It's like the Colts.....errrr Patriots learned nothing from the playoffs the last 2 years. They've got Brady in the game and throwing the ball with 3 minutes left. Ridiculous to put him at risk like that.
Brady throwing the ball 40+ times a game will get him killed at some point this year.

Saw some encouraging signs with the D/ love the line. Vince and Albert are going to be fun to watch this season.

DB's struggled but that's a group that I think will get better the more they play and play together.

Going to be a fun year.

betterthanthealternative

Random:

-There were a few times when Brady had as much time as he wanted to find a receiver. He could have been back there 10 or 12 seconds. Don't see that in the NFL often.

-Henne played better than 75% of the QB's we will face this year.

-Waters is a blessing. Who could have predicted this? Wow.

-How did Solder go from "high ceiling" to "very good" so quickly? Credit Dante (again).

-The interior DL rotation is the best we've had in decades. Pryor has quietly become a quality NFL player. Keep 'em healthy.

-I really hope Spikes gets his head together and comes back to play to his potential.

-When do we get to see the rookie RB's?

-Miami in Miami is a game I fear every year and it is great to have it out of the way already.

Halifax_Pats_Fan

I am always a buzz kill around here......and I will just say this. The Chargers are coming to town next week. The Jets, Eagles, Steelers....these are the teams we need to handle.

Does Miami totally suck....not really. Henne lit us up pretty good.

Let's see what next week brings. We measure ourselves against the best the league has to offer. That needs to be the bar. Where are we against those teams.

Either way that was an awesome game to watch. Just our tight ends man, they can make plays, holy crap. Hernandez made a couple real nice catches. Now we need some consistency, week in and week out, I think Welker said this in his presser.

Offensive line, did great. Awesome job. Brady's competitiveness...off the chart.

Stuart Scott asked Bru how much Brady has left in the tank...Bru pretty much laughed it off. That question should be on "come on man". Idiotic.

Great start to the season...

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It is what it is - BB

supafly

I've always thought as though Pryor had a lot of potential, and could be a good contributor. Great point in bringing that up, he looked good last night. I think he was having some bad back problems last yr, and that's why some were quick to write him off.

Great pt too in pointing out that the Miami (away) game is now done, that makes it a lot easier. Make the NYJ have to play there in the oppressive heat, but at least we got it out of the way.

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Patiently waiting to defend the next "bubble" player in this summer's training camp.....

Timbo717

Couple of things I liked (too much to list):

Haynesworth looked good. Should be even better once he gets out of the hot humidity and gets more conditioned. I think after seeing how Bill used him, it will really motivate him to work even harder because it is how he wants to be used.

Solder, Waters and Connolly all stepped up. Connolly stepping in for Koppen, Solder going up an elite pass rusher and Waters playing 69 out of 80 snaps and doing so well. We needed it, and they delivered. Need to get some depth now, but it is scary to think that Solder is still to be considered somewhat "raw".

TEs - Gronk played well obviously, and Hernandez made some very good athletic catches and ran well with the ball. Not great with the fumble, and hopefully that improves but if he can make catches like that more he is a great weapon.

Not so great but not the end of the world:

- Pass rush wasn't as epic as some of us thought it would be but to his credit Henne stepped up and made a couple of good throws while under immediate pressure.
- Secondary: Happy with Dowling and wish McCourty would've played better. Safety somewhat of an issue and I think Guyton just didn't do well with coverage. Fasano made an amazing catch when he was covering him but it didn't seem he was playing the ball as much as he could've been??

Again, I think Henne had some errant throws but he also made some very good ones. I think he is getting more confidence and with Marshall, Bush, Bess, and Fasano he has some decent weapons. We can give some credit to his OC, but the bottom line is you need to go out and make plays and he did that without a doubt.

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BSR

Overall, I think it was a good performance for a first game and I am happy with the win on the road against a division rival. The play was pretty sloppy, which was a consistent theme accross the league. Its that way every year but even more so this year because of the abbreviated offseason schedule and limited practices. In the end, this game is probably a very poor indicator of how they will play the rest of the year.

The most interesting take away from the game was that Dowling started opposite McCourty and seemed to do a decent enough job.

On the other side, Henne looked good especially under pressure which he was under much of the night. I saw him make several plays while taking hits. Plus he seemed accurate and made good decisions. I also can't believe he is as fast as he is. I remember this was my impression of him as well his first year as a starter. I don't see him enough to understand why he hasn't been more successful. Is it a consistency issue? Is it the players around him? Coaching?

ivanvamp

I haven't had a chance to read every post in the game thread or in any of the post-game threads, so maybe this is redundant. But I just re-watched the replay of Brady's interception. At the time it happened, my first reaction was "that's pass interference" because the Dolphin CB (Sapp?) clearly hit the receiver (Edelman) before the ball got there. It was that jarring that prevented Edelman from getting to the pass.

See: NFL Videos: Patriots vs. Dolphins highlights - start at the 2:02 mark for the highlight.

Obviously there was no PI called. Was that because it was ruled a lateral? Or because Branch was making contact with Sapp and they felt that Branch pushed Sapp into Edelman?

There was no explanation given for what was a no-call on obvious PI.

reflexblue

Well that was not exactly a stellar referring crew we saw last night. I think the ref was the same one that gave rapestburger the TD last year against the fish.

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PatsDeb

If you watch it, it looked like the Miami guy blocked Deion Branch into Edelman. Could it also be that it's considered a hand-off rather than a pass because it's behind the LOS? Either way, I hate that play and I wish BB and Brady would remove it from the playbook. It hardly ever goes for big yards (although David Givens used to execute it well), and there have been more fumbles/ints/loss of yards on it than I can count. I don't understand why they continue to use it.