Shockt327

1) The D had been making progress over the last 3 games. Yeah, Pit was bad for the D (more below). But against Dallas and against NYG our D actually looked way, way, way better. Certainly not dead last. In fact they looked good. Against two offenses that were good as well. I can already hear the complaining about the game losing drives -- but the biggest plays on each were PI calls. Personally, I'd say the Defensive outing against PIT had more to do with a poor gameplan that focused way too much on sending the interior ILBs -- which is rare for BB coached D. Because PIT plays a spread offense with routes that emphasize the technique of spacing; when our ILB blitzed, it left Heath Miller either wide open, or paired up 1-on-1 with a LB with little support. Big Ben's constant dump-offs to Miller was what killed the D. I was watching the game last night and even RAY LEWIS struggled when put in the same situation when his D blitzed. It's just a bad match up -- and not Patriots football.

Also, I really hope to see more Haynesworth. I really think this guy boosts the D. Also, he draws more holding calls than any other rusher. If the opposition is getting called for holding it's cause Fat Al is just flat out beating them.

2) Our O is not going to get beat the same way each week for the rest of the season. With that being said, have you noticed how The Steelers D and the Giants D took a page (or, like, 20 pages) out of Rex Ryan's playbook? I mean both teams put their own spin on it, but so much of the emphasis was on man coverage, while constantly sending overload blitz schemes. It's pretty obvious that *that's* the new league wide consensus of how to beat the Pats. For years it was soft zone, rush 4 and blitz sparingly, in order to try and limit YAC. Now it's like we're seeing teams copy the Jets. The Giants did a fair job of mixing in zone, but OMG, the Steelers pretty much copied the Jets playbook the same way Rex Ryan xeroxed the Ravens playbook. This isn't a bad thing for our O. Bill Belichick is not the type of coach that is going to get beat with variations of the same gameplan for the duration of a season. And when the originators of this approach, like NYJ and Balt, see the Pats again; they'll have more familiarity.

Also, the fact that elite defenses like PIT and NYG are so willing to change their own style just on account of Brady shows that (1) opposing teams know this offense is legit, even if our fanbase doubts it (2) The tatic of surprise is totally gone, because these teams are 'shooting their wad' way, way, way too early in the year. (3) The more Brady/Belichick sees of it, the more prepared they'll be. And they will be prepared. And then opposing teams will have to go back to the drawing board.