rlcarr

Muth covered the NE OL this time. Sadly (and expectedly from what we saw watching the game), not as much good news for the NE OL as usual...

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Word of Muth: Don't Underset Aldon Smith

Rob0729

As usual? Are you saying Ben Muth usually trashes the Pats' o-line or are you implying that the Pats' o-line usually plays like crap. If you are talking the latter, I couldn't disagree more. For what has been a makeshift o-line all year, the o-line has been pretty good for most of it.

PP2

This is excellent analysis. Muth isn't trashing the O-line. He actually recognizes Solder's oblique injury has disrupted his game. He just singles out ONE occasion where the 49ers defense played very well to what they recognized which is another way of saying, look, this was an excellent, top-rated defense the Patriots have just played.

rlcarr

He usually sings the praises of the NE OL.

Shockt327

Yeah. It's a great write-up. He thinks Solder played well (after some early struggles). But was left alone vs. Smith too often.

rlcarr

Interesting bit of trivia from the comment thread on that post:

Welkerstache

See you in the Big Easy, SF.

Just. Bring. It.

patsfan13

During the early parts of the game the Pats OL wasn't able to cope with the Speed of the SF DL (and and were caught on a couple of stuns when DT Smith held the Pats G allowing DE Smith to get to Brady.

Later in the game the Pats adjusted and negated the SF DL for the most part.

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."