Anyone miss Asante Samuel? Anyone still wants Lito?

[MoLewisrocks]

Well, I don't know about you guys but that was a really interesting game to watch.

Entertaining might be a better word. And the talking heads love entertainment. It fuels ratings and gives them lots to babble about. Bill doesn't coach this team to entertain. He prefers they execute, which is boring to watch (and difficult to babble about) for all but hardcore football fans.

 

[Deus Irae]

I've heard that before... only I'm not easily seduced. Years of Belichick have actually altered my perception of/read of what constitutes a championship caliber football team for the better...


Bill puts this team in a posistion to capitalize on mistaked made by undisciplined teams like these. Remember the Buffalo Dallas game last year? Dallas giddily shook off that near disaster and went on ONCE AGAIN to one and done in the playoffs because they never correct the mistakes in favor of just glossing over them. Same deal in Philly.

None of that matters. Right now, today, the 3 best teams of this early season are in the NFC. Green Bay, Philadelphia and Dallas are all playing much better football than the Patriots. They'd crush New England if they were playing this week. O'Neal doesn't have the defense down yet, Rodney is still struggling with the elite tight ends and Mayo is still learning the game. It's not as if the defense could have kept either Philly or Dallas to 10, or even 20, points last night. As fr the offense, we all know it's a work in progress. Let's not kid ourselves: the Patriots aren't ready to face the NFL elite right now.

Fortunately, New England has time to get its offensive house in order before it plays the tougher games on the schedule. The Patriots should be 4-0, and have had a bye week on top of those four wins to prepare for the tougher games to follow. We know the Patriots aren't going to be bottom feeders, and we'll start to see where this New England team really fits in the NFL hierarchy starting with the Chargers game.

 

[BradyFTW!]

More than unstoppable offenses, I saw crappy defenses last night. Who lets receivers get so open so frequently? Every other play someone was deep in the secondary with nobody within 15 feet of him.

 

[Bella*chick]

Oh, wow, Dallas looks unstoppable early in the season. Superbowl all the way! Romo sapiens abound!

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Yawn.


It's astonishing how each year replays itself.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

None of that matters. Right now, today, the 3 best teams of this early season are in the NFC. Green Bay, Philadelphia and Dallas are all playing much better football than the Patriots. They'd crush New England if they were playing this week. O'Neal doesn't have the defense down yet, Rodney is still struggling with the elite tight ends and Mayo is still learning the game. It's not as if the defense could have kept either Philly or Dallas to 10, or even 20, points last night. As fr the offense, we all know it's a work in progress. Let's not kid ourselves: the Patriots aren't ready to face the NFL elite right now.

Fortunately, New England has time to get its offensive house in order before it plays the tougher games on the schedule. The Patriots should be 4-0, and have had a bye week on top of those four wins to prepare for the tougher games to follow. We know the Patriots aren't going to be bottom feeders, and we'll start to see where this New England team really fits in the NFL hierarchy starting with the Chargers game.

Would that be the 0-2 Chargers...

Your allowing points scored to seduce you. Defense wins championships. And we don't face any of those teams until February, and the last time one of them made it that far we came away winners.

No love for the 'gints, eh? LOL Only two of the teams you named has faced any of your so called NFL elite thus far this season, and while one of them lost it was a tossup all evening as to who deserved to more...

We see this every year and people never learn their lesson. The sixth seed in the NFC turned out to be the best team in the NFC in week 20. With a meathead QB even his own fans boo'd for much of the season because he hamstrung his own offense. Finally when Shockey went down the entire team (including defense) rallied around him like some wounded creature, he limited his mistakes and managed games to first do no harm, and the rest as they say is (unfortunately) history. In building their blueprint they took more than one page out of Belichick's book.

And while we're at it the greatest show on turf says hi...

 

[O.Z.O.]

None of that matters. Right now, today, the 3 best teams of this early season are in the NFC. Green Bay, Philadelphia and Dallas are all playing much better football than the Patriots. They'd crush New England if they were playing this week. O'Neal doesn't have the defense down yet, Rodney is still struggling with the elite tight ends and Mayo is still learning the game. It's not as if the defense could have kept either Philly or Dallas to 10, or even 20, points last night. As fr the offense, we all know it's a work in progress. Let's not kid ourselves: the Patriots aren't ready to face the NFL elite right now.

Fortunately, New England has time to get its offensive house in order before it plays the tougher games on the schedule. The Patriots should be 4-0, and have had a bye week on top of those four wins to prepare for the tougher games to follow. We know the Patriots aren't going to be bottom feeders, and we'll start to see where this New England team really fits in the NFL hierarchy starting with the Chargers game.

Philadelphia beat the sh*t out of a terrible Rams team at home and showed last night that they are defensively susceptible to a team with a good offense. the Cowboys beat a lousy Browns team (sorry Romeo, but you're going 4-12 this year) and showed that they are susceptible defensively to a team with a good offense. San Diego has a LOUSY defense and Captain Class' health is an issue. I don't consider them an upper echelon team at the moment (they could well be 0-3 after this week).

With the way the defense is playing right now, I'm confident that the Pats can hold their own against anybody at this point.

 

[Deus Irae]

Would that be the 0-2 Chargers...

Yes, that would be the 0-2 Chargers that actually won last week but got hosed on a call.

Your allowing points scored to seduce you. Defense wins championships. And we don't face any of those teams until February, and the last time one of them made it that far we came away winners.

No, I'm not allowing points scored to seduce me. I'm using logic and common sense. New England's offense is not good enough to go score for score with the elite teams right now.

No love for the 'gints, eh? LOL Only two of the teams you named has faced any of your so called NFL elite thus far this season, and while one of them lost it was a tossup all evening as to who deserved to more...

And here you make my point about evaluating based upon only the one game.

We see this every year and people never learn their lesson. The sixth seed in the NFC turned out to be the best team in the NFC in week 20. With a meathead QB even his own fans boo'd for much of the season because he hamstrung his own offense. Finally when Shockey went down the entire team (including defense) rallied around him like some wounded creature, he limited his mistakes and managed games to first do no harm, and the rest as they say is (unfortunately) history. In building their blueprint they took more than one page out of Belichick's book.

Given that this has absolutely nothing to do with the criticism of the Eagles and Cowboys after last night's game, I'll just point out that I noted the part about there being time for the Patriots offense to improve and leave it at that.

And while we're at it the greatest show on turf says hi...

Well, tell it that I said "hello" and that it has nothing to do with this conversation either.

 

[Deus Irae]

Philadelphia beat the sh*t out of a terrible Rams team at home and showed last night that they are defensively susceptible to a team with a good offense. the Cowboys beat a lousy Browns team (sorry Romeo, but you're going 4-12 this year) and showed that they are susceptible defensively to a team with a good offense.

New England is not a team with a good offense right now. That's pretty much the point, actually. All (well, most) teams in the NFL will improve over the course of the season. Hopefully, the Patriots will improve more than other teams.

 

[Lampshade]

Wow. I have no idea what game you guys were watching last night. They threw at Samuel twice all night. One was for the PI in the endzone, and the other was a 7 yard completion in the 4th quarter. Samuel lined up across from Owens a number of times, and the PI play was the only time Romo went his way.

This is a case of reaching a conclusion before the game was played IMO.

 

[spacecrime]

how soon we forget. defense wins championships. last year pats fans were reminded of that.

You mean when Asante let the game-clinching INT go through his fingers? Last year our defense was subpar. THis year it is much better. IMO, BB/Sp made all the right moves on defense.

No one is disputing that defense wins championships. What the OP was saying (I think?) is that we are just fine without Asante and Lito.

We played better defense these two games this year that we did in any two games last year. Why the heck would we want to have different personnel? I like our defense just the way it is!

 

[spacecrime]

Yeah, remember the Patriots "win" September in 2002, and look what it netted us at season's end.

None of that matters. Right now, today, the 3 best teams of this early season are in the NFC. Green Bay, Philadelphia and Dallas are all playing much better football than the Patriots. They'd crush New England if they were playing this week. O'Neal doesn't have the defense down yet, Rodney is still struggling with the elite tight ends and Mayo is still learning the game. It's not as if the defense could have kept either Philly or Dallas to 10, or even 20, points last night. As fr the offense, we all know it's a work in progress. Let's not kid ourselves: the Patriots aren't ready to face the NFL elite right now.

Fortunately, New England has time to get its offensive house in order before it plays the tougher games on the schedule. The Patriots should be 4-0, and have had a bye week on top of those four wins to prepare for the tougher games to follow. We know the Patriots aren't going to be bottom feeders, and we'll start to see where this New England team really fits in the NFL hierarchy starting with the Chargers game.

 

[Deus Irae]

Yeah, remember the Patriots "win" September in 2002, and look what it netted us at season's end.

Absolutely. It does no harm to admit that New England is not yet ready to be called an 'elite' team with Cassel under center. Big Ben is not a 136.3 quarterback and no starter will go the entire season without throwing an interception. Things will change as the season goes on. Injuries (Roy Williams broke his arm last night, for example, and Shawn Andrews will be needing an MRI for his back), improved play, scheme adjustments, and the like will continue to alter the NFL landscape all the way through the Super Bowl.

 

[patsfaninpittsburgh]

How exactly is a 4th rated defense "subpar"?

SB XLII sucked but it looks like we constantly forget that in SB XXXVI/III we saw heroics because the opponents scored last minute touchdowns.

Also, I am not that sure either of these teams are "elite".

Penalties
Critical turnovers
Poor special teams
BAD defense

Our offense will improve. It's also safe to say that if Brady was healthy; neither of these teams would be much worry.