27 and 0...

[Brady to Brown]

27 times is the number of times Rivers dropped back to pass.

0 is the number of times a Patriot player touched him.

Manning, Cutler, Farve and others are licking their chops.

 

[DefenseRules]

Yet people continue to focus on Cassel's short comings.
I think that the defense is a much bigger area of concern right now.

 

[Brady to Brown]

Yet people continue to focus on Cassel's short comings.
I think that the defense is a much bigger area of concern right now.

I had hoped when Brady went down that we might win low scoring games.

Not with this defense. Our front 7 did not touch Rivers last night

 

[HEY BRO! WHAT UP?]

Yet people continue to focus on Cassel's short comings.
I think that the defense is a much bigger area of concern right now.

The offense does not get a pass. It's pretty horrendous!

 

[DefenseRules]

I had hoped when Brady went down that we might win low scoring games.

Not with this defense. Our front 7 did not touch Rivers last night

It drove me crazy all night. We didn't even touch the guy, NOT ONCE. Unbelievable. What happened to that great Patriots defense? Is it a thing of the past? I still can't believe that these guys can't play better than that.

 

[PatriotNMP43]

The style of defense is not working anymore, hold your ground and hope for an INT only works for Favre and O'Sullivan, a good QB tears up our D every time. Lets face it, Brady was the whole team, he kept the D off the field and well rested, now the D is being exposed because the Offense isn't all world anymore.

 

[DefenseRules]

The offense does not get a pass. It's pretty horrendous!

NO the offense wasn't good, but the defensive performance that I've seen so far this season, has been very disappointing. I expected much more from them. ESPECIALLY, with a healthy Seymour.

 

[Brady to Brown]

It drove me crazy all night. We didn't even touch the guy, NOT ONCE. Unbelievable. What happened to that great Patriots defense. It is a thing of the past. I still can't believe that these guys can't play better than that.

Many want to talk about Cassel.

I want to talk about our front 7. Many have the Patriots front 7 rated as one of the best in the league.

3 - 4, 4 - 3, it did not matter. We could not get anywhere near Rivers.

And where is Capers in this? Why no pressure from Merriweather, Harrison or Sanders?

 

[Dojo Chargerfan]

the blitzes were very bland. It gave the appearance that the Charger oline dominated the entire game, which was the case but I can't even recall a hurry. The Oline was ready for everything the Pat D threw at the Oline, period. So mentally the Chargers dominated, and when you have the mental aspect and KNOW where the blitz is coming from then you dominate physically.

 

[jcdavey]

27 times is the number of times Rivers dropped back to pass.

0 is the number of times a Patriot player touched him.

Manning, Cutler, Farve and others are licking their chops.

interesting stat

rivers is #1 in the nfl in qb rating, even though he's been sacked 8 times

cutler is #11 in rating, having only been sacked twice

twice!

man......that is nuts

 

[emoney_33]

I'm kind of confident that BB and the coaching staff will fix some of the things that went wrong against the Chargers. I also don't think we'll be facing many teams with a RB/TE combo of talent that the Chargers pose, and thus there will be different gameplans and points of emphasis. They won't be keying in on the run against the Colts for example.

 

[DefenseRules]

interesting stat

rivers is #1 in the nfl in qb rating, even though he's been sacked 8 times

cutler is #11 in rating, having only been sacked twice

twice!

man......that is nuts

Cutler won't have to worry about sacks from our team either. :beatingcoming:
Sad, isn't it?

 

[Dojo Chargerfan]

interesting stat

rivers is #1 in the nfl in qb rating, even though he's been sacked 8 times

cutler is #11 in rating, having only been sacked twice

twice!

man......that is nuts

Cutler has an amazing highlight video but disappears at times. He's growing as a QB. Also, Cutler's OLine sucks ass, and if you watch a Donkey game he only takes 3 step drops and makes quick decisions. That's a good thing but sometimes he doesn't allow things to develop so defenses are starting to take away the short stuff and he starts struggling.
PR might not have the same arm Cutler has but Rivers could make every throw there is and has a sniper for an arm.

Edit: JC didn't notice it was you.

 

[Brady'sButtBoy]

The pass rush was terrible, I agree; and forget the sacks, the harassment level is near zero. Where in the name of Lawrence Taylor is AD? 'Seen Fat Vince push the center back into the QB lately? Ty Warren is borderline Pro Bowl material? Not this year. A rookie, Mayo, and the oldest dude on the team, Harrison, are the only guys who consistently stand out on D! Think about that!

I think this team is being eaten away by what Lombardi wrote about a few weeks ago - the vets are saying to themselves, "we couldn't win the SB with Brady, so there is zero chance to win without him..." Add to that three weeks of very uneven play by Cassel and the mentals cracks are really starting to show.

This syndrome was on full display last night after Cassel couldn't punch the ball in from the 1yd line at a very crucial moment in the game and the D let SD drive the full length of the field for a killer TD.

It got so bad that 74yr old Gino Cappelletti was calling out the D on radio. "The players have to win the one one one battles as a matter of pride," he said a couple times and he sounded pissed.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Many want to talk about Cassel.

I want to talk about our front 7. Many have the Patriots front 7 rated as one of the best in the league.

3 - 4, 4 - 3, it did not matter. We could not get anywhere near Rivers.

And where is Capers in this? Why no pressure from Merriweather, Harrison or Sanders?

This was covered last night based on reading between the lines of BB's postgame comments, yet people want to :spygate: . So before we cut, trade, trash specific players and coaches, I will repeat it...

The defensive game plan was predicated on stopping the run and Gates. Which is what you used to have to do with SD. Only Norv's offensive game plan went in a different direction out of the gate perhaps because of the 2008 record with the slow starting status quo. Instead of running on first and second down and passing out of third and often long, even down a #1 WR Norv went with a pass first and pass deep on first and second downs offense we were not prepared to deal with schematically. The safeties were defending against the run and watching Gates. They were not available over the top so the corners were left on islands against pretty tall and emerging WR's. Adding to that we opened in 4-3 only to lose Jarvis Green after the first series. And Merriweather and Hobbs both missed some time due to injuries.

 

[HEY BRO! WHAT UP?]

NO the offense wasn't good, but the defensive performance that I've seen so far this season, has been very disappointing. I expected much more from them. ESPECIALLY, with a healthy Seymour.

I didn't expect anything from them. Mainly because BB and Scott Pioli didn't do anything to improve the secondary and the lack of pass rush in the offseason. In fact, this might be the most embarrassing offseason for those two to date. Those CB's they picked up in the offseason were a joke. The Deltha O'Neal pickup in the beginning of the season was icing on the cake. They clearly don't get it right now. Although I'm not defensive guru, but when you have a slow ass 3-4 defense, why in the hell would you open up with a 4-3? It was comical to watch the front 4 trying desperately to get a finger on Phillip Rivers.

This is the rant I posted on August 30th about this defense:

Pats may have the worst CB's in the NFL. Their safeties are ok at best unless Merriweather makes an impact. They need a trade/sign Law or it's 2002 and 2005 all over again. And I don't think Law is the savior either. He's just the best guy on the market right now.

And why does everybody want Hank Poteat? The guy's trash and I don't care if he "knows the system". Wake up people! The Pats need talent, not scrubs who "know the system".

Believe it or not, this defense is going to have a major dropoff from last season. Their in transition from their LB's to their secondary and I am probably the only one that thinks their D-Line needs a change as well. Despite people hyping up the Pats D-Line as one of the best in the league, they couldn't get a push if their life depended on it. And I'm not talking about this preseason, I have thought about this for a few years now, especially after that pathetic performance on the final drive of the superbowl. In the end, their going to need to get a fierce pass rush from Thomas, Crable and Vrabel or their secondary is going to get torched on a regular basis.

And to clarify for people that think I want to cut the entire defense; I don't. I like Wilfork and Warren but Warren had his best year in '06. This is a make or break year for Seymour, he didn't do a damn thing last year. Jarvis Green disappears a lot.

http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/10/107936-secondary-depth-chart-page3.html

 

[Brady to Brown]

This was covered last night based on reading between the lines of BB's postgame comments, yet people want to :spygate: . So before we cut, trade, trash specific players and coaches, I will repeat it...

The defensive game plan was predicated on stopping the run and Gates. Which is what you used to have to do with SD. Only Norv's offensive game plan went in a different direction out of the gate perhaps because of the 2008 record with the slow starting status quo. Instead of running on first and second down and passing out of third and often long, even down a #1 WR Norv went with a pass first and pass deep on first and second downs offense we were not prepared to deal with schematically. The safeties were defending against the run and watching Gates. They were not available over the top so the corners were left on islands against pretty tall and emerging WR's. Adding to that we opened in 4-3 only to lose Jarvis Green after the first series. And Merriweather and Hobbs both missed some time due to injuries.

Thats what half time is for dude. Thats when you change things that are not working. No pressure on the 1st play, 10th play, 20th play, 30th play. None, zero, nada. Belichick does not make excuses why are you?

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Thats what half time is for dude. Thats when you change things that are not working. No pressure on the 1st play, 10th play, 20 play, 30th play. None, zero, nada. Belichick does not make excuses why are you?

I'm not making excuses, I'm telling you why it happened and it wasn't lack of talent or effort it was scheme. It was 17-3 before the half...dude. And after the opening drive of the second half it was crappy field position exacerbated by a couple of costly penalties that had nothing to do with the DL pressure to boot. It's fine to be critical, just be critical of the right things.

 

[Brady to Brown]

I'm not making excuses, I'm telling you why it happened and it wasn't lack of talent or effort it was scheme. It was 17-3 before the half...dude. And after the opening drive of the second half it was crappy field position exacerbated by a couple of costly penalties that had nothing to do with the DL pressure to boot. It's fine to be critical, just be critical of the right things.

So the reason we did not lay one hand on Rivers is beacuse....

1/ We had no pressure, because the game plan did not call for pressure.

2/ We had no 2nd half pressure, because the score was 17 - 3.

3/ We had no pressure because of crappy field position.

4/ We had no pressure because of costly penalties.



Is anyone else reading this?

 

[HEY BRO! WHAT UP?]

So the reason we did not lay one hand on Rivers is beacuse....

1/ We had no pressure, because the game plan did not call for pressure.

2/ We had no 2nd half pressure, because the score was 17 - 3.

3/ We had no pressure because of crappy field position.

4/ We had no pressure because of costly penalties.



Is anyone else reading this?

That was pretty funny. How about these two:

BB scheme doesn't call for sacks?
BB scheme waits for the opposition to make a mistake instead of his defense making the opposition make a mistake?