Knee-jerk reactions to that disaster

[Koettbulle]

This is a finesse team who is outmuscled in the trenches.
It's like watching the pre-06 Colts who we used to intimidate.

 

[blackglass3]

Watching the Packers is making it all the worse. We folded like a cheap card table at the first sign of resistence. No heart, no desire, no sack whatsoever.

 

[bigfandan]

The consistent inconsistency of the defense is mind-boggling...
the consistent inconsistency of the offense is pathetic....
the consistent arrogence of the head coach is disappointing...
the consistent lack of talent on the roster is maddening...

how many beat downs do you need to see to believe this team needs major talent upgrade?

 

[ATippett56]

how many beat downs do you need to see to believe this team needs major talent upgrade?

The future of the New England Patriots wide receiver corps:

Aiken
Edelman
Stanback
Tate

Edelman is no Wes Welker.

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

Knee-jerk reactions to that disaster

Disaster? I don't really consider this a disaster. If anyone here does they weren't paying attention ALL YEAR. We barely won the division and looked worse then average on several occasions this year.

I knew all LONG time ago this was a one and done team, unless things changed. Nothing did....... The only thing that really surprised me was how bad we were humiliated. I did think we'd go down with a fight...... I was wrong. We didn't even show up.

 

[goheels22002]

Wow. You guys sound like a bunch of whiners. The Patriots - Division Champions, 10-6, 2nd bext defense in points allowed in football, lost a game.

The first play was garden variety 2 gap that got away. The strip was a bad play and oops down 14. After that it was a train wreck trying to get back in a game where the other team had one defensive assignment - get Brady. Maybe they should have run the ball more early to exploit the blitz. Whatever. Down 14-0 to any playoff team in the 1st quarter amounts to a loss. Any playoff team would have pounced. Bummer. End of season.

Not indicative of any systemic issue.

Individual decisions must now be made. Draft, free agency, trades. This is a solid, young playoff team with 24 guys who played in their first playoff game today and want retribution/atonement. The Patriots will be far better next year.

 

[TriplecHamp]

Trading down is what landed them Butler, Vollmer and Edelman and a 2nd rounder for 2010.

Would you trade those four for, let's say, Clay Matthews and Brace?

We could have gotten Matthews, Butler, Vollmer, and Edelman. Brace and the 2010 second rounder helped us how this year? Not saying I dislike the 2010 second just saying Brace didnt do Sh*t this year. Hopefully if we let Big Vince go he steps up with pryor next year.

 

[WhiZa]

--Brady is hurt, and if he isn’t, he oughta be. Just looked lost out there. Is it the lack of receivers? A lot of this is hard to tell on TV. He was pressured a lot, but other times he had all day. And I feel I have to say this, if only because his leadership has been praised for so long by so many. Where is the passionate leader of years past? I know he’s not a kid anymore, but the guy did not exactly look inspiring on the sidelines.

Did you notice the play where Aiken was on the wrong side? Moss kept telling him to move, but he stood there for a while until Brady had to put him in the right spot. That play didn't end well as it was incomplete to Edleman.

I would say the Pats do lack quality receivers. They whiffed big time on Galloway and Lewis, and that mistake cost us as the season wore on.

 

[bb07]

1) No WRs, now Wes Welker with a bad knee, Moss getting older, who will be our future
2) No RBs. Can't believe we're relying on Faulk now.
3) No backup QB.
4) No OC, NO DC.
Special team plays poorly too.

Too many issues. This is not a team we used to love.

 

[NJPatsfan26]

Here is my Knee-jerk reaction.....

We lost as a team. No individual lost this game or lost this season. If there is one thing that Belichick instills into the players is teamwork. Plain and simple. We lost as a team.

We will have a lot to work on this off season and I am sure there will be moves in the front office and with the players.

I honestly don't think that Belichick or Brady are going any where any time soon so with those two in charge, we will be back in the new decade to set some more records!!

Go Pats!!

 

[captain stone]

Jeez. That first quarter was the Denver playoff game of a few years ago times twenty million. What an absolute fiasco.

--The loss of Welker hurt as much as the worst-case predictions said. Just an irreplaceable guy. Edelman definitely has a future, though—how about that 4th and 7 that was called back? Guy would Not. Be. Denied. Awesome.

--Brady is hurt, and if he isn’t, he oughta be. Just looked lost out there. Is it the lack of receivers? A lot of this is hard to tell on TV. He was pressured a lot, but other times he had all day. And I feel I have to say this, if only because his leadership has been praised for so long by so many. Where is the passionate leader of years past? I know he’s not a kid anymore, but the guy did not exactly look inspiring on the sidelines.

--It’s been said everywhere, but it’s true. The offensive play calling is so painful, I still wonder if changing coordinators alone could have made a difference. Just no coherence whatsoever.

--It didn’t help that the offensive line didn’t play well. I was confident that would be an absolute strength of this team through the playoffs. Guess not.

--And I thought the Pats could stop the run? You tell me before the game the Ravens pass for 34 yards I’d assume we’d be planning for the Chargers.

--The flat, abysmal, pathetic display at the start certainly called out for Kevin Faulk. The guy’s just a pro. You wonder how much longer he can perform at this level. Still, having him be the top back the whole game? To me, the game effectively ended with the first series of the second half, when they ran that little delay to him again. And again. I mean, enough already.

--I’m sorry Maroney fumbled a couple of times, but one carry? Did he murder someone? Taylor had 2?

--Tough to miss his only FG of the playoffs. Bad ending to a good year.

--Get a punter already.

--I hate to think it, but I can’t shake the feeling that the Bill Belichick of 2001 could have gotten a lot more out of this team.

--I don’t know, sure there’s a lot more. There’s a lot of specific offseason stuff to discuss, which I’ll leave to other threads—I suppose some of this could be a jumping off point. Good to vent anyway.

--BTW, maybe I'm a homer. Never thought I was, but this game surprised me.

I agree with everything you said. What's esp. sad and bodes ill for our future, is that the hungry-like-the-wolf HC & the chip-on-his-shoulder QB have been replaced by the clueless, home-wrecking HC/Emperor & the Playboy cover-guy QB.

If Kraft cares for anything more than the bottom line, then he needs to wake the F up and infuse this declining, passionless franchise with hungry, aggressive talent - in the FO, the coaches' quarters & the locker room...ASAP.

 

[condon84]

What's worse? Someone who overeacts? Or someone who's in denial?

Our situation is probably somewhere in the middle.

My issue with our defense is the fundamental flaw of our scheme paired with our personnel.

We have a younger faster group of players that can excel in an attack style defense to take advantage of their speed. However, we play a 3-4 read and react scheme where we ask our front 7 to engage and read the play, shed the block and make the tackle. We don't have the LBs for that type of scheme. Mayo, Guyton, Banta-Cain all struggle shedding blocks. They have speed, but what good is speed when they're called on to engage blockers?

On offense, we just need to get back to smash-mouth football. Get some big interior linemen in here and lets go back to being physical and attacking the defense instead of sitting back in shotgun all game long and get attacked.

 

[unoriginal]

The offenisve line was being blown off the line of scrimmage. Every time Brady was under centre a Raven was meeting him or the running back in the backfield. You can't play like that. We tried running the ball and it was getting stuffed. We tried play action and Brady was turning round to find a Raven in his grill. We went to the shot gun as it allowed us to get a few quick passes off and run a few draws with Faulk. Was it an ideal scenario? Of course not, but plan A went down the tank pretty early

You should post more, you have a good eye for the game.

 

[chevss454]

The offenisve line was being blown off the line of scrimmage. Every time Brady was under centre a Raven was meeting him or the running back in the backfield. You can't play like that. We tried running the ball and it was getting stuffed. We tried play action and Brady was turning round to find a Raven in his grill. We went to the shot gun as it allowed us to get a few quick passes off and run a few draws with Faulk. Was it an ideal scenario? Of course not, but plan A went down the tank pretty early

There is nothing more important for this team than to protect Brady. Give him time to pass and this offense hums like a Lamborghini. I don't pretend to be smart enough or to have studied who is or will be available as an alternative, but I am damn sure smart enough to know Koppen is going to get Brady killed one day.

 

[captain stone]

The offenisve line was being blown off the line of scrimmage. Every time Brady was under centre a Raven was meeting him or the running back in the backfield. You can't play like that. We tried running the ball up the middle and it was getting stuffed. We tried play action and Brady was turning round to find a Raven in his grill. We went to the shot gun as it allowed us to get a few quick passes off and run a few draws with Faulk. Was it an ideal scenario? Of course not, but plan A went down the tank pretty early

Fixed it for ya.

Why then didn't they try pitchouts to LaMa & Fred, behind a pulling Guard or TE/FB, to see if they could build some momentum running downhill in space? Charlie used to run that with Antoine Smith & Marc Edwards all the time.

 

[aluminum seats]

There is nothing more important for this team than to protect Brady. Give him time to pass and this offense hums like a Lamborghini. I don't pretend to be smart enough or to have studied who is or will be available as an alternative, but I am damn sure smart enough to know Koppen is going to get Brady killed one day.

I was so optimistic about the line, between Vollmer and its overall health. I realize two teams played yesterday, but that's the second playoff game in a row (albeit 2 years apart) that the Pats O-line was awful.

Second playoff game in a row scoring 14 points, now that I think about it.

 

[unoriginal]

Fixed it for ya.

Why then didn't they try pitchouts to LaMa & Fred, behind a pulling Guard or TE/FB, to see if they could build some momentum running downhill in space? Charlie used to run that with Antoine Smith & Marc Edwards all the time.

They ran those. Ngata is too quick for his size so he was following the pulls and ******* up all the movement in the offensive backfield. Normally you can get the DT/NT with an angle block but Koppen et al couldn't make them. Then pursuit finished off the rest.

EDIT: Consequently that's why they returned to the shotgun draw with the TE wham block. The wham traps Ngata upfield of the hole and allowed Faulk to slither through. Problem there was the interior line wasn't really moving the linebackers because Lewis makes his reads and fills very very fast. Great linebacker.

 

[captain stone]

Still, you gotta keep chopping wood with the run, because there was so much time remaining in just the 1st quarter. And I would've taken my chances on more power sweeps in space with downhill momentum, than continually trying draws into the belly of the beast.

4 healthy, capable RBs active, and they are on the sidelines in favor of...Sam I Can't Aiken? Simply ******ed.

 

[oldskool138]

--I’m sorry Maroney fumbled a couple of times, but one carry? Did he murder someone? Taylor had 2?

.

Maroney had 4 fumbles in 2009. Taylor had two.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

Knee-jerk you want, knee-jerk you get...

Talk about monumental failure in every aspect:

1. Defense failed in blantantly obvious goal of stopping Ravens running game and daring Flacco to beat you. Ravens killed them on the ground, allowing Flacco to take the day off.

2. Offensive line failed miserably in protecting Brady. Even on play-action, Brady was running for his life. Maroney got blown up early on a blitz pickup and spent the rest of the game on the bench as more reliable guys like Faulk and Morris took his playing time.

3. Turnovers galore, mostly setting up Baltimore with *very* short fields.

4. Key drops. Watson had a few and even Faulk dropped one.

5. A killer penalty by Moss when the Pats had converted the first down when cutting the lead to 10 late in the 1st half was critical. Not only did the penalty kill the drive, but also pushed them out of FG range.

6. Even Gost missed his lone chance on a very makeable kick, although cutting the lead to 16 and hoping for 2 scores with 2pt conversions was a very high hope indeed.

And let's not forget the Pats benefited from a no-challenge on the muffed punt (Pats possession would have been overturned, resulting in no score) and a lousy review on the 2pt conversion (McGahee had it...did the refs feel sorry for NE?).

Everything that could go wrong for NE absolutely did go wrong. I'm more puzzled than upset because that kind of performance was perplexing, especially at home.

Regards,
Chris