Good ESPN Article: "Halting the New England steamroller"

[MassPats38]

Didn't see this posted yet.

Halting the New England steamroller

 

[sbpatfan]

Re: Good ESPN Article

ESPN has been slobbin' on the Pats' knob for about a week now.

My favorite article of the day:

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4689828/mccourty-hopes-to-play-sunday

"I'm feeling better. I think I showed yesterday that I was able to go out there and practice, and I'm practicing today," McCourty said in the locker room Friday morning. "I always want to play, each Sunday. We don't get many opportunities to go out and play, so any time we do, I want to be out there."

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Re: Good ESPN Article

Watching Moss play pitch and catch in 2007 was awesome, but this sounds even better to me long term:

"They've captured magic in a bottle this season," Dilfer said. "They used to come at you with four to six different formations. Now, they have so many variations, one tight end, two tight ends, three tight ends. I just broke down the recent Jets game. In their first 27 regular plays -- I excluded three goal-line plays -- they showed 27 different formations and at least a dozen different personnel groupings.

 

[Patspsycho]

Re: Good ESPN Article

Thanks for posting this article. Great insights and commentaries in that article, especially discussing the formations. I thought there was something wrong with how I looked at the game when I saw more than 20 different formations in last week's game- but this confirms it.

Having so many formations gives you a lot of motion options to get the D to tip its hands, and as the article says, that is what is so great about the TE sets we have, they are not strictly nubs- they can be split wide, and that helps to betray the coverages and get the chains moving, because when you know what is coming, you can hit your first read 9 out of 10 times.

 

[jmt57]

Re: Good ESPN Article

The New England Patriots seem to be unstoppable, but are they? - ESPN

So, back to our question: How do you beat these Patriots?

Dilfer cites the New Orleans Saints' 38-17 rout of the Patriots in 2009, a milestone on coach Sean Payton's march to the Super Bowl XLIV title.

"[New Orleans defensive coordinator] Gregg Williams forced Brady to go where he wanted him to go. Through blitzing and coverage schemes, you can see their pattern: We don't want Brady to throw the ball to A. We can live with B. If he makes a mistake trying to go from B to C, we'll get home and hit him.

"The whole key is disrupting the starting point. If you can do it, you've thrown off the entire mechanism by which they're successful."
Who are the leading candidates?

The Ravens, of course, and the Steelers can give New England a game at Gillette Stadium. One scout believes that the Kansas City Chiefs might prove a difficult playoff match.

Two potent NFC teams, the Saints and Philadelphia Eagles, seem positioned to give the Patriots the most trouble; they appear to be capable of winning a 35-33 game on a neutral field, say, Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas?

"It's the only thing these young players have left on their check list," Bruschi said. "Can they win a big regular-season game? Check. Can they come back after a bad loss? Check. Can they win the division? Looks like a check. The last one is, can you win in the playoffs?

"If they can do that consistently, they'll be raising another banner."

 

[ALP]

Re: Good ESPN Article

The New England Patriots seem to be unstoppable, but are they? - ESPN

thats some BS, how do these analysts suck this much?

there are HUGE differences between ANY game last year and this year, and its the same difference between the jets 1st game this year and the jets 2nd game this year

we have more options, plain and simle, against the saints last year (and jets first meeting this year) we had welker and we had moss (a much fading moss), what does that mean? it means taht tate, gronk and hernandez were all learning

not anymore, and now we have branch instead of moss

you can double welker all you like, the other guys will kill you, which was not the case against new orleans, that gameplan will no longer work against us

 

[MassPats38]

Re: Good ESPN Article

And for some reason the image of the Pats on ESPN associated with this article cracked me up.

 

[Yppak]

Re: Good ESPN Article

And for some reason the image of the Pats on ESPN associated with this article cracked me up.

By far the best thing about this was this picture, and now it's my desktop. For once I can actually say "Thanks ESPN"

 

[mudslinger]

Wow, Trent Dilfer set me straight. Turn the football over and have lots of penalties and you don't usually win????
Now thats 50 seconds I really wish I had back.

 

[patchick]

Re: Good ESPN Article

And for some reason the image of the Pats on ESPN associated with this article cracked me up.

One funny thing -- on this dreadlock-happy team, the guy in the lower right could be almost anybody.

 

[Yppak]

Re: Good ESPN Article

One funny thing -- on this dreadlock-happy team, the guy in the lower right could be almost anybody.

Yeah, I'm really not 100% sure who that is, Green-Ellis? Branch? Mayo? Meriweather?

 

[Dufflebagz]

Re: Good ESPN Article

One funny thing -- on this dreadlock-happy team, the guy in the lower right could be almost anybody.

The facial hair is a giveaway that it's the BJGE though.

 

[BSR]

Re: Good ESPN Article

One funny thing -- on this dreadlock-happy team, the guy in the lower right could be almost anybody.

I was wondering about that as well, but I think I figured it out. Notice how he has the ball doubly secured? Nobody is fumbling that ball, which means it can only be BJGE

Edit: Dufflez beat me to it.

 

[patchick]

Re: Good ESPN Article

The facial hair is a giveaway that it's the BJGE though.

The bank vault he's creating for the football makes me assume it's BJGE. But as for the facial hair, he's hardly alone among the dreadlock boys. Spikes has pretty much the identical beard, for one.

 

[goheels22002]

The most interesting part of the story was the impact of the new guys - Gronk, Hernandez and Branch to make the receiver sets impossible to scheme against. So what if you take away A and B? Brady's got C, D and E to throw too and they could be lined up almost anywhere. Moss leaving and being replaced by Branch who is a precise short and medium route-runner makes it very tough to limit options in the passing game.

Great story.

 

[420jim]

Re: Good ESPN Article

And for some reason the image of the Pats on ESPN associated with this article cracked me up.

One funny thing -- on this dreadlock-happy team, the guy in the lower right could be almost anybody.

But who's the guy holding the football with the nice hair cut

 

[tuckeverlasting]

Re: Good ESPN Article

But who's the guy holding the football with the nice hair cut

this was obviously taken before the season.

 

[sieglo]

Re: Good ESPN Article

Somehow I don't think those wings could generate enough lift to get Vince airborn.

 

[jczxohn1]

Re: Good ESPN Article

But who's the guy holding the football with the nice hair cut

See those guns? Gotta be BJGE--

 

[Pewsterbaby]

I'm surprised they put him in a throwback uni. I love it. Those jerseys jump off the screen on t.v. killer contrast to the other team's and the field.