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lk about and most of them were good....but not every thing. Lets get started.
The GOOD:
1. Given what we saw in the last 2 preseason games, I was kind of worried about the offensive efficiency coming to a team that had the 6th best defense in the league AND thought they had improved it. Well I clearly I wasted a lot of angst for nothing.
The offense was everything we hoped it would be. We ran the ball very effectively. (though IMHO, we might have run it more, especially late in the game. Danny Woodhead ran the ball up the middle as well as outside. When was the last time we had our RBs AVERAGE 4.9 ypc Good job by both of them.
2. Tom Brady had a good game, Hey everyone will be talking about his record setting performance, so why be redundant.
3. The OL was MAGNIFICENT - God Solder was superb, especially since he had to play most of the game against one of the best pass rushers in the game. His one hold was marginal (more on that later), and the sack he got was more a result of GREAT second effort by Wake than a bad block by Solder,
It was very hard to believe that 8 days ago Brian Waters was in KC without a job, and then came here and with just 2 practices in pads played over 60 snaps... and played extraordinarily well.
Dan Connolly once again has proved INVALUABLE. He steps in for Dan Koppen and the offenses didn't miss a beat. Amazing that the transition was so smooth, especially this early in the season and in a game where the Pats threw the ball 48 yds
Oh yeah, Mankins and Light were pretty good too.
4. It was a pretty good week end for TEs all across the NFL. Could it be that a lot of teams went to school of the Pats effective use of TEs last season?. Well the the "masters" were not to be out done this Monday and the nightmare match up that Hernandez and Gronk make was apparent all evening.
The best part will be as team have to start to make adjustments to the TE's, things will start to open up for the WRs
5. I liked some what I saw from the defense.
a. I liked the potential Haynesworth showed. he was stout up the middle and gave us consistent push up the middle. Sometime I think that people only think that Haynesorth's highest value is as a pass rusher/sack master. No. What Haynesworth really does is to set the stage for OTHERS to make the sacks. Its no coincidence that when Albert just being average (for him ) in 09,helped BOTH their DE's get double digit sacks, yet neither got close while Albert pouted.last season I think it was a good start for Hayneswoth, but I also think the best is yet to come
b. The Pats run D was good. More than half the Phins rushing came on Henne scrambles. That DOES have to be improved, but for a first game it was a decent start.
c. I think the defense looked better when Fletcher was teamed with Mayo than when Guyton was in there
d. Dowling played very well. I think we are going to like him a lot.
e. I know people can latch on to the 400 yds the Pats gave up in the air, but I see the seeds for the hope that it will get better as the season goes on. If you think about it, close to 200 of those yards came in the first drive and the last couple of drives the Phins had in the 4th quarter when the Pats were protecting the lead.
f. After the first Phin drive, which was seemed a little less scary after you consider that most of the yardage came on 2 plays where the receivers BOTH made highlight reel catches against decent coverage. If you look on it, the Phins just had 2 good drives for the first 3 quarters before garbage time fattened their stats. Clearly things need to get better, but for a first effort the good outweighed the bad.
g. I would like for someone who DVRed the game and can go over the Safety play, and who did what to whom, because outside of a couple of Chung big hits, the Safeties seemed kind of invisible
THE BAD -
1, Andre Carter disappointed me. I didn't really see him get as much pressure on the QB as I thought he might. Long could be the best LT in the league, so maybe I'm being harsh, I don't remember seeing much from Mark Anderson and Sean Ellis either. It seemeed that whatever pass rush we did manage came more from inside pressure than from Carter, Anderson, and Ellis
2. I want to see us rush the ball more. Not just for yardage, but for ball control and time management as well. It was disappointing that we weren't able to run the last 3 minutes out and gave the Phins that last possession
3. Koppen's injury. Hopefully it won't be a season ender. I'm encouraged slightly by the fact they let him back on the sidelines after half time. But at best we won't see him until mid season.
BTW from the way Connolly played I'm comfortable having HIM replace Dan, but who replaces him as the swing G and who becomes the backup C. Who is still out there who the Pats can bring in. We are going to need to add someone.
4. The Pats had NO deflected passes at the LOS and forced NO turnovers (except for the meaningless one on the last play of the game, THAT has to improve
5. The Pats had 8 penalties, several of which cost them points
Miscellaneous observations.
1. I thought Henne looked a lot better in a loss than Sanchez did in victory. While I wasn't completely happy with the pressure, I'd be willing to bet that Pats had double digit hits on him over the course of the game and Henne showed a lot of poise and threw some very good passes under pressure He also made some good decisions. If I were a phin fan I would be very encouraged. OTOH I'd be more worried about that "top 5" D than the QB.
2. The Pats didn't get any help from the refs this game and it cost them at least one TD. There was one sequence of plays in particular that pissed me off. In one drive in the 2nd Quarter, Ocho was pretty much mugged on a pass inside the 10 that wasn't called. I wasn't terribly upset because quite frankly I'd like to see the refs allow the DBs a little more lee weigh in general (which seemed to be the case over the entire league this weekend) They also allowed the Pats to be physical as well. BUT then the very next play which would have had the Pats on the one, the officials called a VERY marginal hold on Solder. It WAS a hold, but compared to what else was gong on, not much of one Shortly after that, when they showed a replay on the 2nd Miami TD you could see Hayneswoth being grabbed by the arm in a clear hold, which cost him the half second he need to get to the QB. I know that stuff happens, but they seemed to let some obvious calls go for the Phins, and called a nit pick hold on the Pats. Not a big deal, but it was irritating
nonetheless.
3. It was curious to see that it seemed like the Pats dealt with the Miami heat and humidity better than the Phins
4. Dumbest play of the game had to go to Miami for trying that fade in the back of the endzone on that 4th and half yard. It says a lot about the perception of running against the Pats GL D, but also about how Miami feels about its running attack. Even if you decided to pass the ball, there seemed to be so many better options
5. I hate having a short week to prepare for SD
6. Finally lets all lift a glass to Jeff Tarpanian, who luck in avoiding the "turk" becoming almost legendary. The Bell FINALLY tolled on Jeff when the Pats had to add Welch to the OL. Here's hoping that he soon replaces Welch on the PS
Nice win, Enjoy. And don't forget to nitpick
The GOOD:
1. Given what we saw in the last 2 preseason games, I was kind of worried about the offensive efficiency coming to a team that had the 6th best defense in the league AND thought they had improved it. Well I clearly I wasted a lot of angst for nothing.
The offense was everything we hoped it would be. We ran the ball very effectively. (though IMHO, we might have run it more, especially late in the game. Danny Woodhead ran the ball up the middle as well as outside. When was the last time we had our RBs AVERAGE 4.9 ypc Good job by both of them.
2. Tom Brady had a good game, Hey everyone will be talking about his record setting performance, so why be redundant.
3. The OL was MAGNIFICENT - God Solder was superb, especially since he had to play most of the game against one of the best pass rushers in the game. His one hold was marginal (more on that later), and the sack he got was more a result of GREAT second effort by Wake than a bad block by Solder,
It was very hard to believe that 8 days ago Brian Waters was in KC without a job, and then came here and with just 2 practices in pads played over 60 snaps... and played extraordinarily well.
Dan Connolly once again has proved INVALUABLE. He steps in for Dan Koppen and the offenses didn't miss a beat. Amazing that the transition was so smooth, especially this early in the season and in a game where the Pats threw the ball 48 yds
Oh yeah, Mankins and Light were pretty good too.
4. It was a pretty good week end for TEs all across the NFL. Could it be that a lot of teams went to school of the Pats effective use of TEs last season?. Well the the "masters" were not to be out done this Monday and the nightmare match up that Hernandez and Gronk make was apparent all evening.
The best part will be as team have to start to make adjustments to the TE's, things will start to open up for the WRs
5. I liked some what I saw from the defense.
a. I liked the potential Haynesworth showed. he was stout up the middle and gave us consistent push up the middle. Sometime I think that people only think that Haynesorth's highest value is as a pass rusher/sack master. No. What Haynesworth really does is to set the stage for OTHERS to make the sacks. Its no coincidence that when Albert just being average (for him ) in 09,helped BOTH their DE's get double digit sacks, yet neither got close while Albert pouted.last season I think it was a good start for Hayneswoth, but I also think the best is yet to come
b. The Pats run D was good. More than half the Phins rushing came on Henne scrambles. That DOES have to be improved, but for a first game it was a decent start.
c. I think the defense looked better when Fletcher was teamed with Mayo than when Guyton was in there
d. Dowling played very well. I think we are going to like him a lot.
e. I know people can latch on to the 400 yds the Pats gave up in the air, but I see the seeds for the hope that it will get better as the season goes on. If you think about it, close to 200 of those yards came in the first drive and the last couple of drives the Phins had in the 4th quarter when the Pats were protecting the lead.
f. After the first Phin drive, which was seemed a little less scary after you consider that most of the yardage came on 2 plays where the receivers BOTH made highlight reel catches against decent coverage. If you look on it, the Phins just had 2 good drives for the first 3 quarters before garbage time fattened their stats. Clearly things need to get better, but for a first effort the good outweighed the bad.
g. I would like for someone who DVRed the game and can go over the Safety play, and who did what to whom, because outside of a couple of Chung big hits, the Safeties seemed kind of invisible
THE BAD -
1, Andre Carter disappointed me. I didn't really see him get as much pressure on the QB as I thought he might. Long could be the best LT in the league, so maybe I'm being harsh, I don't remember seeing much from Mark Anderson and Sean Ellis either. It seemeed that whatever pass rush we did manage came more from inside pressure than from Carter, Anderson, and Ellis
2. I want to see us rush the ball more. Not just for yardage, but for ball control and time management as well. It was disappointing that we weren't able to run the last 3 minutes out and gave the Phins that last possession
3. Koppen's injury. Hopefully it won't be a season ender. I'm encouraged slightly by the fact they let him back on the sidelines after half time. But at best we won't see him until mid season.
BTW from the way Connolly played I'm comfortable having HIM replace Dan, but who replaces him as the swing G and who becomes the backup C. Who is still out there who the Pats can bring in. We are going to need to add someone.
4. The Pats had NO deflected passes at the LOS and forced NO turnovers (except for the meaningless one on the last play of the game, THAT has to improve
5. The Pats had 8 penalties, several of which cost them points
Miscellaneous observations.
1. I thought Henne looked a lot better in a loss than Sanchez did in victory. While I wasn't completely happy with the pressure, I'd be willing to bet that Pats had double digit hits on him over the course of the game and Henne showed a lot of poise and threw some very good passes under pressure He also made some good decisions. If I were a phin fan I would be very encouraged. OTOH I'd be more worried about that "top 5" D than the QB.
2. The Pats didn't get any help from the refs this game and it cost them at least one TD. There was one sequence of plays in particular that pissed me off. In one drive in the 2nd Quarter, Ocho was pretty much mugged on a pass inside the 10 that wasn't called. I wasn't terribly upset because quite frankly I'd like to see the refs allow the DBs a little more lee weigh in general (which seemed to be the case over the entire league this weekend) They also allowed the Pats to be physical as well. BUT then the very next play which would have had the Pats on the one, the officials called a VERY marginal hold on Solder. It WAS a hold, but compared to what else was gong on, not much of one Shortly after that, when they showed a replay on the 2nd Miami TD you could see Hayneswoth being grabbed by the arm in a clear hold, which cost him the half second he need to get to the QB. I know that stuff happens, but they seemed to let some obvious calls go for the Phins, and called a nit pick hold on the Pats. Not a big deal, but it was irritating
nonetheless.
3. It was curious to see that it seemed like the Pats dealt with the Miami heat and humidity better than the Phins
4. Dumbest play of the game had to go to Miami for trying that fade in the back of the endzone on that 4th and half yard. It says a lot about the perception of running against the Pats GL D, but also about how Miami feels about its running attack. Even if you decided to pass the ball, there seemed to be so many better options
5. I hate having a short week to prepare for SD
6. Finally lets all lift a glass to Jeff Tarpanian, who luck in avoiding the "turk" becoming almost legendary. The Bell FINALLY tolled on Jeff when the Pats had to add Welch to the OL. Here's hoping that he soon replaces Welch on the PS
Nice win, Enjoy. And don't forget to nitpick