The games against the cowboys/Jets cant have been an abberation

[RIpats88]

before some people call me "homer" or "koolaid drinker" I just want to say that the defense was HORRID yesterday...actually, the whole team looked horrid yesterday.

but, I have to wonder how much of it is from the bye week and those 5days off?? the team as a whole(on offense/defense) looked off...they looked like a team that hadnt played in 2 weeks...missed tackles, missed assignments...offensive play looking sloppy...I wonder how much that time killed the teams momentum after a great win against the cowboys...it cant be a coincidence that teams after the Bye-week are 3-10 this year

the biggest thing the cowboys games gave me was that the defense has the talent to win a game, its just putting it all toghether.

so, im not ready to spell the "doom and gloom" just yet on this team/defense....if we play this horribly against the giants i'll jump on the bandwagon..but I sense that BB will jump on this team this week and make adjustments and we will bounce back from this loss....the pats always seem to

 

[alvinnf]

They looked stale on both sides of the ball. I expected them to lose going into the game and they did. I don't care about the 9-2 record following a bye. Some of those 9 were clunkers that they managed to pull out against bad teams. Pittsburgh was waiting on them and they just never got the cob webs out. As far as the defense is concerned, I am not concerned. While they looked bad yesterday, 23 points and 3 field goals was a positive sign. Time of possesion hurt them, but until this offense figures out how to get tough and stick with a run game this teams going nowhere...... Nowhere!

 

[PATSNUTme]

Ben R was as sharp as I've ever seen him throwing the ball yesterday, and I have seen a lot of his games over the years. And there was pressure on him, not all the time, but much of the time.

I'm not making excuses for the lack of coverage on Miller or the blown coverage on a couple of occassions. But you have give Ben R some credit for getting the into some very tight spots yesterday. He actually looked as good a Brady or Manning on their good days, something I never expected to see.

If people think that I'm trying to deflect things away the bad defense, watch the replay of the game objectively and tell me I'm wrong.

 

[BlueThunder]

Sorry...Pats D constantly gave Ben plenty of time to find his open recievers.....and there were many with the Pats DB's playing so far off.....they don't have the personnel for man coverage, but their zone coverage was just as bad.......

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

Sorry...Pats D constantly gave Ben plenty of time to find his open recievers.....and there were many with the Pats DB's playing so far off.....they don't have the personnel for man coverage, but their zone coverage was just as bad.......

A big part of it was playing to Ben's tendancies of throwing over 10 yards; The Steelers usually don't run short patterns and Ben rarely checks down. The Steelers completely switched up on them and as evidenced by the 1st quarter in particular, the Pats were caught offguard.

What bugged me is that the Pats didn't do much to adjust, though. After Miller was killing them over the middle, I would have thought the Pats would have switched to a D similar to what they played vs. San Diego (Chung blanketing Gates) and taken their chances with Ben throwing low-percentage throws over the top to Wallace...a speed guy (not a big guy like VJax) that I think McCourty could have handled, especially in zone.

Regards,
Chris

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

While the defense has had many inconsistencies, 2 areas it has consistently been pretty good in are run defense and red zone defense. IMO these are the 2 most important qualities in a defense come January. Yes, the pass defense needs to improve but generally if you can stop the run you have a chance. Yesterday was a perfect example. We were outplayed the worst I've seen in a long time yet we had a legit chance to win in the end.

That said, you can't give up that many long drives and kill your offense's opportunities to build some cohesion/momentum. Brady was off most of the day and I think that contributed alot to it. You can't get destroyed in TOP like that. Question is can the personnel in the secondary turn it around like they did in years past when the pass defense was leaky. I think the defense still has potential to be championship quality, if these guys Molden/Adams can really add what Bodden gave us (that is on BB's evalutation).

 

[denverpatsfan]

The game came down to 2 plays. 3rd & 12 and 3rd and 15. They failed badly on both of those resulting in points on both drives. Both times the receiver could have been covered but the coverage rolled somewhere else. They were not beat 1 on 1 but just left the guy open. That can be fixed by coaching.

If they make those stops the offense gets 2 more possessions and they have a chance to make it a game.

 

[Dutchmaster617]

before some people call me "homer" or "koolaid drinker" I just want to say that the defense was HORRID yesterday...actually, the whole team looked horrid yesterday.

but, I have to wonder how much of it is from the bye week and those 5days off?? the team as a whole(on offense/defense) looked off...they looked like a team that hadnt played in 2 weeks...missed tackles, missed assignments...offensive play looking sloppy...I wonder how much that time killed the teams momentum after a great win against the cowboys...it cant be a coincidence that teams after the Bye-week are 3-10 this year

the biggest thing the cowboys games gave me was that the defense has the talent to win a game, its just putting it all toghether.

so, im not ready to spell the "doom and gloom" just yet on this team/defense....if we play this horribly against the giants i'll jump on the bandwagon..but I sense that BB will jump on this team this week and make adjustments and we will bounce back from this loss....the pats always seem to

Our defense biggest strength is letting the opponent mess up, they don't stand up for themselves, every interception seems like a ******ed throw (Wilfork is one of the leaders after all), opponents are constantly dropping passes and throwing short when there is no pressure. If OAK, DAL, and NYJ had smarter offense they would have done better.

 

[TBradyOwnsYou]

Um, teams coming off the bye aren't 3-10.
They were 3-9 coming in to this week.
Here is how this week's bye week teams did:
Washington at Buffalo(win)
Cincinnati at Seattle(win)
New England at Pittsburgh(loss)
Miami at New York (G)(win)
Dallas at Philidelphia(win)
Cleveland at San Francisco(win)

So bye week teams were 5-1 this weekend, making it 8-10 for the season.
However, the one real trend is that the teams that *should* be winning, are winning regardless of bye week. So instead of the bye week being an advantage as it used to be, it's become no different than any other week.

 

[futuristicdart]

They certainly were an abberation. We have an atrocious pass defense and those two teams were more afraid of their own QB than our D. It says more about the quality of Sanchez and Romo than it says about our D. We are above average at stopping the run yet those two teams decided to handcuff their QB instead of attacking our bottom of the league pass D. I don't find comfort in that when evaulating our pass D, and it's silly to think that teams won't follow what the Steelers did against us until we can prove that we can stop the pass.

 

[RodThePat]

Let's see. The defense stunk in 2008, stunk in 2009, stunk in 2010, stunk for the first 5 weeks of 2011 and stunk against the Steelers. Seems to me the outliers here are the games against the Cowboys and the Jets.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

They certainly were an abberation. We have an atrocious pass defense and those two teams were more afraid of their own QB than our D. It says more about the quality of Sanchez and Romo than it says about our D. We are above average at stopping the run yet those two teams decided to handcuff their QB instead of attacking our bottom of the league pass D. I don't find comfort in that when evaulating our pass D, and it's silly to think that teams won't follow what the Steelers did against us until we can prove that we can stop the pass.

:nodding:

Regards,
Chris