You've made some compelling arguments and backed them up with hard facts, and that's what I will respect.
Thanks. I try to - out of respect. In any case, it's been a good discussion.
Well, it also is bad phrasing on my part when I said where either audibles or not audibles- and it would probably be better to say "audibling or not audibling out of the run (options) into the pass, etc" which we've seen him do plenty of time. I've sure we've both seen when he has clashed with BOB on what personnel is sent onto the field, but it is incumbent upon BOB to stand up to that whenever necessary because he has the additional advantage of the HC's input as well as being linked to the box personnel who have a bird's eye view of what's unfolding on the field.
Although it rarely happens, Brady sometimes checks OUT of a pass and INTO a run. I think he actually did that one time against BAL and again in the SB (though I can't quite remember which play and the play-by-play text is , of course, useless for that sort of thing.
I agree about BoB standing his ground, but it may be that he simply didn't have a compelling argument at the time.
In some instances that may be correct but in this instance, the personnel, IIRC, was swapped out almost immediately after the play was dead which suggests that it was already pre-scripted and I think it would be a stretch to assume that Brady was calling the personnel at this point.
I understand the rationale you put forward on why Woodhead would be more effective back there on that particular 3rd and 11, but as I pointed out, the Giants completely ignored it.
I agree that the swiftness implies that the series was pre-scripted, but that doesn't mean it wasn't by agreement among Brady, BoB and BB, necessarily.
That the Giants ignored the "Woodhead Gambit" seems more "bully for them". The Pats may have been trying to duplicate something from their final drive of the first half, when Woody had a couple good runs up the middle and caught three short passes (one for the TD). If the Giants made an adjustment based on that experience, well, that's only what they're supposed to do.
I would beg to differ that the Giants were playing the run well at all- when you're allowing a back a 5.0 YPC (prior to that last carry for a loss) I would not say that's doing a good job of stopping the run.
This is where I think raw averages can be misleading. BGE had the one breakout run for 17 yards; Welker had one for 11 yards. The Pats remaining 17 rushes averaged 3.24 yards (BGE averaged 3.0 without the one break).
Sorry, but you are dead wrong that having BJGE on the field doesn't fool anyone. Our biggest gains (for example, the famous Welker 99 yarder in Miami, or even the PA where Welker nearly beat Revis to the EZ on the first play of the 2nd half in the 1st game vs the Jets) has come out of the play-action with BJGE in the one back formation. There are many more examples, but posters will probably easily recollect those two.
I certainly remember those two plays, and I'm not saying that defenders don't ever get fooled, but as a general scheme point, defenses pretty much know that, if BGE is on the field, odds greatly favor him running it between the tackles, or Brady passing it to someone else. BTW, I'm not dissing BGE, I really like the guy. He does what he does probably more consistently well than anyone in the league. There are simply practical limits to what he does well and how he does it that have practical and strategic impacts on the offense overall.
BTW - Welker's play against the Fins was at least partly a consequence of one guy blowing coverage. However, I think there's more to the parallel between that play and Brady's grounding safety than might be evident at first glance. It seems to me that on any play on which the QB drops back into the endzone, one receiver is supposed to adjust and break downfield in a certain area to guard against precisely what happened (a blind throw that becomes grounding because there's no receiver anywhere nearby). In the SB, I think that was supposed to be Branch. IIRC, and I haven't re-watched the play, it looked as if all 22 players were inside about the 12-yard line with Branch behind them all running a crossing route. I think he was supposed to break off and run down the left hash.
This is a good point you bring up- I guess that they had kept going with Jacobs because he is a veteran and they know what they will get from him, as opposed to a rookie in Ridley, etc. I still do wonder about the mindset behind not playing him.
Question: did Bradshaw see the field again after he fumbled?
I think the "mindset" with Ridley was simply that he wasn't ready yet. To me, there's a distinction between losing the ball to a fine play by a defender to strip it and fumbling it because of carrying it without good security. Bradshaw was carrying the ball fine (just as Woody was when he was stripped on that return against Denver) - Spikes just made a great play. OTOH, Ridley's fumbles, I believe, were because he still sometimes slips into carrying the ball slightly low and away from his body (probably for a feeling of better balance), which appears to become more pronounced as he's headed into contact. Undoubtedly, this isn't something that "just came up" but something he's been working to fix in practice all season - and the coaching staff felt that he just wasn't sufficiently consistent with it in practice since the Denver game. I also think that, if BGE or Woody had gotten hurt, they WOULD have tried with Ridley rather than go away from running entirely.
In answer to your question, Bradshaw had one more carry on that same drive after the strip, and then three more on the Giants' final scoring drive, including his buttplant TD.
The box score shows that you are correct. My mistake. I have not been able to go through the entire game, play by play, because it is too aggravating at this stage. Clearly you had the wherewithal and ability to do that, so you have the upper hand over me on this.
I did have to grit my teeth a bit.
I don't mean to imply that if we gave BJGE a greater number of snaps the outcome would be that much different. My thinking was that if we stuck to our ace one back (as in true back) formation which I believe to be our most potent package, because the TE's slip into their double-threat roles (blockers or route-running) we would have given them a much harder time.
But then again, I do recall that the Giants identified relatively early that Gronk just was not going to be effective; they called him a "dummy" or "decoy" (may have seen this on "sounds of the game"). As I haven't watched the game in depth, I'm not sure if they then started treated him differently (e.g., single coverage). But if that did happen then probably my thinking goes out the window.
If Gronk had been able to play at even 67% (blocking as well as route-running) of his normal self, I agree, that would have killed - it might even have been something of a rout. It also might have been nice if the Pats had had a "real" 3rd TE who could block well and run a few routes (if only Yeatman had made it through to the practice squad). Maybe Polite was supposed to fill part of that role, but it wasn't enough.
But, I mean, most of us could see at home that Gronk just wasn't even half the threat he normally is. The Giants defense would have been fools not to see that as well and adjust accordingly. In spite of Gronk's condition, if one of those strips by the Pats defenders bounces a different direction or Welker makes the catch or Manningham is anything short of brilliant on his catch or any one of a handful of other plays goes slightly different . . .
