Boy that was a roller coaster of emotion. Lots of things to discuss...or more accurately get off my chest. Knee jerk reaction is a generous discription.
1. We didn't lose that game because Aaron Hernadez got hurt. Granted its hard to lose a guy like that so early in the game without some disruption, but that wasn't even close to the reason they lost the game. That responsibility goes from the top right to the bottom.
2. The offense ran the ball well enough to score 30. They pass the ball well enough to score 30. BUT the problem was they never seemed to do it enough times in a row to sustain drives.
3. A perfect example was on the drive before the TD drive. The Pats had easily marched down the field and Lloyd makes a great catch for a first down. Then in the same series he drops an easy first down catch, followed by an a strange run call and missed pass and the drive was over.
4. Make no mistake that the defense we see next week is not any better than the one we saw today. Unfortunately we are going to have to see it on the road.
5. I don't know why exactly that the play that really pisses me off was the first down run that AZ made to "seal the game". Brandon Spikes has a tendency to predetermine which gap he's going to shoot or cover. On that play he predetermined an A gap, which was surprising because there was already a DLman in that gap. Thus when the runner came through the B gap, there wasn't a LB there to fill what was clearly his gap. There was no need to take that shot in the dark, but he did it anyways, and its not the first time either. DO YOUR JOB Brandon.
I think this pisses me off more than the drop by Welker, or the miss by Gotskowski. Those are physical errors. They happen. But this play and the hold by Gronk are just dumb mental errors, and unfortunately these 2 guys weren't alone.
6. For a 2nd straight game TB missed a wide open man deep.
7. Anyone who blames Danny Woodhead for that lost yardage is simply either an *****hole or doesn't know anything about football. After seeing it few times, I'm hard pressed to blame Thomas. It was a badly designed play that ran into the wrong stunt. The AZ DT was hitting the G-T gap on a play designed to go to the Outside. It was a very hard, but not impossible block for Thomas. However, Wookhead had no place to go.
The real mistake was the design of the play that required an OLmn to cut off a player hitting the gap to the play side of the LOS. An OG shouldn't have to "reach" block such player. They simply shouldn't.
8. You are going to hear about all the pressure Brady was under. I saw the numbers 3 sacks and 8 pressures. While I don't know if they are true, but at least 2 of the sacks were or the coverage variety, and the other was fake reverse abortion where no one blocked Acho at all. The pass blocking for great stretches of time was simply excellent, and then at the most inopportune moment look very ordinary. The same can be said about the run blocking..
9. As fairly flawless as Josh McDaniel's play calling was last week, it seemed to be just a bit out of sync, just like the rest of his team. Maybe it had to do with the adjusting he had to make mid stream after the Hernandez injury.
10. The good news is that nothing is broken and its being called the "dreaded" high sprain. That's usually a 6-8 week injury, so I wouldn't be planning on him before we come back from the bye. And it probably better if we don't rush him.
11. There are plenty of individual plays that were missed that could have change this game dramatically in our favor, but there should be no EXCUSES. Ultimately, THEY made the plays they had to, and WE.....didn't.
12. One the plus side the defense as a whole played very well. AZ were gifted 10 points, and their 2nd TD drive was highlighted by a 60 missed sack that turned into a run and personal foul. Outside of that play they didn't do much.
13 I thought the secondary play was better than last week. I really think we are going to be OK there. The run defense was decent, but could be better. The Pass rush outside of a few isolated incidents wasn't strong, except for Jones' work. I would really like to see a blitz on 2 sometime soon. And I think its starting to look like the McCourty we are going to see this year is a lot closer to year #1 than year #2.
14. I don't see how Edelman got that spot. I don't see how BB's challenge wasn't overturned. BUT the bottom line please don't blame the refs for that loss. Even though it wasn't much of a hold but Gronk did it, and the official was right to throw the flag. And while I would agree they sucked as a group, they sucked equally for both sides. Believe me the Pats and their coaching staff did more wrong in this game than the refs did. Please don't make us sound like Jet fans.
15. There really is no such thing as a good loss, this could be as good as one as there was. If you are going to lose a game, the best ones are non-conference game. Remember this is a very young group and there are a lot of great lessons to be made from this game going into the Ravens game.
16. I never really thought we were going to lose that game. It reminded me a lot of the Buffalo game we stole here a few years ago. I always felt something would happen so we'd pull out a "game we didn't deserve to win".....until we didn't. It will be good be underdogs again, and that's what we'll be next week.
