Game Thoughts, Patriots loss at Baltimore

[Rob0729]

1. This one of the most ridiculously poor officiated games I have ever seen. Some of the things that have been said by people that I saw that was aggravating. First, the refs giving into Harbaugh to do a measurement on 4th and a very long one should never had happened. It gave Harbaugh time to review the replay without ticking seconds off the clock. It was pathetic. Also, something that seemed to go overlooked is whenever the Pats' ran the no huddle the refs were exceptionally slow to set the ball giving the Ravens times to do substitutions.
2. I thought Edelman had a good game. Maybe we are starting to see what McDaniels and Belichick see in him. Hopefully, his hand is ok.
3. I think Matt Patricia is getting off the hook for his game plan and lack of adjustments. He spoon fed the Ravens their gameplan. On the Ravens' side of the field, he kept two safeties deep allowing the Ravens to run Rice all over the defense. On the Pats' side of the field, he would go with an one safety deep set which allowed Flacco to pass deep with ease. The Ravens' first three TDs were scored by that same strategy and Patricia never adjusted.
4. Ninkovich had a really bad game. I think the Pats should consider bringing back Carter to line up opposite Jones.
5. I know I am in the minority, but overall I thought McCourty had a really good game with some bad plays. That first INT drop was a great play by him and just broken up by the receiver. Yet fans are killing him for it. I thought for the most part when he covered Smith he shut him out of the game. The Smith TD on him should have been offensive pass interference. He also got a phantom penalty on him too.
6. McDaniels showed that he can be too creative for his own good. Those reverses are good to take advantage of the aggressive Ravens' defense, but you gotta use them sparingly.
7. The o-line overall played pretty good last night. It wasn't until the Ravens started to send the house did the line show any significant breakdowns.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

1. I thought Edelman had a good game. Maybe we are starting to see what McDaniels and Belichick see in him. Hopefully, his hand is ok.

1. 
   
   I love Edelman's fire, but there is no good reason why earlier in the game he was featured more and had plays called for him over Gronk, Welker, Branch, and even Ridley. He's a good 4th or 5th option. Even this game which was "good", he still completed 50-60% of his targets which is near his career average, far below the over 70% completion rate of career targets thrown to Welker or Gronk.

 

[Rob0729]

I love Edelman's fire, but there is no good reason why earlier in the game he was featured more and had plays called for him over Gronk, Welker, Branch, and even Ridley. He's a good 4th or 5th option. Even this game which was "good", he still completed 50-60% of his targets which is near his career average, far below the over 70% completion rate of career targets thrown to Welker or Gronk.

Webb shut down Welker early. As time went on, the protection of him let up. I don't know if I would take Branch over Edelman at this point. Gronk was blocking and being doubled a lot.

You go with what worked and Edelman was working. I don't think throwing to Edelman was a bad thing this week.

 

[goheels22002]

Great football game to watch, except for all the breaks for phantom and real penalties after the refs lost control in the early going.

The statistic that jumped out of the box score to me was the Patriots did not hit the QB once nor did they record a sack. The Ravens' use of Rice was excellent, offensive line did a great job and Flacco was decisive.

 

[Marqui]

1. Ninkovich had a really bad game. I think the Pats should consider bringing back Carter to line up opposite Jones.

1. 
   Dream on, Belichick will never bench Ninkovich.

 

[doesntmatter1]

If you aren't a fan of either team, it was an extremely entertaining game. Many missed opportunites for us and I almost flipped out on the phantom pass int.

I got to have mccourty's back this time. Yes I wished he would've caught an int but the dude had like 10 deep balls thrown his way and he contested many of them.

I wasn't impressed by flacco. He used the old peyton technique throw it deep until you get a flag. I wish we would do the same. Just throw it to slater or anybody deep and tell them to just jump into the defender like 6 times.

No matter who we put in at lde wasn't really getting it done. It would have really helped to have deadrick this week and we definitely should have blitzed waaay more because flaco had all day.

Our two minute offense is great but our 4 min etc is garbage. We get into a lot of trouble when we try to waste clock. We need to go back to running up the score(i might even resort to accusing bb of cheating if that motivates him). Woodhead has been very ineffective so far this season.

Props to branch for surviving the night. Lloyd made some sweet catches last night. Lastly, mcdaniels needs to stop being overly cute. Reverse okay, but these double reverses need to stop. Trick plays should be used when you are overmatched and can't move the ball, but we were moving just fine.

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

Going to post a few of my own here before reading the thread:

1 - NFL = no fun league. I disliked watching that product last night.

2 - The official's worst problem, it seems to me, was their inconsistency and lack of ability to set the officiating tone for the game. They called 25? penalties last night after taking most of the 1st quarter off from throwing a flag. They established an "anything goes" enforcement code, and then someone, somewhere told them "get ahold of the game!" So, they did... with a lot of ticky tack fouls. The aggravating thing is the hot and cold extremes. Give us the lukewarm consistent officiating we normally get, and expect please.

3 - Elaborating a little on #1... part of the reason I had no fun with that game was that I was so distracted by the way the game was being called. Over the last decade, we've seen a very particular enforcement code be developed - downfield contact was eliminated, QB's protected etc... we knew what we'd get. Collinsworth said it best last night when he noticed that "grab and hold the RB" is exactly what the Patriots did in 2002 to Marshall Faulk. Within the course of 1 game we saw the rules swinging wildly from 2001 to 2011.

4 - Devin McCourty... man - I dunno. I'm just going to gently step off his bandwagon and back away slowly. Watching him play was occasionally reminiscent of watching something like Jackass, where you get a clip of a bunch of guys at the top of some stairs, sitting in a shopping cart - you know what is approximately about to happen, and so do they, but there isn't much finesse or control involved, everything that happens is reactionary and seemingly accidental. In the end you're not sure whether you're glad you watched it, especially when the scene is capped off with voltage to the groin (IE: P.I. on the 10 yard line when up by 2 in the last 50 sec of a game).

5 - I'd be interested to see how Chandler Jones plays next time he faces Michael Oher. I have a feeling Jones will be using this game as a motivator.

6 - Credit is due to the Ravens. I think the big difference between the two teams is Ray Rice. I thought, when Harbaugh took a 15 yard unsportsmanlike, that the Ravens were about to unravel and the whole stadium was going to dissolve into hysterics. Instead they pulled it together and came back to score 10 points in ~8 min. Kudos to them for having what it takes. Torrey Smith - wow he amazed me - sorry for his family's loss.

7 - I'm pretty sure the Patriots offense is trying to establish itself as a "run anytime" offense. In the 4th Quarter, they rushed 6 times (Woodhead - 2 carries, Bolden - 1, Ridley - 3) and gained 3 yards. I wonder why they rotated their backs by series. I wonder why they went to the no back spread formation when they were trying to kill the clock - nevermind using play action during the obvious running situation. I wonder why they like using the fast out WR screen so much.

8 - I hope Belichick isn't suspended for grabbing the ref. I suspect he will just be fined, but you never know if the MAN will use BB as an example to the other players and coaches to shut up about the refs. The league is experiencing a crap load of bad publicity over this rounding error in their budget, and I feel like Steve Young's statement about the owners not caring because their coffers are filling has some traction with the average fan. Point being, Goodell could come down very hard in order to smack everyone back into line like good little boys who do what Mr. G tells them to do.

9 - I really hope we're done seeing these 4th quarter leads disappear. They're a common theme among the last 3 losses, and they hurt my brain.

 

[BradyManny]

[*]I know I am in the minority, but overall I thought McCourty had a really good game with some bad plays. That first INT drop was a great play by him and just broken up by the receiver. Yet fans are killing him for it. I thought for the most part when he covered Smith he shut him out of the game. The Smith TD on him should have been offensive pass interference. He also got a phantom penalty on him too.
[/LIST]

Agree. McCourty was great all night, and all anyone is going to focus on is the mistakes. It's a shame. But we saw last night he can cover deep down the sideline at a high level again. No doubt about it, his play was strong last night.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Going to post a few of my own here before reading the thread:

1 - NFL = no fun league. I disliked watching that product last night.

2 - The official's worst problem, it seems to me, was their inconsistency and lack of ability to set the officiating tone for the game. They called 25? penalties last night after taking most of the 1st quarter off from throwing a flag. They established an "anything goes" enforcement code, and then someone, somewhere told them "get ahold of the game!" So, they did... with a lot of ticky tack fouls. The aggravating thing is the hot and cold extremes. Give us the lukewarm consistent officiating we normally get, and expect please.

...

On your first point: I think the only people who didn't have fun watching last nights game were Pats fans. The rest of the audience saw a competitive, entertaining game with marquee players on both sides that came down to the wire.

On your second point: I think that's a useful perspective. They make more than their share of bad calls, but they just seem out of control of themselves and the game too often. The Jets-Dolphins game made Pats-Ravens look like a brilliantly officiated game.

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

On your first point: I think the only people who didn't have fun watching last nights game were Pats fans. The rest of the audience saw a competitive, entertaining game with marquee players on both sides that came down to the wire.

I certainly get that perspective. I am apparently hyper sensitive to bad reffing. If this were a different primetime game that I was watching, I don't think I'd have been able to ignore the incompetence of the refs - but I also wouldn't feel as aggravated about the problem.

I actually prefer the very physical play downfield, like we had before the no chuck rules popped into emphasis.

 

[manxman2601]

Agree. McCourty was great all night, and all anyone is going to focus on is the mistakes. It's a shame. But we saw last night he can cover deep down the sideline at a high level again. No doubt about it, his play was strong last night.

He was great apart from his mistakes is what you're saying. Does that mean the officiating crew were great too?

No doubt he did well on occasion, but he was burned a number of times in the final quarter, dropped a sitter of an INT and played pattercake with Pitta (?) on the TD - a really pathetic attempt at a tackle. For those reasons alone, I respectfully disagree that he played a "great" game. He also had a lot of safety help last night.

 

[reflexblue]

1. This one of the most ridiculously poor officiated games I have ever seen. Some of the things that have been said by people that I saw that was aggravating. First, the refs giving into Harbaugh to do a measurement on 4th and a very long one should never had happened. It gave Harbaugh time to review the replay without ticking seconds off the clock. It was pathetic. Also, something that seemed to go overlooked is whenever the Pats' ran the no huddle the refs were exceptionally slow to set the ball giving the Ravens times to do substitutions.
2. I thought Edelman had a good game. Maybe we are starting to see what McDaniels and Belichick see in him. Hopefully, his hand is ok.
3. I think Matt Patricia is getting off the hook for his game plan and lack of adjustments. He spoon fed the Ravens their gameplan. On the Ravens' side of the field, he kept two safeties deep allowing the Ravens to run Rice all over the defense. On the Pats' side of the field, he would go with an one safety deep set which allowed Flacco to pass deep with ease. The Ravens' first three TDs were scored by that same strategy and Patricia never adjusted.
4. Ninkovich had a really bad game. I think the Pats should consider bringing back Carter to line up opposite Jones.
5. I know I am in the minority, but overall I thought McCourty had a really good game with some bad plays. That first INT drop was a great play by him and just broken up by the receiver. Yet fans are killing him for it. I thought for the most part when he covered Smith he shut him out of the game. The Smith TD on him should have been offensive pass interference. He also got a phantom penalty on him too.
6. McDaniels showed that he can be too creative for his own good. Those reverses are good to take advantage of the aggressive Ravens' defense, but you gotta use them sparingly.
7. The o-line overall played pretty good last night. It wasn't until the Ravens started to send the house did the line show any significant breakdowns.

Ill co sign this. Worst offciated game in modern pats history, the ridiculous calls kept the defense on the field and they wore down, so many ludicrous calls
I thought mcourty played well also

The O-line played a lot better than last week

At times Micky D got to cute for his own good. Unless he was banged up why wasn't riddly out there more.

Ive seen Ninko struggle lately, it this continues maybe put cunningham in at his spot.

 

[Rob0729]

Agree. McCourty was great all night, and all anyone is going to focus on is the mistakes. It's a shame. But we saw last night he can cover deep down the sideline at a high level again. No doubt about it, his play was strong last night.

They showed plenty of times when he had outstanding coverage. They showed one route on Smith where he cut off the route and forced his route to be along the sidelines forcing Flacco to throw it into a too tight of a window.

 

[aluminum seats]

Going to post a few of my own here before reading the thread:

1 - NFL = no fun league. I disliked watching that product last night.

2 - The official's worst problem, it seems to me, was their inconsistency and lack of ability to set the officiating tone for the game.

4 - Devin McCourty... man - I dunno. I'm just going to gently step off his bandwagon and back away slowly.

8 - I hope Belichick isn't suspended for grabbing the ref. I suspect he will just be fined, but you never know if the MAN will use BB as an example to the other players and coaches to shut up about the refs. The league is experiencing a crap load of bad publicity over this rounding error in their budget, and I feel like Steve Young's statement about the owners not caring because their coffers are filling has some traction with the average fan. Point being, Goodell could come down very hard in order to smack everyone back into line like good little boys who do what Mr. G tells them to do.

9 - I really hope we're done seeing these 4th quarter leads disappear. They're a common theme among the last 3 losses, and they hurt my brain.

--Strongly agree on these points. THIS is the kind of officiated game that would turn me off to the league; not just that there were bad calls, but it was just an endless arbitrary stream of chaos. It began to feel meaningless what happened.

--Disappointed in McCourty. Hard to believe they keep voting him captain.

--Way too much made of Belichick touching the ref. It wasn't beligerent, and it wasn't during the game. It was, "hey Pal, you want to stop running away like a little girl and talk to me for a second?"

 

[Hudson Pats Fan]

He was great apart from his mistakes is what you're saying. Does that mean the officiating crew were great too?

No doubt he did well on occasion, but he was burned a number of times in the final quarter, dropped a sitter of an INT and played pattercake with Pitta (?) on the TD - a really pathetic attempt at a tackle. For those reasons alone, I respectfully disagree that he played a "great" game. He also had a lot of safety help last night.

We can't be singling out McCourty. Note that I haven't gone through other threads, but Arrington got roasted a few times and Gregory wasn't exactly putting on a tackling clinic.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

if anyone thought that the refs were going to help us last night need a head check. there was no way the NFL/refs were going to let the pats win after what happened to torrey Smith. these types of hollywood endings aren't really magical - they happen that way for a reason. that coupled with the fact we were playing in baltimore, no way the pats were going to walk out of there with a W.

 

[aluminum seats]

We can't be singling out McCourty. Note that I haven't gone through other threads, but Arrington got roasted a few times and Gregory wasn't exactly putting on a tackling clinic.

I think it's a matter of expectations. As lousy as McCourty was last year, there was hope he would rebound this season. You're right that he was hardly alone in secondary suckiness. We should probably just accept what he is now and go from there.

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

if anyone thought that the refs were going to help us last night need a head check. there was no way the NFL/refs were going to let the pats win after what happened to torrey Smith. these types of hollywood endings aren't really magical - they happen that way for a reason. that coupled with the fact we were playing in baltimore, no way the pats were going to walk out of there with a W.

I had a similar thought. Smith could have pretty much done anything to get free for a catch and it wouldn't have been called.

Doesn't really mean that people thought the refs were there to "help" the pats last night though.

 

[NinjaZX6R]

What could happen is if they moved Ninko to 43 sam and either bring Carter back or move JC to LDE.

 

[NinjaZX6R]

Devin had a decent game till the 4th qtr.