Beating a dead horse: ESPN highlights (my own review)

[AtivanPatsFan]

Hello fellow Pats fans, since the board looks like we just got blown out about 56-10. :singing: I'm going to try and give us a little smile.

On the ESPN highlights:

1) Watching the replays, one may think that the Eagles won this game! My first and foremost gripe is *drum roll* the quality of the highlights. Let us take our friend Randy Moss for example, and his offensive "pass interference" call. Strictly based on these highlights, it looked like offensive PI, however, this is where ESPN goes wrong. Instead of showing a slow motion replay of a quasi-phantom offensive PI call, they zoom to AJ 'God' Feely throwing a miracle pass over the middle where the Eagles WR (Lewis?) makes a ridiculous catch. Twice.

2) When I watched the game initially, live, with all of my Patriot brethren, (you guys :rocker: ) I whole-heartedly thought that Gost missed the field goal post phantom-OPI on Randy Moss. However, after reading some posts here which suggested that the kick may actually have been GOOD, I decided to give it another look, courtesy of ESPN.... The kick is up!! And it's NO GOOD!! While watching, I was said to myself "damn that was really close to going directly over the goal post (good), can't wait to see the replay". ZOOM to AJ 'God' Feely making another career pass to an Eagle Wide Reciever. What the Hell?!!

3) Cue X amount more Eagles plays and they almost convinced me that they won the game. Now we all get to hear how beatable the Patriots are etc. etc. so on and so forth.

Sure it's Monday, but never late to share my game and team thoughts, so here goes:

a) Wes Welker is our Troy Brown from 2001. I mean, what DOESN'T this guy catch? Not only does he catch pretty much everything, he'll then take seemingly nothing and turn it into a game turning first down. What a boost this guy gives to our offense. Wes Welker is a player.

b) It pains me to say this but, did anyone else agree with John Madden when he said the in-cuts were killing us? Sure, our gameplan was probably to try and take away Westbrook (which we were good at), however, a double move by the Eagles WR starting out, then moving inside basically left them wide open or open enough for an accurate QB (AJ 'God' Feely?) to feed upon our secondary. The in-cuts KILLED us.

c) In addition to (b), lets give it up to our secondary. Our gameplan was clearly don't get beat deep, and keep them to short yardage plays. We did exactly that. I give our secondary a ton of credit. Let us also face some facts: AJ 'God' Feely played absolutely phenomenal against us. Perfect passes almost every play. An exceptional day by AJ. PS: All-Star day by the Eagles O-line.

d) Is it me, or is Tom Brady just looking for Randy Moss too long for too much? Don't get me wrong, Randy Moss is hands down THE best WR in the game right now. But on certain plays I see Brady just staring down Moss while not checking down when he is covered to a more open guy. Take this with a grain of salt of course, because I think Tom realized he was doing the same thing and then started quick checking to Moss while knowing he was going to dump it off to Wes. ( I do enjoy Tom as QB).



Well, those are just some of opinions on this late Monday night. Please feel free to post your thoughts/concerns/comments. I'd love to hear them.


PS: On an aside- I will be attending my FIRST ever Patriots game on 12/23 against the **Dolphins** . Been a fan for the majority of my short life, and I can't count down the days. Anywho, heres to a 16-0 and even greater 19-0!!

GO:rocker: PATS

 

[Metaphors]

b) It pains me to say this but, did anyone else agree with John Madden when he said the in-cuts were killing us? Sure, our gameplan was probably to try and take away Westbrook (which we were good at), however, a double move by the Eagles WR starting out, then moving inside basically left them wide open or open enough for an accurate QB (AJ 'God' Feely?) to feed upon our secondary. The in-cuts KILLED us.

3 words.

West. Coast. Offense.

It is amazing to me that almost everyone (not saying that you think this) thinks what the Eagles did was some magical gameplan drawn up to beat the Pats. Running a spread, one-back set and throwing quick in-cuts to a variety of receivers goes back over 2 decades.

And besides LJ Smith (not Rodney's best cover game), who did you see wide open? I saw a lot of passes with DBs a half-step late. Gay said it was poor technique and I'm inclined to agree. After a bunch of 40 pt wins, it might be hard to get the players' attention on fundamentals. I would think Belichick will have the players' full attention this week.

c) In addition to (b), lets give it up to our secondary. Our gameplan was clearly don't get beat deep, and keep them to short yardage plays. We did exactly that. I give our secondary a ton of credit. Let us also face some facts: AJ 'God' Feely played absolutely phenomenal against us. Perfect passes almost every play. An exceptional day by AJ. PS: All-Star day by the Eagles O-line.

Gameplan was to keep Westbrook from being a difference-maker and making Feeley win the game. Feeley made good throws and receivers made great catches, but I give credit to the play calling. Feeley typically went with his first read which got the ball out quickly and helped his protection. When the protection broke down (Asante's first pick) or the first read was covered (Asante's second pick), the result was a killer turnover.

On Asante's 2nd pick, there was a wide open receiver crossing underneath that would have had an easy first down, but Feeley was locked into the double move and Asante didn't bite at all. Feeley didn't read the defense, he just threw the ball regardless. Simple gameplan that is effective with good play calling...disastrous when the called play is covered.

I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere, but Vrabel didn't seem to be very effective. Generally slammed into the RT, didn't move him much and didn't have much in the way of moves to get around him. Would have liked to see more inside pressure (Bruschi, Seau and Thomas) but I think they might have been more focused on the run and slowing down Westbrook.