Post-mortem on the Game

[fumbrunner]

I am completely Heartbroken. Such a great opportunity to go down in history. A once in a lifetime opportunity. And despite 18 wins, it really means absolutely nothing right now.

Junior Seau does not get his ring that he so badly wanted. Bruschi and Harrison lose an opporunity to go out not only as SB champs but as part of the team that would have had the greatest single season of all time. Brady lost the opportunity to be mentioned in the same breath as Joe Montana. it goes on and on and on.

It really looked like the Pats were unprepared on offense for the Giants pressure. I'm really not sure how that could happen. The offensive line, which was outstanding this year, was ....well....offensive. The Pats were unsure about their gameplan. Do we establish the run? do we run screens? Do we take a could shots downfield? Do we use the tight ends against their questionable safeties? It looked like they tried a bit of everything and really did not look in synch all game.

Not much else to say, except....maybe next year....

 

[patsfaninpa]

I am completely Heartbroken. Such a great opportunity to go down in history. A once in a lifetime opportunity. And despite 18 wins, it really means absolutely nothing right now.

Junior Seau does not get his ring that he so badly wanted. Bruschi and Harrison lose an opporunity to go out not only as SB champs but as part of the team that would have had the greatest single season of all time. Brady lost the opportunity to be mentioned in the same breath as Joe Montana. it goes on and on and on.

It really looked like the Pats were unprepared on offense for the Giants pressure. I'm really not sure how that could happen. The offensive line, which was outstanding this year, was ....well....offensive. The Pats were unsure about their gameplan. Do we establish the run? do we run screens? Do we take a could shots downfield? Do we use the tight ends against their questionable safeties? It looked like they tried a bit of everything and really did not look in synch all game.

Not much else to say, except....maybe next year....

I think our inexperienced offensive co-ordinator showed last night. He's used to calling plays and them working. Not good enough to change scheme if they aren't. Charlie Weis made adjustments at halftime of philly game and we went td, td and fg on our first 3 drives. Would have helped had ol come to play. But, he didn't make the adjustments after seeing they weren't getting it done.

 

[fumbrunner]

I think our inexperienced offensive co-ordinator showed last night. He's used to calling plays and them working. Not good enough to change scheme if they aren't. Charlie Weis made adjustments at halftime of philly game and we went td, td and fg on our first 3 drives. Would have helped had ol come to play. But, he didn't make the adjustments after seeing they weren't getting it done.

I agree 100%. I really thought that they would make some adjustments at half, namely doing what they did on that last drive. I was waiting all game for the Pats to go up by two scores. I thought that would end the game. But it never came.

 

[SavioKid]

I think our inexperienced offensive co-ordinator showed last night. He's used to calling plays and them working. Not good enough to change scheme if they aren't. Charlie Weis made adjustments at halftime of philly game and we went td, td and fg on our first 3 drives. Would have helped had ol come to play. But, he didn't make the adjustments after seeing they weren't getting it done.

I admit the Ofense gameplan was flawed and adjustments were miniaml but a lot of the blame goes to Brady who calls audibles at his own discretion and the calls the line blocking before the snap which was off. Brady didn't get the right blocking calls most of the time & wasn't seeing the blitz /ck pressure as it was happening a lot of times which is un-Brady like to me. It's incredible to see that and I never seen Brady / Oline out of synch like that since .....

F*CK!!!

 

[Snake]

The Patriots got flat out beaten and out-coached. Good old hard hit football.

OK, maybe he should have kicked a field goal rather than going for a 4th down conversion with a sputtering offense, but it's obvious Gostkowski isn't among Belichick's favorite offensive weapons.

They got to Brady, and they got to Brady a lot and they beat him up.

The Patriots looked flat before the game started. If I look back on the stress I went through this season, I can't imagine the stress those players have had from the beginning. They looked tired, and there was just not one more great game left in them.

All that said, they held the lead for most of the game, and except for the defense being unable to coral Eli when they had him IN THEIR GRASP, we would probably still have won that game.

We'll be back next year.

GO PATRIOTS!!!!

 

[Spiral]

Mc Daniel was the de facto offensive coordinator in 2006, and he was awful. He improved last year and was better this year. One of his disadvantages is that all of his prior experience was with quarterbacks and receivers. He has no experience with running backs or the offensive line. I think not having any experience coaching offensive linemen is a serious disadvantage for an offensive coordinator. As you can see from the NFL and HBO game highlights, BB spends most of his time coaching the defense during the games. This leaves a lot of responsibility for making adjustments on a relatively inexperienced coach.

 

[Seels]

Our offensive line got exposed plain and simple. Brady was pressured on over half his snaps, that's inexusable.I've said it all year that Matt Light is the most overrated player in football, and he did well to prove me right last night. As if gettign your ass handed to you isn't enough, he had to get ridiculous penalties last night.

 

[hyperpat]

Two points stand out for me:

1. Don't understand why BB didn't challenge the Woods fumble recovery call by the refs. Is that unchallengeable? It involves a judgment call by the refs so it would seem to be something you can challenge.

On the replay it was obvious that Woods dove on the ball and then a Giant fall on top of him. That means the play was over since Woods needs only to be touched by opponent when he is on the ground. Would have been Pats ball in Giant territory, the best field position start for the Pats.

2. Asante drops the ball. That was the game. The guy wants to be paid as the top corner in the league and he drops a ball that hit him on the hands. Big time players make that play.

 

[unoriginal]

I don't have the benefit of the eye for football some of the people in this thread have, but it appeared to me that Matt Light was no better nor worse than the other lineman playing in the game last night.

In fact, the stats I'm looking at now indicate to me that Justin Tuck - who had 6 tackles, 2 sacks, and 1 forced fumble - was the primary force on the Giants defensive line, and if I recall correctly he was usually matched up against Logan Mankins.

Umenyiora, by comparison, had no sacks and 4 tackles.

I also recall Jay Alford bowling over Russ Hochstein, and Koppen missing a block on Kavitka Mitchell, both of whom recorded sacks.

 

[fumbrunner]

Two points stand out for me:

1. Don't understand why BB didn't challenge the Woods fumble recovery call by the refs. Is that unchallengeable? It involves a judgment call by the refs so it would seem to be something you can challenge.

On the replay it was obvious that Woods dove on the ball and then a Giant fall on top of him. That means the play was over since Woods needs only to be touched by opponent when he is on the ground. Would have been Pats ball in Giant territory, the best field position start for the Pats.

2. Asante drops the ball. That was the game. The guy wants to be paid as the top corner in the league and he drops a ball that hit him on the hands. Big time players make that play.

I was yelling the same thing on the Fumble. I thought Woods was down by contact. Not sure if that can be challenged, but I dont see why not.

As for Asante's "drop". I think he did his best trying to stay in bounds and still make the catch. It was a tough catch to make.

 

[Ootball]

"Don't understand why BB didn't challenge the Woods fumble recovery call by the refs. Is that unchallengeable? It involves a judgment call by the refs so it would seem to be something you can challenge. "

That wouldn't have been overturned. They showed it from every angle, and it didn't look like he actually grabbed it - just that he was on top of it. The Giants player reached in and took it while it was lying there.

Crazy play, in a game that had a few of them....

 

[Snake]

In fact, the stats I'm looking at now indicate to me that Justin Tuck - who had 6 tackles, 2 sacks, and 1 forced fumble - was the primary force on the Giants defensive line, and if I recall correctly he was usually matched up against Logan Mankins.

No doubt, the "Tuck" came back to bite Tom Brady in the ass last night.

 

[JoePats]

Everything that didn't happen offensively was directly related to the offensive line's inept performance. The adjustment that could have been made was to use more max protect. But nobody was blocking well. Brady got blown up at least once, maybe twice by Osi. Mankins was awful. Koppen was awful. Light was awful.

No matter what gets called, it's not going to work if you can't block.

 

[fumbrunner]

Everything that didn't happen offensively was directly related to the offensive line's inept performance. The adjustment that could have been made was to use more max protect. But nobody was blocking well. Brady got blown up at least once, maybe twice by Osi. Mankins was awful. Koppen was awful. Light was awful.

No matter what gets called, it's not going to work if you can't block.

Absolutely. Brady did not block well. The Line missed assignments and had a few false start calls. The backs did not pick up the blitz. Protection was non-existent.

Have said that, they should have been in the shotgun 80% of the time and thrown more screens and hot routes. They waited for the last drive to do it.

 

[Stop Being A Jerk]

I have an answer to the question in your signature. Who can stop that? Just one man:

 

[cblesz]

Two points stand out for me:

1. Don't understand why BB didn't challenge the Woods fumble recovery call by the refs. Is that unchallengeable? It involves a judgment call by the refs so it would seem to be something you can challenge.

On the replay it was obvious that Woods dove on the ball and then a Giant fall on top of him. That means the play was over since Woods needs only to be touched by opponent when he is on the ground. Would have been Pats ball in Giant territory, the best field position start for the Pats.

2. Asante drops the ball. That was the game. The guy wants to be paid as the top corner in the league and he drops a ball that hit him on the hands. Big time players make that play.

Agree on both points. I was yelling to challenge the fumble as Woods is down by contact and had control of the ball. As far as Samuel is concerned, thank God someone else will be paying him $9 mill a year...

 

[aluminum seats]

I was yelling about challenging the fumble call as well, but after seeing it again the Pats would NOT have gotten the ball. He was just laying on it, which is sort of bizarre if you think about it.

I thought Samuel had the pick, I really did. That last drive had at least 3-4 plays that if someone had MADE a play, the game ends. Just the most painful loss I can imagine.

 

[Rob0729]

Bottom line on offense, we lost the battle in the trenches. No matter what plays or audibles you call, if you get manhandled in the trenches you are not going to click on cylinders on offense. I blame the players on the o-line and TEs more than anyone for the offense not being able to get things going.

Everyone cries that McDaniels doesn't do enough screens, but even screens weren't working consistently last night. On one screen Strahan got through the line without being touched because of missed blocking assignment and tipped the ball. Another screen Welker was met by two defenders behind the line of scrimmage.

It was execution that was the biggest problem in my opinion. Even the WRs seemed to have run the wrong routes from time to time yesterday. There were some mental mistakes including two false starts by Matt Light and a bad holding call (not that the refs got it wrong, but Watson was blatantly held) on a big play.

 

[Rob0729]

Two points stand out for me:

1. Don't understand why BB didn't challenge the Woods fumble recovery call by the refs. Is that unchallengeable? It involves a judgment call by the refs so it would seem to be something you can challenge.

On the replay it was obvious that Woods dove on the ball and then a Giant fall on top of him. That means the play was over since Woods needs only to be touched by opponent when he is on the ground. Would have been Pats ball in Giant territory, the best field position start for the Pats.

2. Asante drops the ball. That was the game. The guy wants to be paid as the top corner in the league and he drops a ball that hit him on the hands. Big time players make that play.

1. I don't know if the Pats would have won the replay Woods was on the ball, but did not have his hands on the ball and there was a Giant with his hands underneath him. You need to have control of the ball.

2. Personally, there were multipe defensive plays that could have ended the game. Meriweather had yet another fairly makeable INT go through his hand. Harrison should have tried break up the pass to Boss rather than trying to go for the ball.