Buffalo Post Game Thoughts (Merged)

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

Okay, I actually agree with Deus here. Matt Light, our All-Pro left tackle, gave up one sack and a couple of hurries to a top 10 defensive end, yet apparently he's washed up, his career is over, and our third-round rookie who can barely speak English should step in and start for the rest of the season.

Yeah, let me know how you figured that one out.

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

bbell31 said:

yaaah, our entire line is overrated, mostly by the pats fans on this site..

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The line is fine. It's among the best in the league. It just had a bad game. Most of the team had a shaky game. It happens, especially early in the year. You may want to think back to how last year's game against the Chiefs was going before Brady got injured. It's not as if the Patriots were looking razor sharp, and they managed to eek out a 17-10 victory.

The list of teams that didn't look as if they need a lot of work this week is maybe 2-3 teams long, and that's it.

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

TheComeback said:

Yeah, let me know how you figured that one out.

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That'll never happen :violent:

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

TheComeback said:

our third-round rookie who can barely speak English should step in and start for the rest of the season.

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To be fair, he was a late 2, not a 3, and he can speak English quite well now (with a rather bizarre cross of Southern and German accents ).

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

bbell31 said:

matt light is past his allpro years idiot, so dont try to use that title to make him sound good...i dont think seabass should start yet becuz i think he is still soakin it all in but im just stating the fact light is not very good ne more and its is scary for me as a pats fan watchin him consistently get beat by his man..1 sack, yes numbers look good but his man beat him all night and forced brady to throw quicker than he wanted...go back and watch closely pedro..also, when light is a backup or not here next year then come to me and explain to me again how "good" matt light is...haha i promise u wont be able to...save this btw if your so confident in your man light and dont think he is washed up!

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This seems to be a photo night, so here you go. You might want to switch:

Re: A Few Last Thoughts

What struck me, was this O looked rusty.. there were some slightly off throws by Brady, and Welker seemed to be in the wrong place a couple of times..

The D is still too early to tell, one obvious note was the improvement in the D backfield.. much more confident in that phase of the game..

We had 4 sacks..

Re: Thoughts on the Game

This game looked to me a lot more like the instance of a team not entirely in sync yet than a bad team or a team incapable of playing outstanding football.

The offense was very out of sync in the first half especially, not able to get on track. That said, it wasn't so much a case of an offense which couldn't get anything going as it was an offense which was able to move the football but stalled at some point in each drive because of a what can best be described as "out of sync" plays. Get more into the flow of things in the course of another game or two, and these stalls won't be a problem.

The defense didn't actually look that terrible. It let up 7 points in the first half and in the second half 10. It certainly played well enough to win this game. Now, this was only the Bills, and there needs to be an improvement if the defense is going to be able to deal with more talented offenses. That said, there were many encouraging signs.

Similar to the offense, the defense didn't look like one that couldn't make any stops. In fact, excluding the final drive (as it skews the numbers and doesn't represent the overall course of the game) over the course of 7 drives, the Patriots forced 9 3rd downs, of which the Bills converted only 4. They scored on only 3 of their drives. The Bills drives averaged about 8 plays, including punts and plays repeated due to penalty - which is a respectable number and is skewed by the 15 play monster 4th quarter drive which was the defense's sorest spot of the night. On the other 6 drives, the Bills averaged under 7 plays per drive, again including punts and plays repeated due to penalty.

So what's the point to all of this? Basically that, as I said, the defense didn't have any big trouble getting off the field other than on the one 4th quarter Bills TD drive. Looking at the drives individually, what do we have?

1. 0 first downs, punt
2. 3 first downs, TD
3. 1 first down, punt
4. 1 first down, punt
5. 1 first down, punt
6. 1 first down, FG
7. 5 first downs, TD
8. 1 first down, game ends

The thing to notice here is that out of those 7 "regular" (that is, not the end of the game) drives, 4 of them were not only defensive stops, but they were very good defensive stops, allowing only 1 first down each before stopping the Bills. The 4th quarter drive sticks out like a sore thumb and was surely a black mark - but the rest of the game the defense played well to very well. Also keep in mind that this was without Jerod Mayo, who reports indicate may be OK, for all but the first 1 1/2 drives.

I think that, taking the time to look back at this game after the heat of the moment, it was very encouraging.

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

bbell31 said:

matt light is past his allpro years idiot, so dont try to use that title to make him sound good...i dont think seabass should start yet becuz i think he is still soakin it all in but im just stating the fact light is not very good ne more and its is scary for me as a pats fan watchin him consistently get beat by his man..1 sack, yes numbers look good but his man beat him all night and forced brady to throw quicker than he wanted...go back and watch closely pedro..also, when light is a backup or not here next year then come to me and explain to me again how "good" matt light is...haha i promise u wont be able to...save this btw if your so confident in your man light and dont think he is washed up!

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Damn dude, no offense to you, but there's really no reason to get so worked up about things--and absolutely no reason to call someone an 'idiot' etc. Just because he had a different opinion or view on things isn't a good reason to call someone out.

We're kind of a tight group around here, and we all share a common interest. For the most part, you are amongst friends, so relax and scout our next pro bowl LT in the meantime

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

Matt light was absolutely horrible. That Buffalo d-line is not even close to the best pass rush in the lead and still practically every snap that left side got pushed backwards. Only when Brady began throwing no huddle and really fast, they didn't have enough time to get to tom. I thought the right side actually did a pretty decent job. aside from one sack i didn't see any pressure on tom.

Re: Thoughts on the Game

The one and only thought that I'll share on the game is this:

I'm gonna need to have a defibrillator on stand by when I watch the Pats from now on. WHEW!

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

Light was great in the first half. He even managed to fall down in front of Schobel a couple times, which slowed him down a little.

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

Nestapats said:

Matt light was absolutely horrible. That Buffalo d-line is not even close to the best pass rush.

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Yeah, that Aaron guy is really bad

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

bbell31 said:

matt light is past his allpro years idiot, so dont try to use that title to make him sound good...i dont think seabass should start yet becuz i think he is still soakin it all in but im just stating the fact light is not very good ne more and its is scary for me as a pats fan watchin him consistently get beat by his man..1 sack, yes numbers look good but his man beat him all night and forced brady to throw quicker than he wanted...go back and watch closely pedro..also, when light is a backup or not here next year then come to me and explain to me again how "good" matt light is...haha i promise u wont be able to...save this btw if your so confident in your man light and dont think he is washed up!

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What are you Vollmer's roommate or something?? Do you need him to make a game check so he can pay for the upcoming heating bill. He is a rookie that is still learning. Light had one real bad miscue against a known issue with a speed rusher, and the Oline has struggled with the run for 2 years. Light shut down Shoebel the rest of the night. After the 1st half you never heard from him I dont see the big issue. when you have a speed rusher you do what he did ride his ass to the outter edge and let the qb step up....he did just that and tommy stepped up and threw the ball. funny how that worked

Re: Thoughts on the Game

mgteich said:

First, we have an extraordinary amount of positive comments on this game because the Buffalo returner handed us the game. If he hadn't done so, there would be lots more negative comments.

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Sure, McKelvin's poor decision helped. But on the other side of the ball, a couple of huge and suspect roughing penalties and a slew of uncharacteristic dropped passes helped the Bills. There are always things that "help" both sides. (And it's not like McKelvin just dropped that ball.)

mgteich said:

BOTTOM LINE
This type of effort won't win many games. It almost didn't win this one.

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No question. But this wasn't just any game.

This was the game where your quarterback on offense is playing for the first time in a year and it takes him a few quarters to find his touch and his rhythm -- and your quarterback on defense is injured early and out of the game, leaving a couple of guys who have never worn a green dot in their lives to scramble around and piece things together.

Re: My postgame thoughts

ALP said:

this has already been mentioned, but it was amazingly evident tonight...

our O-line cant multi-task....

they can either run block, or pass protect, but cant do both at the same time....

in the first half, they were in run block mode, and whereares Maroney had holes and the running game was great, Brady was getting killed....

second hafl comes, and what do we see? the running game suffers, and there are no holes, but all of a sudden Brady has time....


i just can figure this O line out

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Bipolar might be the world you're searching for.

Re: Game Thoughts

DaBruinz said:

Rob -
I don't know if this was the case tonight, but during the 1st two pre-season games, there were Denial of Service attacks on the servers.

While, like you, I am a supporter, I also know that there is a lot more that goes into running this board than we know. I can guarantee you that IAN is more frustrated than all of us supporters put together.

Hopefully, whatever plagued the server tonight will have left a trail that Ian and the support staff can follow and fix..

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I understand there is more that goes on with these things than we all understand, but unfortunately this is a common occurance on gamedays. That's why I have been patient with it and not said anything until now. But it happens every game and I look at other team's boards like JetsInsider and Finheaven and they don't have the same problems.

I wil support this site and I understand Ian works really hard to maintain this site, but he really needs to figure out a way to keep this site up and running on gamedays.

Re: matt light and few thoughts on tonights performances

bbell31 said:

if thats fine to you then u are one low standard s.o.b., thank god your not our coach, you would prolly have light in there until 2020 with kaczur oppooo..haha i have quicker feet than light and thats a fact...dudes washed bro..but i understand and see why he is the current starter for now..we have to change that next year though

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About the only thing you have quicker than Light is your mouth. Aaron Schoebel is one of the best DEs in the league. And he's always given Light fits. But he gives all LTs fits. Scoebel had one sack tonight. WOW.. whooppeee.. Can Light be blamed for the interception? No, because he kept Schoebel off Brady to begin with. and the throw by Brady was ill-advised since the HB was covered anyways. This was a time when Brady should have thrown it away..

Seriously.. Do you even understand that the Tackles taking players wide is what they are supposed to do?

Re: Game Thoughts

Easywolf32 said:

Anyone here actually though replacing a younger Harrison, Bruschi, Vrabel and Seymour was going to be easy?

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No, we should have started 4-5 years ago when we first began holding a roster spot for Alexander.

When you say Harrison though, I'm pretty happy with Meriweather and the rest. It's not Harrison, but it's an effort to address the position, stark contrast to our "Mayo or bust" linebacking approach.

Re: My postgame thoughts

KontradictioN said:

Sorry, I forgot special teams. Just the typical stuff there though. I like Maroney as a return man. That first return he had was awesome. Overall, like I said, it's much the same. We were solid there in both return and coverage unites.

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first of all, thanks for the long rundown above. a lot of work and very helpful. i'm going to go through it in more detail later this morning. thanks again.

But, "typical stuff" on special teams? The tackle, strip and fumble recovery gave Brady the chance to win the game. I disagree!

Re: Thoughts on the Game

PatsFaninAZ said:

True that. While he was diving into the pile to get the ball, James Sanders was jumping around pointing possession rather than getting his butt on the ground while the ball was still in play.

So, when there's a live fumble, why is there always such an obsession with players jumping around to point their direction? The refs don't care, and half of them are always wrong and look foolish. It's a weird aspect of football. I usually don't mind, but like tonight when a guy should be in the pile getting the ball or keeping guys off a teammate with the ball, standing around pointing which way you want it to go is a waste of time. Get in the pile until the ref starts pulling you off.

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I watched the replay on ESPN Sportscenter after you mentioned this about Sanders and you are wrong. That was not Sanders jumping around. That was Pat Chung (#25) at the top of the screen. Sanders (#36) was at the bottom of the screen, to the right of Gostkowski and digging in the pile.

Right call on your part, just the wrong player.. And I'm sure that Belichick will ream Chung a new one for it.