That long bomb with 6:00 to go in the 4th...

AndyJohnson said:

Watch the replay and ask what happens if Brady leads Slater to the left hash?

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Good Job! Actually that play looks EXACTLY like the Touchdown to Randy Moss in the opening game of 2007 vs the jets! Brady puts that ball where it needs to be and it is a touchdown and that whole game changes. Either way i'll take the W.

After missing a wide open Gronk earlier in the game, what makes anyone think Brady would be more accurate on a longer throw with 3 defenders?????

It was clear Tom wasn't on top of his game Sunday. Why didn't the OC see this and go for shorter and safer plays....even a running play would take time off the clock and a prolonged drive would leave Ravens with little time left to score.

Dumb Dumb Dumb

Woulda coulda shoulda...NO reason for a playcall like that given the circumstances....

Randy Moss in 2007 would have made that catch... but Matthew Slater ain't no Randy Moss

In all the years watching, this was the one play that made me pop my cork at Tom. Good thing is, I know it bugs him more than it does me.

I hate to criticize play calling because hindsight is 20-20 and if something bad happens its always the wrong call but if it a TD its a great call. Brady made a bad throw, Andy's right, he leads him to the left hashmark and today we're all saying what a great call, what great execution, isnt that Slater fast blah blah.
Plain and simple Brady didnt execute and it was a freak interception.

Let's not act like Tom Brady doesn't have what it takes to make passes in double coverage. If he's not allowed to take a shot in double coverage when they just got the ball at the 50 yard line and are an 83% favorite to win for a chance to put the game away...nobody is.

The only thing the Pats don't have now to be able to do that more often is a guy like Moss. Wes Welker isn't that dude and not to mention, how often have they practiced this recently? Tebow does it better for Christ's sake. He's #1 in air passing yards efficiency. Patriots aren't built for that. They don't have tall lanky or speedy vertical threats and they don't even even have short physical threat like Steve Smith that can do this on 40+ yard passes. I don't care what anyone says, Cam Newton has a cannon, but that cannon doesn't aim right. Steve Smith makes it aim close to 60%. Converting successfully in double or triple coverage on long bombs is more about the receiver than the quarterback.

I guarantee you Matthew Stafford "has" one of the highest conversion % in double coverage without even looking it up. "He" has got be top 5 in the league.

A receiver is a quarterback's arm extension. You're ability as a quarterback is solely decided by your ability to play to your receiver's advantages.

Your own ability to throw the ball deep or short, is meaningless in comparison to being able to exploit the strengths of your receivers vs the weakness of their opponents.

But when you only have 1 deep WR threat with Ocho never really turning out to be what promised, you're bound to run into that situation.

And the funny thing is, it was also a great play by the Ravens. So why not give those defensive players some credit? Guy had to jump in the air, bat the ball backwards in the air, and pass it to his other man.

I mean....ok...in that case I guess you can really say Brady "got" picked off. Who cares? It was a 60 yard pass in double coverage which left them with a 61% chance of winning the game. Had the other players been on point and not let them return it, the Patriots would actually STILL be the favorite team to SCORE next even though they just gave the ball away.

If you pin that defender right there in the endzone...the Pats still had the greater chance of scoring next even though they would be playing defense.

100% correct call no matter how you analyze it.

If you wanna know more about how you have the greater chance of scoring while on defense here's an in-depth analysis of a similar situation from the 49ers game.

After the punt, the 49ers win probability was 37% (and their expected points were +0.34, meaning they were actually expected to be the next team to score even though the Giants had the ball).

Advanced NFL Stats: Should The Niners Have Kept The Punt?

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Yes this is possible. So not all turnovers are created equal. That's why Pats can win with a - turnover margin. It's not just if you turnover the ball, but WHERE you turnover the ball and WHEN. Sometimes it's to your advantage to take the risk and turn it over.

If you are backed up at your 30 yard line, it's 3rd and long and you have the worst punt coverage special teams unit in the league, you should take a shot into triple coverage down field...it won't hurt you any more than punting.

If it's 4th and long and time is running out you should DEFINITELY take a shot into quadruple coverage downfield and PRAY it gets picked off by a ******ed defensive player. Already happened once this year. I can't remember which game but a defensive player picked off a 4th and long pass instead of just letting it end up in an incompletion. He wiped away a bunch of yards of field position by greedily, and stupidly intercepting the ball.

But people don't know this. Coaches do. People see a pass that "should have been intercepted" when in reality that player might just be smart enough to know he should let it go and force a punt.

It's not always cut and dry and football never has nor will it ever be a simple sport. It takes a life time to really learn it. And even then you might only just get close. Chess is easier to figure out. Chess is simple in comparison to football.

Maybe the Pats saw something earlier in the game that made them think that going deep was a vulnerability for the Ravens. Maybe they thought they could throw the Ravens off with Slater because he only caught one pass during the regular season. Maybe Brady just did something stupid. No matter the situation, that play could have cost the Pats the game and, in a similar situation going forward, I hope that they will be smarter and play more situational ball.

They didn't pin them at the endzone. If they wanted to that, they would have been better off punting on 1st down. But that would have been crazy.

My problem with the call is that the bomb isn't a skill set of the Patriots. I love the call with different players and an offense that has it as a tool. But you don't go for a knock out with your weakest punch.

Apologies if it's been mentioned already (I've only read posts 201-207), but if Brady had looked to the right flat just before he threw, he would've found a wide-open Welker for at lest a 7-yard gain, if not more.
Chucking the ball, Bledsoe-style, 50 yards downfield to "Pro Bowl"(snicker) Matty Slater, when Clock-Killin' was Priority No.1, was Special Olympic-sized ******ed. Inex-feckin-scusable.
If the Pats had lost, the blame would've fallen squarely on the shoulders of Brady.
Not the Secondary, not Woodhead, not even the zebra who botched the Torrey Smith facemask/stepped OOB non-TD TD...but Brady.

captain stone said:

Apologies if it's been mentioned already (I've only read posts 201-207), but if Brady had looked to the right flat just before he threw, he would've found a wide-open Welker for at lest a 7-yard gain, if not more.
Chucking the ball, Bledsoe-style, 50 yards downfield to "Pro Bowl"(snicker) Matty Slater, when Clock-Killin' was Priority No.1, was Special Olympic-sized ******ed. Inex-feckin-scusable.
If the Pats had lost, the blame would've fallen squarely on the shoulders of Brady.
Not the Secondary, not Woodhead, not even the zebra who botched the Torrey Smith facemask/stepped OOB non-TD TD...but Brady.

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PatiotsSeven will explain to you that we had an "83% chance of winning" at the time (up 3 points, eyeroll) and that the call was ingenius.

He will also explain that "killing the clock" in the 4th quarter would have been "the dumbest thing they could have done."---which he may want to explain that thinking to the rest of the football world in general.

I believe that when you are lucky enough to gain a potentially game winning INT with 6 minutes left, and the ball is in GREAT field position at the 50 yd line, you simply milk more time off the clock, and in a worst case situation, you kick a FG to force the Ravens to need a game winning TD on their final drive with a couple of mins left. In a best case scenario, you score the final TD which proves to be the nail in the coffin, and puts you up 10 with a few minutes to go.

To me, that's undoubtably the highest--"percentage" as far as winning the game, but PatriotsSeven is apparently a statistician and disagrees with anyone who tries to tell him otherwise. I can guarantee you that both Brady and Belichick would not have made the same call in hindsight, and it was not only the most predictable play of the yr (marching out Matt Slater, who they had likely seen on film during the week in the long bomb from game one, after a very predictable turnover situation...at midfield--where most 'shots' downfield are taken), but it was easily one of the dumbest plays in the BB era.

Just mind-boggling stupid when you think of:

1. The film from week one on Slater's long bomb

2. The fact that Slater never lines up at WR

3. The fact that a turnover had just occured, which is the most likely time for a shot to the endzone

4. The fact that the ball was at midfield, which is also the most likely area for a shot downfield on a long bomb

5. The fact that they could have milked the clock, only needing about 15-20 yards for a FG, which would have forced BAL to need a TD...and on their final drive, nonetheless--as the clock would have been down to about 2-3 minutes remaining

6. If they were going to try and score an AFCCG winning TD to put the game away, they did not look for the wide open Welker about 10 yards downfield

7. Brady threw it into what amounted to triple-coverage

BlueThunder said:

After missing a wide open Gronk earlier in the game, what makes anyone think Brady would be more accurate on a longer throw with 3 defenders?????

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You are kidding right? Brady threw one bad pass so you think we should change to a Mark Sanchez game plan?
If you honestly think there were 3 defenders challenging that play you are either lying or don't know anything about football.

It was clear Tom wasn't on top of his game Sunday. Why didn't the OC see this and go for shorter and safer plays....even a running play would take time off the clock and a prolonged drive would leave Ravens with little time left to score.

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He completed 22 passes. The play call wasnt throw it deep. It was a play action pass that included a deep route, that happened to be open.

Dumb Dumb Dumb

Woulda coulda shoulda...NO reason for a playcall like that given the circumstances....

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If it was a TD the game is over. Thats a good reason, and it was open and should have been a TD.

lamafist said:

Not sure I agree on the decision to throw. Pollard was pretty even with Slater in terms of depth, and while Slater had inside position on him, Smith was closing from the other side. A throw a foot or two both farther and more inside might have been a TD -- if Slater was able to make the catch -- but too far inside, and Smith could have come up with the INT on his own.

Brady's usually pretty good about erring towards throwing it too deep, where no one can get it, and it's not like he decided to make a poor throw, but I still question the decision to pull the trigger because, on the replay, it looks like you have not two, but three defenders deep, meaning there had to be some pretty favorable match-ups for a possible catch-and-run on a shorter pass.

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Smith was not a factor on the coverage. He was trailing it and all he could do was get there for a tip. He had no chance to make a play on the ball.
The 3rd guy just ran toward the ball in the air and wasnt within 15 yards.
The number of players who get into the edge of the screen by the end of the play isn't the same as coverage

AndyJohnson said:

Watch the replay and ask what happens if Brady leads Slater to the left hash?

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I just watched it again and again and you are right. A better thrown ball would have lead to a TD. A better play by the receiver would have broken up the play and at worse, touched him down in the endzone.

Given the fact Brady was under performing on the night it wasn't the wisest decision to go for the deep throw right then. Under normal circumstances (Brady on form) its a great spot to try to finish them. We should have gone conservative, and tried to run the clock.

To everyone that thinks throwing that bomb was a good idea.....Mazz agrees with you.

First I would say, that going for the kill is definitely defensible. The Ravens know the situation too, so they should expect the usual dink and dunk offense to take as much time as possible of the clock.

OTOH I don't think these plays have worked for us in any game this year. Even when the breceiver managed to get behind the Defense he has neer managed to catch the ball.

Also its hadr to tell what brady saw, when the game developed, but its hard to imagine this being a TD, given how the players where positioned when the ball arrived. chucking it away, or throwing to his Safety valve would probably be a better decision.