Baltimore is clearly not inferior in terms of talent on both sides of the ball. That allowed them to overcome the injuries you sighted. We don't have that margin here apparently by design. Belichick is the one who plays carefully. Eschews emotion too. He made an exception early in Moss' time here and Brady adapted. The exception was short lived because by 2009 he realized Moss was no longer a consistent game changer. Yet he continued to lean on an offense that covered for his defense now in belated transition despite being given little more to work with (rookie rb's BB struggled to trust, old cerebral pal buddy whose legs were heading down the back 9, a BB binky who was an impossible fit for this offense, a McD binky who fancies himself a #1 but is barely a #3, his ever growing collection of swiss army knives who are situationally intriguing but limited and not effective when overused).
If that's your issue than Belichick is the guy you should be addressing it to. He admires talent but he's devoted to scheme above all else. Some of the talent he has had here over the years even bristled over that. Some making the chicken and egg analogy. Scheme has increasingly carried the day here, to a point. That point seems to be come playoff time, particularly when talent matchups just don't clearly jive. Baltimores talent struggles against TE's and against speed. We have little of either functionally when Gronk is out and Vereen isn't utilized. On defense we struggle with pass rush and deep balls. Absent a healthy Jones and once Talib went down all the scheming in the world became moot as it just exposed the middle of the field in a panic to avoid being beat deep.
