***** Official Deus Irae 9/7/2014 game observations (and more) thread *****

I'm tired.
The game sucked.
The team mostly sucked.
My dinner sucked.
I have to get up extra early, which sucks.

In short, today has been one long JETS-like experience, with suck pretty much everywhere, and the vaunted New England Patriots are the only winless team in the AFCE. So, while I could rant on and on about all things Patriots, overcooked rice and undercooked pork, I'll try to keep this somewhat even-toned, in honor of the game being played on national acorn squash day, and all. Now, without further ado:

1. Anyone trying to tell you that the heat/sun wasn't a factor is completely full of it (I'm looking right at you, coach).
2. I normally defend the OC/DC but, in this case, I'm going to make an exception. I'd really love to know what the hell McDaniels was thinking with the playcalling on that first drive. You've got a patchwork O-line, so you start off with a run instead of a quick strike pass? I get that Welker's absence means there's nobody who gets open as quickly as Brady would like, but why not come out five wide when you know that the Dolphins are going to just rush four? It was there. You had a chance to put the Dolphins on their heels from the start, and you went with a Ridley handoff. Awful. And that led to 2nd and long, and then 3rd and long with a rusty Gronk, which led to that
3. Nice trainwreck of a punt play. Allen's now got a block on his resume. I don't know who to blame, because I didn't go back and watch to see who let his man just waltz on by, but the snap wasn't that bad, and Allen recovered quickly, so some blocker needs to be missing his ass. Now, rather than go line-by-line, let's talk Mike Wallace.
4. Mike Wallace looked like the greatest WR in the history of the world today when he was beating the hell out of everyone with his routes. The only things that slowed him down were his hands and his own QB. For all the "Mike Wallace can only run..." nonsense, well, there you have it.
5. Vellano stunk, but that's not his fault. Blame the coaches for putting him in that position. He has no business being out there like that. Of course...
6. Tommy Kelly. 'Nuff said, I think.
7. Devey does not belong out there, but that's not his fault. Again, blame the coaches for putting him in that position. Which leads to...
8. Logan Mankins. Nowhere near 'nuff said, but it's getting covered elsewhere. I'll just leave it at this...
9. Solder/Mankins/Connolly/Cannon/Vollmer should have been the week one starting OL lineup.
10. Wilfork was getting penetration, but he was also being steered away on running plays. The Dolpins were able to make a living by guiding him right or left, and then running to the side he'd been steered away from. that's what happens when you've got DEs with no lead in their asses.
11. Amendola simply cannot get open as fast as Welker could.
12. Thompkins is still a much different player when the games count, and that's a very bad thing. Dobson better tape an aspirin to whatever ails him and get out there, because this WR group doesn't have an OWR1, unless he's it.
13. LaFell is what he is. He's a multi-position WR3/WR4 who needs to be used like Gaffney was. Anything more, and you're asking for trouble.
14. Hey, how about that shiny new TE2, Tim Wright? The WR with the wrong positional label racked up a whopping 15 yards on 3 catches. Thank God they got him for his blocking, huh?
15. Edelman already looks good, although I'd love to hear his explanation of what happen on that deep ball that flew harmlessly over his head while he did a pirouette instead of just turning up field. He'll make a fine WR of all trades again this year.
16. BTW, the Dolphins have put together a very nice secondary, and they have a nice DL. So, to return to my OC rant, why the hell didn't the Patriots take advantage of the Dolphins LB problems by spreading the damned field with empty backfields?
17. Brady looks great when he's got time. Brady looks mortal when he's getting his ass kicked, his receivers aren't running the routes he's expecting, and the receivers are dropping passes. Sounds too damned much like last year, but I was actually encouraged by the early performance. They came back from a rough start and had things going their way at the half.
18. I feel bad for Hightower. He was flagged for making a form tackle. I'm all for protecting QBs in some cases, but that rule's just not right.
19. Gost got the job done, and to wrap things up instead of going 50 points long,
    
20. It was just game one. It's a bad loss, but they'll turn it around and fix at least most of the problems.

There's a whole lot more to say, but that'll do for now.

Some good observations. A couple of things:

--- Wright does not deserve the knock you gave him. The guy has been with the Patriots for little over a week, the team's passing game was mostly all around bad today, but he came away with 3 catches on 5 targets for 15 yards. Obviously that is not world beating production but given the specifics of his situation he doesn't deserve singling out (no way, no how).

--- Agreed on Vellano but it is mostly a guess to say the answer was "Tommy Kelly". He's several years north of 30 coming off of missing virtually an entire season. Let's see what he contributes (and it may be plenty) in his new home before believing he would have made a tangible difference. It's possible he was cut because he doesn't have much left in the tank.

I mentioned this in another thread, but at the risk of being redundant, I will comment on this observation one more time. I lived in New England for a long time, and have now lived in Florida for a while. While the delta in temperature and humidity between the two locales on your television screen may not look to be that much, trust me - the difference is huge. Deus' comment should not be simply shrugged off, and is a worthy consideration when attempting to figure out why the Patriots lost.

Until you have actually experienced it by spending extended periods of time outside in this genuinely humid subtropical climate, you can't appreciate or respect the effect. I can go outside, stand in the shade, and after five minutes feel like I need to change my t-shirt. Take your worst cold windy freezing day, and though a southern Florida day may not be quite so bad, it's closer to being just as much of an influence and impact than most of you think it is. Cold weather you can prepare for with layers; there is no escape from the sun and humidity on days like this when you are outside and physically active, and it is exacerbated when the influence is new to you and therefore less prepared for the effects.

To me that likely had a profound effect on the Reversal of Fortune that was the debacle we saw in the second half.

1. agreed, but BB is never gonna use that excuse.....he's lied about such things before......nothing new
3. looked like ninko to me
6. i wanted to keep kelly.....we'll see how he does this year.....should be interesting

TheBostonStraggler said:

--- Agreed on Vellano but it is mostly a guess to say the answer was "Tommy Kelly". He's several years north of 30 coming off of missing virtually an entire season. Let's see what he contributes (and it may be plenty) in his new home before believing he would have made a tangible difference. It's possible he was cut because he doesn't have much left in the tank.

Click to expand...

Just for whatever it's worth, Kelly and his agent asked NE and Belichick for the release...it wasn't Belichick deciding to move on from Kelly.

We discussed this at length in another thread in the middle of last week, and a couple of posters including @RayClay cited articles that quoted Tommy Kelly as describing a problem with the fact that "I'm starting, yet they kept taking me out for some reason as well."

It sounded to me and @Oswlek (very clearly, actually) that when Kelly agreed to a restructure in the spring, there were some incentivized escalators thrown in, and that he feared that Belichick was purposely holding him out of reaching those escalators by not allowing him to play enough snaps/reps by the end of the season.

Kelly even made mention of the contract situation by saying "there was the deal with the contract," which certainly sounded like he felt that Belichick didn't want him to play a certain number of snaps in the 2014 season. Kelly claims that "he called his agent" and asked for his release.

Whether or not you decide to buy into @Oswlek and my belief that he asked to be released due to the escalators in his contract and the fear that he was being replaced/rotated too much to reach his possible incentives, he definitely, 100%, without a doubt asked to be released from the NE Patriots as a couple of articles stated (they were from his new team/city in ARZ). There were direct quotes from Tommy Kelly stating such, and stating that he immediately called his agent and asked to be released. This wasn't on Belichick. This was on Tommy Kelly's decision, although Kelly definitely felt as though he was being wronged by not being allowed to play as much as he wanted.

Thank you supafly for the info......I wasn't aware.

Playbook study making more sense to Arizona Cardinals DT Tommy Kelly - ESPN

Deus,

15.........9:38 in the 4th.......Edelman was running diagonally towards the sideline away from the safety and was open.....he had beaten the CB.......brady throws it upfield, closer to the safety, making edelman try to change his route........why didnt brady just hit edelman going towards the sideline like he (edelman) was going?

it looked like brady was in the wrong on that play to me.....but thats just my opinion, i could be wrong......y'all can look at it again and come to your own conclusion

i agree that the OL didnt play well.....hopefully they improve

james87654 said:

Deus,

15.........9:38 in the 4th.......Edelman was running diagonally towards the sideline away from the safety and was open.....he had beaten the CB.......brady throws it upfield, closer to the safety, making edelman try to change his route........why didnt brady just hit edelman going towards the sideline like he (edelman) was going?

it looked like brady was in the wrong on that play to me.....but thats just my opinion, i could be wrong......y'all can look at it again and come to your own conclusion

i agree that the OL didnt play well.....hopefully they improve

Click to expand...

Initially, I thought the same thing. But in one of the replays they showed the reaction of Brady where he was visibly frustrated at Edelman and not himself. Seems like the two of them were not on the same page in terms of the route.

The same thing happened with one of those long incompletions to Gronk that just fell into the ground. He fully expected Gronk to turn to a certain direction but he went somewhere else.

There were a couple of other throws that seemed more like miscommunication than bad throws..

12. You're making it sound like Thompkins had an awful game, when he didn't. He didn't do anything special, but looked more effective than any WR not named Edelman or Wallace on the field yesterday. He caught 5 of the 6 catchable balls thrown his way (he was targeted 10 times, but wasn't catching 4 of them). Plus remember he's only a second year receiver. Most WR take 3 years to develop and make a significant impact.

All good points though i wouldnt be as hard on Wright and Thompkins as you.

Vellano shouldnt even be on the team let alone be out there. And what about that 3-4 ? what a freaking disaster. I mean, i doubt Miami's OC could have done a better job neutralizing Jones. Ninko in coverage? lol wat?

I wish i was as optimistic as you but that Oline is a complete mess that i dont know it has a short term solution. Maybe Stork is a great center and we dont know.

luuked said:

Initially, I thought the same thing. But in one of the replays they showed the reaction of Brady where he was visibly frustrated at Edelman and not himself. Seems like the two of them were not on the same page in terms of the route.

The same thing happened with one of those long incompletions to Gronk that just fell into the ground. He fully expected Gronk to turn to a certain direction but he went somewhere else.

There were a couple of other throws that seemed more like miscommunication than bad throws..

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why do we always have the default assumption that any miscommunication is the WRs fault and not Bradys fault at all.......what time of the game was that gronk pass that you're talking about?

Deus, you could've saved yourself a lot of time simply by writing: BB sucks as a GM and I'm still in love with my binky Wes Welker.

Tunescribe said:

Deus, you could've saved yourself a lot of time simply by writing: BB sucks as a GM and I'm still in love with my binky Wes Welker.

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I dunno, his Welker Whine count was only 2 or 3, so that's a sign he's starting to get past the Denial stage and is moving into Anger. These wounds take time to heal.

Deus Irae said:

Vellano stunk, but that's not his fault. Blame the coaches for putting him in that position. He has no business being out there like that.

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That's just his nature. Of course you can't blame him. You need to keep him on the sideline, along with Wendell, Chung, and a number of other guys. You certainly don't want him and Chandler Jones playing 3-4 DE. Stupid.

I hope the Pats activate Kelcy Quarles. Not that he's a savior, but he has some ability to penetrate and to take on blockers effectively. Vellano just gets pushed around.

Deus Irae said:

Devey does not belong out there, but that's not his fault. Again, blame the coaches for putting him in that position. Which leads to...

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Solder and Vollmer sucked yesterday, but in general the Pats have 4 decent linemen. They need at least 5. Someone needs to step up, or they need to go out and get someone who can plug a hole. I have no more hope for Wendell than I do for Vellano, so it's either one of the youngsters or someone not currently on the roster.

We got whipped on both lines in the AFCCG. We got whipped on both lines in the opener yesterday. We lost both games in an embarrassing fashion. There's a common theme here, though it eludes me at the moment ...

Observation:
A defense plays like how the coordinator projects themselves. Patricia always looks nervous/scared on the sideline and that's how the defense plays.

Said it before and I'll say it again, a good defense is an attacking one - bully the Offense and dictate how they play, not the other way round.

Be pro-active not reactive.

Big-T said:

Observation:
A defense plays like how the coordinator projects themselves. Patricia always looks nervous/scared on the sideline and that's how the defense plays.

Said it before and I'll say it again, a good defense is an attacking one - bully the Offense and dictate how they play, not the other way round.

Be pro-active not reactive.

Click to expand...

Always agree with this. It's been one of my main tenets for the defense, and it was very, very lacking yesterday.

It's somewhat disheartening when respected members of this board come to a consensus yet the Patriots coaching staff appear to ignore the issues blindly staring them in the face.

The Pats just had one of those games. They did that last year as well. Often, they end up winning them - through some magic - but not today.

Actually, this game could have easily been 45-10 Dolphins if the Dolphins had a real QB. I don't blame the defense as much as the offense. They did nothing in the second half and Brady looked lost. He has some of his worst games in Miami so I am not terribly surprised.

What is crazy is that all the teams in the AFC East won, except the Patriots. Who would have guessed!

james87654 said:

why do we always have the default assumption that any miscommunication is the WRs fault and not Bradys fault at all.......what time of the game was that gronk pass that you're talking about?

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James I never said that it was the WRs fault. I just said that there was some miscommunication/misunderstanding. My point was that given Bradys reaction I don't think it was an overthrow but he expected Edelman to keep on running.

Here is his reaction: http://gfycat.com/AgedWigglyChuckwalla

I am might be reading it wrong..

The Gronk play came at 3:14 in the fourth quarter after the Dolphins were up 30:20.

Here is the play: http://gfycat.com/FakeHideousAmericanmarten

Again, looks to me like miscommunication.

Tunescribe said:

Deus, you could've saved yourself a lot of time simply by writing: BB sucks as a GM and I'm still in love with my binky Wes Welker.

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Yeah, he really doesn't hide his agenda very well does he? He basically wanted to say this team would have been much better yesterday with Welker, Mankins, and Kelly while both Amendola and Wright sucks, but just threw in a bunch of other stuff to hide his true agenda.