The "UnOfficial" Pats @ Vikings Post Game Thread

BradyFTW! said:

That's a pretty good front 7, I agree. Easley is not an ideal 3-4 DE, but he's just not an ideal 3-4 guy period. It's not like there's another 3-4 position that he's better suited for.

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I was thinking Justin Smith/Aldon Smith = Easley/Jones.

Early thoughts:

QB
Brady was efficient. A little off on some of the longer throws - a concern. Can't they take him out in the fourth with a big lead and give him a break; let the rookie take a snap?

RB
Ridley was also efficient, especially later in the game.

WR
Edelman and then not much. Like Welker, Edelman is starting to take some shots. Did LaFell play? One target for Amendola.

TE
Lot of TE snaps for Fleming. Wright was out of position on one route. Gronk is still working his way back.

OL
Clearly a far better result. Devey wasn't a wreck; Cannon performed better. Some Stork at the end. Fleming on the field in the fourth quarter as a blocking TE, and they ran effectively from that formation.

DL
Also better DL performance, especially against the Peterson-less running attack. Lot of two-man lines in the second half. Easley on the field a lot more than the first game, and had that nice athletic interception. Got some pressure. Played a lot in the 2-DL set in a 1-technique rush role.

LB
Huge games from Chandler Jones & Donte Hightower. Each had two sacks, plus the Jones field goal block and run-back. Far better tackling today. Jones' first sack was impressive - grabbed the shirt of the QB off his rush, slowed him down, then came back around the LT to tackle the QB. High effort.

Secondary
Interceptions from McCourty, Ryan, and Revis. Revis played mostly LCB and some slot, but did not man up on Patterson - Ryan had more of Patterson than Revis did. Odd. Really athletic play by McCourty on the INT and run-back - what do you call that, a Pick-Five? 59 yards back to the 1; guess he didn't want to dive.

ST
Several kicks through the end zone. Lovely play by Slater to deaden the ball at the two.

Penalties were ugly. 15 for 163? Unacceptable. Kept several Minnesota drives going, as they did last week in Miami.
The first Minnesota drive was troubling - passed right through the New England defense. The rest of the game Cassel was not nearly as accurate, nor did the receivers show good hands.

hwc said:

Brady needs to look in the mirror. The Pats won this game because the coaches mostly took the ball out of his hands. Staring down receivers. Hopeless heaves down the sideline to kill drives. Throwing into heavy coverage.

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When Brady looks in the mirror he sees one of the best QBs in NFL history, a 3 time Super Bowl winner, who looks like a male model, is worth 9 figures, and is married to the most notable model in history. If I was him I would look in the mirror all day.. .

PatriotsInGA said:

Is it too crazy to think that Jones and Hightower could become our designated edge-rushers with Ninkovich being moved to Hightower's old position at LB?

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Just the highlighted portion is crazy, we could use a solid 3-man rotation and Ninkovich can sub in on the left or right side.

Brady6 said:

Today confirmed one thing for me, and that is Tom Brady is not going anywhere. If Belichick really intended for Garopollo to take over for Brady he would have put him in the game today to get him reps, we had a commanding lead, and it would have been the perfect time. Garopollo is here to be Mallett, and nothing more than that is in the pipeline right now.

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Was anyone expecting Brady to be going somewhere?

PATSYLICIOUS said:

I liked the overall approach on offense even though it wasn't pretty. Nice mix of run/pass, short drop backs/quick throws, lots of play action. Keep it simple for the OL and Brady, I like seeing the efficient less dependent offense over the run n shoot even if we don't get to see 500 yards and 4 TD's from Brady.......

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Yup, amazing what a difference a 22/37 Pass/Run ratio does for clock management/resting your D compared to a 56/22 Pass/Run ratio on an 89 degree 61% humidity day.

Someone hid McDaniels' "stupid pills" today.

Archeryaddict12 said:

How much do you guys think the heat played in the Miami game. I am thinking bigger role in the loss then we think

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Also, the Miami defensive line with Wake and Starks in particular are much better than we or (especially) the media give them credit for. The media doesn't like to praise exceptional players or units on mediocre teams, it prefers to extoll the virtues of mediocre players and units on exceptional teams (see Seattle's linebackers, for instance).

I wanted to go for the field goal in the last two minutes. Never mind the "running up the score" whiners.
Question for all you guys smarter than me--did we go with the 3/4 today or the 4/3?

- I hated a ton of our play calls on O

- This secondary is awesome. Can't wait until Browner gets back although I'm not sure he's a clear-cut #2.

- O Line looked solid

- Keep the turnovers coming

hwc said:

Brady needs to look in the mirror. The Pats won this game because the coaches mostly took the ball out of his hands. Staring down receivers. Hopeless heaves down the sideline to kill drives. Throwing into heavy coverage.

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week 1: "Brady is throwing the game away we need to run more, McDaniels needs to be fired RAWR pats should blow it up"

Week2: "Brady is old, and they are no longer letting him throw, McDaniels needs to be fired RARr"

SVN said:

Christopher Price ‏@cpriceNFL 7m
Brady looks bummed out. "We're going to try and make improvements."

Christopher Price ‏@cpriceNFL 5m
Brady: I'm happy we won, but I just wish we would go out there and play the way we're capable of.

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I can see why he says that. Offense settled for field goals a couple of times. Here's hoping when Gronk and Dobson shakes off the rust it gives our offense another dimension.

I'd feel much better if we shut down Adrian Peterson, but our defense minus the first drive was awesome.

Brady6 said:

Today confirmed one thing for me, and that is Tom Brady is not going anywhere. If Belichick really intended for Garopollo to take over for Brady he would have put him in the game today to get him reps, we had a commanding lead, and it would have been the perfect time. Garopollo is here to be Mallett, and nothing more than that is in the pipeline right now.

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I think there's plenty of time for that. No one said he was here to take over this year, or next year, or even the one after that. Don't get your panties in a bunch.

rochrist said:

I think there's plenty of time for that. No one said he was here to take over this year, or next year, or even the one after that. Don't get your panties in a bunch.

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Can I ask you a question, did you follow Garopollo prior to his joining the Patriots?

JackBauer said:

Was anyone expecting Brady to be going somewhere?

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http://forums.colts.com/topic/30490-curran-brady-almost-certainly-gone-before-2017/

Brady6 said:

Can I ask you a question, did you follow Garopollo prior to his joining the Patriots?

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Did you follow Brady prior to his joining the Pats? If you say you did, your lying through your teeth.

Brady6 said:

Can I ask you a question, did you follow Garopollo prior to his joining the Patriots?

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Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?

hwc said:

Brady needs to look in the mirror. The Pats won this game because the coaches mostly took the ball out of his hands. Staring down receivers. Hopeless heaves down the sideline to kill drives. Throwing into heavy coverage.

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You can't be serious. Do you even know what you just watched? It was a team which got comfortably ahead and went to a clock-killing conservative offense. There were penalties on both teams which were largely puzz!ing, at least to me. But, Brady, once again, had Edelman (thank God and those who doubted him can suck on it) and a half speed Gronk, who did pretty well. O line did a good job protecting Brady and the run blocking was good. Kudos to Ridley and Vereen. How anyone can ***** about this game is beyond me.

Archeryaddict12 said:

How much do you guys think the heat played in the Miami game. I am thinking bigger role in the loss then we think

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6 quarters – Patriots 50 / Opponents 17
2 quarters – Opponents 23 / Patriots 0

Looking at that you have to think it was a huge factor.

OL - performed much better this week, Brady didn't killed and the running game was successful. Have to judge their progress against a better DL than Minn's, but this was encouraging. Hopefully today's 5 is the main OL group going forward, maybe Stork comes in later.
WR - Amen-who? could be the biggest FA bust since A Thomas, but at least he isn't a bad influence in the locker room.
Def - looking great after the shaky first drive. #55 can't cover worth a darn, and Collins absence was noticeable. Did not catch what exactly Pats did to adjust to stop being killed by TEs and RB dump off passes. Anybody want to help fill me in on those adjustments?

shmessy said:

Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?

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What do you mean? It was a question, he seems to know more about Garopollo than most so I was asking if he followed him in college.