Game Thoughts: Nice Little Bounce Back Week Edition

What i really liked:
Oline play
Jones being used right...as well as Revis and shutting down a side of the field
Ridley putting his head down and grinding them down at the end.

What i didn't like:
Still too many mental mistakes
Not really a gripe...but Brady and Gronk still don't seem to be on the same page..but it's only week 2 so that will defiantly get better

ArchAngel007 said:

I really hope they settle down on those penalties most penalties in Belichick tenure today

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Interesting little stat for the last two SB matches

Seattle was the most penalized team in the league and Denver was the 2nd most penalized team.

Baltimore was the most penalized team in the league and San Fran was the 3rd most.

Just some food for thought.

Ehhhh, I don't understand why everyone is circlejerking this "Air Brady is over, FF be damned!" mantra. The concern isn't that TB12 isn't throwing TDs and racking stats, it's that we haven't seen proof that the offense can keep up with a high octane offense.

Eventually the D will have a bad game and the team will need to win a track meet, and this O, IMO, can't do it yet.

Rob0729 said:

Did you watch the game? Brady's passing attempts were down because the defense gave them short fields all game and they were protecting a large lead in the second half.

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Yes. I did watch the game. The Pats came out running from the start of the game and that was clearly the game plan as they went with 6 o-linemen for a lot of snaps. They stuck with it even when the running game was working early -- first drive was a three and out on three runs.

hwc said:

Yes. I did watch the game. The Pats came out running from the start of the game and that was clearly the game plan as they went with 6 o-linemen for a lot of snaps. They stuck with it even when the running game was working early -- first drive was a three and out on three runs.

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Ummm... The Pats always try to run the ball and try to be balanced. Sometimes they get away from the run, but the game plan wasn't to keep the ball out of Brady's hands. It was to establish the run to set up the play action pass.

All I know is how I feel at 10:17 pm on 9/14/2014 is how football season is supposed to feel.
Patriots dominated. Jets got owned. I'm in a good mood.

This is much better than last week.

Feels like football is back

Rob0729 said:

Ummm... The Pats always try to run the ball and try to be balanced. Sometimes they get away from the run, but the game plan wasn't to keep the ball out of Brady's hands. It was to establish the run to set up the play action pass.

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They didn't try to be balanced last week against the Miami Dolphins. They tried to throw the ball 59 times against a pass rush that was giving the QB a beating. This week was an obviously different offensive game plan -- one that I think they will stick with for the foreseeable future, Even if it's not terribly successful, it at least gives the defense an opportunity to win the game. I think that's where the Pats are right now. Run the ball, dink and dunk to move the chains, avoid sacks, don't turn the ball over, play opportunistic defense. I love it.

Joker said:

and THIS has been my point all along since 2004/5. THIS was a great win. I even picked AGAINST them in the Pats picker thread. ....but no, "it's bad...it's all bad!!!Brady is bad!!! They are terrible on offense!!!I didn't get any stats!!!! Bad Bad Bad!!!!".

I have NEVER looked at an NFL game from a FF perspective....maybe that's why i don't get why a perceived negative in this FANTASY WORLD is equatable to the REAL WORLD. WTF?????

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Joker, I also don't play fantasy football, so maybe that explains why I am so baffled also.

The the Pats win 30-7, TB is 15/22 for one touchdown, no interceptions. He passed for only 149 yards, but HE WAS AHEAD 30-7. Why would NE be trying to break passing records when NE was so far ahead? Isn't that the way the Pats used to win, defense, no turnovers on offense? I guess I don't understand what the problem is.

hwc said:

They didn't try to be balanced last week against the Miami Dolphins. They tried to throw the ball 59 times against a pass rush that was giving the QB a beating. This week was an obviously different offensive game plan -- one that I think they will stick with for the foreseeable future, Even if it's not terribly successful, it at least gives the defense an opportunity to win the game. I think that's where the Pats are right now. Run the ball, dink and dunk to move the chains, avoid sacks, don't turn the ball over, play opportunistic defense. I love it.

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They tried to be balanced last week, but then the game got out of hand and they abandoned the run.

An amazing contrast in the two post game press conferences. Belichick was almost giddy (for him) with the way the team played and won. Brady acted like his dog has just died.

I'm in Belichick's camp. I love the way the team won that game. They simply aren't good enough in the passing game to win with the Air Belichick strategy that's been increasingly inconsistent in recent years. Ground and pound, protect the ball, win with defense is fine with me.

Brady_to_Moss said:

What i really liked:
Oline play
Jones being used right...as well as Revis and shutting down a side of the field
Ridley putting his head down and grinding them down at the end.

What i didn't like:
Still too many mental mistakes
Not really a gripe...but Brady and Gronk still don't seem to be on the same page..but it's only week 2 so that will defiantly get better

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Good write up.
It was nice to see the O line, as well as the D Line, play better. It wasn't perfect but, as compared to last week, it was a grand improvement. While the O Line remains concerning (how could it not when the OL is relying on unproven players), I expected to see noticeable and quick improvement based on the Patriots' historical ability to, usually, satisfactorily shore up weak spots.

The lone concerning item -- non player specific -- that continued from the week 1 debacle in Miami was the level of mental mistakes. Sustained success against better teams will be too difficult with this level of mental errors occurring. The good news: it's week 2, this is the youngest(????) team the Patriots have fielded in the BB era. A tangible level of mental error was likely. IMHO it's reasonable to believe the errors will diminish as the season goes on/the maturing and gelling process takes place.

TheBostonStraggler said:

The lone concerning item -- non player specific -- that continued from the week 1 debacle in Miami was the level of mental mistakes. Sustained success against better teams will be too difficult with this level of mental errors occurring. The good news: it's week 2, this is the youngest(????) team the Patriots have fielded in the BB era. A tangible level of mental error was likely.

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We are the 8th youngest team in the league. 3rd youngest if you take out Brady. So mistakes will happen, hopefully less as the year goes on.

Rob0729 said:

They tried to be balanced last week, but then the game got out of hand and they abandoned the run.

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We must have watched a different game. In the first half in Miami (when the game was hardly out of hand), the Pats had 14 running plays (including two WR end arounds to Edelman) vs 29 passing attempts. That's not exactly a balanced attack.

Today's first half was 16 running plays vs 10 passing plays. The run wasn't very effective (just 3.4 yards per carry in the first half), but the Pats stuck with it.

Belichick said in his press conference that more balance on offense was one of the major goals for this week. He obviously saw that Brady was going to get killed if the team didn't get more balanced. I don't think that's a controversial observation.

I am still concerned about the oline and I suspect Tom is also. I am no expert but he never really held onto the ball that long in the pocket and was looking to get it out to any receiver that seemed open. Even though a QB should do that, I feel like Tom still doesn't have faith in the oline to think about going through all his reads at times.

If we can fix the oline and penalties we are golden. When Tom has time and isn't fearing he will find amendola for example, and not locking onto Edelman or gronk.

havent posted on here in a while, the thing i like about this site is that there are so many knowledgeable people. anyways, im going to be very general with my thoguhts. the patriots offense really leaves a lot to be desired. it starts with the offensive line. i hate to say it but i cant see us winning a superbowl with the offensive line the way it is. it just isnt very good, and i never thought it was good with mankins.as for the defense, there were people out there (not neccessarily on this site) that overreacted after last week. if there is one thing ive learned about the nfl, you can not read too much into the first week. i personally believe we have a championship caliber defense in the making, and it starts with revis. having a guy that can shutdown another teams best receiver is such a huge asset. im hoping harmon can improve, he has looked okay (at best, maybe a stretch?), i was expecting a little bit of a leap from him this year. i really believe our defense will be a top 10 or maybe a top 5 defense this year. but the offensive line, and the lack of a true number one reciever concearns me, i do however have a lot of faith dobson can emerge as 1

BelichickFan said:

We are the 8th youngest team in the league. 3rd youngest if you take out Brady. So mistakes will happen, hopefully less as the year goes on.

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Wow, I knew the Patriots were young for a BB team but I didn't know we are just about the youngest team in the league (when excluding Brady).

Being this young has concerns, however, if the Patriots can get back a fair chunk of their passing mojo -- something approaching 2012 -- and clear up much of the mental errors, come December the Patriots should be playing very capably on both sides of the ball without an obvious weak spot.

TheBostonStraggler said:

Wow, I knew the Patriots were young for a BB team but I didn't know we are just about the youngest team in the league (when excluding Brady).

Being this young has concerns, however, if the Patriots can get back a fair chunk of their passing mojo -- something approaching 2012 -- and clear up much of the mental errors, come December the Patriots should be playing very capably on both sides of the ball without an obvious weak spot.

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The passing game will pick up and be potent with gronk, vereen, the Pygmy receivers and then Dobson, KT and lafell. This has a potential to be dynamic when Tom is in control and in sync. Add wright also. They will start stringing it together

zydecochris said:

Joker, I also don't play fantasy football, so maybe that explains why I am so baffled also.

The the Pats win 30-7, TB is 15/22 for one touchdown, no interceptions. He passed for only 149 yards, but HE WAS AHEAD 30-7. Why would NE be trying to break passing records when NE was so far ahead? Isn't that the way the Pats used to win, defense, no turnovers on offense? I guess I don't understand what the problem is.

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At least for me, I'm not disappointed in his play, or the offense as a whole. My concerns regarding the offense, however, have not gone away because today the offense did not need to do much to win. Some "Air Brady" would go a long way to put these doubts to rest.

217 yards against. 4 INT. 6 sacks. It's a great start minus week 1.

fightingirish595 said:

if there is one thing ive learned about the nfl, you can not read too much into the first week.

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To take it one step further, pretty much no team is as good as they looked the week before, and very few teams are quite as bad as they looked the week before.

Just to give some examples---every single prediction I saw this week was for TEN to easily beat DAL. That made absolutely zero sense to me. DAL clearly wasn't as bad as they appeared last week, and TEN certainly wasn't nearly as good as they looked.

The same goes for Miami's big win, and their odds of repeating that on the road + NE's poor showing and the odds of them continuing that disastrous play.