Official Pats - Raiders Post Game Thread....

juny said:

This is a troubling stat. Although they should have had one today. Gronk should have had the tipped pass in the end zone and Brady badly missed Amendola who was open on the following down.

Click to expand...

brady could have led gronk way more on that play, but gronk still should have caught it

mgteich said:

We have just managed to defeat two of the very worst teams in the NFL. MINN played with half of their offense. OAK played without one of their best RB's and without 2 of their LB's. The OAK game was decided in the last minute of the game. We are 2-1, but we will need to be MUCH, MUCH better to make the playoffs. The good news is that we will likely improve a lot as the season progresses.

The BOTTOM LINE for me is that the team that we have watched for three weeks is much weaker than CIN or DEN, and weaker than a couple of others in the AFC. I expected that we would look better after three games.

Click to expand...

You forgot to mention we also got hammered by another bad football team. The
Patriots just aren't that good. I have been pleasantly surprised by Hightower in all three games so far, but other than that nobody as consistently done anything on defense. Edelman has done everything he can do, but there is absolutely nobody else (Gronkowski gets excused as he is clearly not 100%).

iapatsfan said:

They play like extremely slow zombies. The absolute lack of enthusiasm of this team is telling. An extremely boring team to watch.

Also, Jamie Collins is a JAG.

Click to expand...

Then the question which gets begged is why do you continue to watch them?

Jackson 2 said:

Then the question which gets begged is why do you continue to watch them?

Click to expand...

Still like the front of the jersey, even if the names on the back are JAGS.

Hightower was a beast today.

As good as Hightower was, Solder was even worse. Holy crap, I've never seen a guy play as worse as he did.

Our interior OL also deserves a big fat zero on their performance. Why did we trade Mankins when the options left are as bad as they are?

Ghost was great again.

So was Edelman.

A win is a win. The OL has to play better at some point, right?

iapatsfan said:

Still like the front of the jersey, even if the names on the back are JAGS.

Click to expand...

Honestly, it sounds as though watching the Patriots is painfully miserable for you. If you don't already subscribe, it sounds like the Red Zone might help.

Yeah, that was pretty painful to watch but a win is a win is a win. I agree with those who observed a general sloppiness and lack of fire today, so there's clearly a lot more work to be done. Probably hard to get up for the Raiders given how crappy they've been for years (long may it continue).

The obvious problem is the OL, and when it's in such a mess, then it obviously affects everything else the Offense is trying to do. There's little push on runs so Ridley has literally nowhere to go - when he did, he looked like the same slashing guy as he always has been (and didn't look at all like dropping the ball). Brady obviously isn't going to be looking for deep routes when he's at the center of Custer's Last Stand after 2 seconds, so all they have are checkdowns and the wondrous Edelperson. Agree with those who see only a hobbled Gronk, so let's hope that he gets healthy somehow. There's still hope, as when Stork is in there and the awful Devey is not, things definitely improve. But it's not just the interior line, there's been terrible play by the Tackles that's been glaring in a couple of games including this one. Solder almost got Brady injured on that rush by Justin Tuck (BTW - why weren't we interested in that guy? Just by having him on the team it reduces the odds that he'll take Brady out for the season unless he does so in practice). He has looked terrible so far, and that we weren't counting on. Was he injured too?

Still liking the Defense although they weren't able to run roughshod over the Raiders line like they did to the Vikings. That was your classic BBDB BB defense today. They were able to flush Carr out of the pocket sometimes but it was always going to be difficult to bring him down once he's out as he's pretty mobile. He looked like a decent QB for a rookie playing on a crappy team. Agree with those who like Hightower's performance, he looks like a different player this year. Jones had some big plays too, he's heading to the Pro Bowl if he continues like this. Liked the run defense.

As to the Great Revis Debate, he's certainly on his man when those passes are completed but it seems to me he's still not at the level he used to be since he used to not only be on his man he used to make sure he didn't catch the ball either. Let's see how they're playing in a couple of weeks.

BTW, contrast Revis' play with the latest, greatest anointed LB superstar Kuechly - just saw him guess horribly wrong and leave an expressway for Le'Veon Bell to run 80 yards through. Even great players screw up sometimes.

SEA_Pat said:

Still liking the Defense although they weren't able to run roughshod over the Raiders line like they did to the Vikings. That was your classic BBDB BB defense today. They were able to flush Carr out of the pocket sometimes but it was always going to be difficult to bring him down once he's out as he's pretty mobile. He looked like a decent QB for a rookie playing on a crappy team. Agree with those who like Hightower's performance, he looks like a different player this year. Jones had some big plays too, he's heading to the Pro Bowl if he continues like this. Liked the run defense.

Click to expand...

Its because Hightower isn't playing out of position like he had to after Mayo went down last year. Not having those additional coverage and playcalling responsibilities is letting him do what he does best.

Hael said:

Seriously, if you actually watch the film on those throws, you see that he was in position in all of those plays, made life really difficult for the receiver, and they basically should have been incompletions.

Aqib Talib and Richard Sherman both got burned today on big plays, and just like Revis you could see that they were right there making things nearly impossible. Receivers sometime make the play and there is nothing any db can do against a perfect pass, a perfect synch and a perfect catch.

Most receptions by receivers involves them being a couple steps ahead.. At no point this season has Revis really been burned, except possibly on one double move on an incompletion by the fastest wr in the nfl, Mike Wallace.

He is a ridiculous player, and im glad hes on our team.

Click to expand...

I'm glad he's on our team as well, but when a rookie QB throws at you 7 times and you finally cause an incompletion on the last drive of the game, you aren't going to be viewed by most as having a great game, whether you're "in position" or not.

Much like the discussion before, I would rate him mediocre/average today. I'm not downplaying his overall talent, just stating that I agree with those who state that he hasn't looked at good as they had hoped.

The hype was enormous, so I doubt he could've ever lived up to that in the first place.

condon84 said:

Hightower was a beast today.

As good as Hightower was, Solder was even worse. Holy crap, I've never seen a guy play as worse as he did.

Our interior OL also deserves a big fat zero on their performance. Why did we trade Mankins when the options left are as bad as they are?

Ghost was great again.

So was Edelman.

A win is a win. The OL has to play better at some point, right?

Click to expand...

The bigger questions is whether Brady will be in a wheelchair before or after that happens.

mgteich said:

I am NOT suggesting that I would like us to have anyone else as our top corner. I simply expected more.

Click to expand...

No need for an explanation, I fully understand and agree with you 100%.

Snake Eyes said:

The bigger questions is whether Brady will be in a wheelchair before or after that happens.

Click to expand...

That's about what it comes down to, and that is extremely unfortunate.

He seemed to get the offense into a rhythm as the game went on (late), so hopefully they can build off of that.

One thing about Belichick's teams is that they usually gel as the season wears on. In this case, we'll have to hope that the OL shows significant improvement soon.

We played horribly today. Offensive line gave Brady no time to throw the ball. A lot of mistakes, a lot of penalties. They have some work to do. The offense is not clicking at all. Brady needs to spread the ball around more than just throwing to Minitron and forcing it to Gronk.

From Fauria on sports final on Vince int when he caught it and went to the ground with ball underneath him "why didnt the ball come up flat" LOL

It's a very similar story from weeks 1 and 2 in my opinion.

We have arguable a bottom 5 WR group and a bottom 5 OL group (arguable). Those are the complimentary weapons to our greatest strength in brady.

At the moment without any drastic improvement in those two groups we are going to struggle all year.

I think the Defense is a very good unit. But you saw what happened to Carolina today. They are a top unit, but every now and then your offense needs to go out there and go drive for drive with an opponant who's offense is putting it together.

At the moment I am not confident that our O can put together consistant drives.

As usual, no sky falling in here. IMO we should easily make the playoffs in a weak AFC. But as the broken record of Pats fans know. We have some glaring weaknesses and need to get better.

iapatsfan said:

You forgot to mention we also got hammered by another bad football team. The
Patriots just aren't that good. I have been pleasantly surprised by Hightower in all three games so far, but other than that nobody as consistently done anything on defense. Edelman has done everything he can do, but there is absolutely nobody else (Gronkowski gets excused as he is clearly not 100%).

Click to expand...

Nobody else has been consistand on D? Chandler Jones, Wilfork and McCourty have. 100%.

The running game is awful. Ridley is not exploding thru the hole. Bolden is a complete waste. Every time he gets the ball you can almost guarantee a loss of two. Of course the line is not helping much either. If we cannot get a run game going and the line straightened out TFB will never make it to the bye week. If they play like this in KC they will get crushed. KC really put a whooping on Miami today

supafly said:

That's about what it comes down to, and that is extremely unfortunate.

He seemed to get the offense into a rhythm as the game went on (late), so hopefully they can build off of that.

One thing about Belichick's teams is that they usually gel as the season wears on. In this case, we'll have to hope that the OL shows significant improvement soon.

Click to expand...

I'm not ruling out a trade happening if things don't turn out right.. As stubborn as BB is (and as baffling as some of his decisions have been), he knows that Brady suffering any sort of significant injury will essentially end the season. 2 years ago, we saw the Pats trade for Talib once it became clear that the existing secondary wouldn't take them anywhere. Could we see the same thing this year?

Efstratios said:

I'm not ruling out a trade happening if things don't turn out right.. As stubborn as BB is (and as baffling as some of his decisions have been), he knows that Brady suffering any sort of significant injury will essentially end the season. 2 years ago, we saw the Pats trade for Talib once it became clear that the existing secondary wouldn't take them anywhere. Could we see the same thing this year?

Click to expand...

We've seen trades 2 years in a row at the deadline.

2012 saw Talib, and 2013 saw Sopoaga since the run defense was completely decimated. I think it's certainly possible, but I couldn't start to envision just "who" exactly.

Another aspect to consider is how much the current/lesser OL players such as Kline, Devey, Wendell (who hasn't been playing in the past week due to injury) would know due to scheme, line calls, and practice? Obviously, it's nothing even close to the positions of QB or WR, but it'd likely take a couple/few weeks to get up to speed.

We may be able to hope that Stork is able to take over soon, instead.

Could it be that Wendell is more important to the o-line than he is given credit for on PatsFan?