IMO, this is a bunch of crap. Almost every team has injuries. A top team, who prides itself on focusing on depth in their roster decisions, should be able to beat horrible teams like the jets without last second heroics. Yes, on any Sunday, anything in possible, especially in a devision game. Blaming our poor performance on our injuries is lame.
The patriots started the season as one of the top 5 teams in the NFL, favorites to be back in the AFC Championship Game yet again. We now think that we were lucky to survive against the might jets!
We should celebrate. We won a division game without additional injuries. But make no mistake, we need major improvements in the play of the defensive front seven.
Wish there was an agree/disagree line-item option on this forum.
First paragraph: I acknowledged Mayo's role in the run D. I think it's significant. However, it's a matter of what you do about it, over time. Yes we needed last-minute heroics against a pretty meh team. Point of my post was that we got them.
2nd paragraph. Yep, going in, we were a top 5 team. Fifth, to be exact, in the ESPN power rankings. And you contention is?
Here's where we are now: hefty divisional lead? Check. How many other teams with 5 wins? 3. How many might have 5 by the end of the weekend? I'll be damned if I'm researching who has the byes... but there are six four-win teams. So in terms of winning games, by the record, this is roughly a top 5 team - but probably tied with many for that honor.... (some teams may end the weekend 5-1, for example, which is why I say "roughly.")
Who's invincible in this league? Who has shown no chinks in the armor? Most importantly, how many more Ws did we get for blowout wins in 2007? Oh that's right, there's only one more we
could have gotten (but didn't.) The 2001 team sure did suck though, barely scraping into the playoffs...
Last line? Completely agree. That's why I'd love to have both the agree and disagree button as line-item options. My post was not to imply that the Patriots would go deep into the playoffs by not improving or by deteriorating, regardless of further injury status.
Another hallmark of a Pats team is that when they come back from injuries, the "next man up" gets better over time. This year at both the RB position and MLB/ILB we'll find out what works, over time. Do we always get that first huge blowout win that proves "it was only a flesh wound" after such an injury? I am
not doing that research project. If you can demonstrate that we normally respond to a rash of key injuries with a blow-out win, good on you.
If your point is, "come
on, it's the
Jets," well, that's at odds with your acknowledgment of "any given Sunday." We found ourselves in a dogfight not a cakewalk, and did get the win.
Once again - does every top-5 team blow out every opponent in this league?
Last I checked, the playoff seeding rules put the number of points you won by pretty low down on the order of tie-breakers. It wasn't long ago that we were all tearing our hair out and saying "no way this team beats Cincinnati."
Long season buddy. Looking forward to watching it unfold. Pardon me for according significance to the loss of the head of the running back committee and the starting middle linebacker, plus one more offensive lineman on an already depleted O-line.
I deeply agree that finding a way to win through these injuries, and even other injuries, will be necessary. I've said this before: I cannot believe Gronk is there for the final game, whenever that may come... that just needs to be proven. So it's likely a gut-it-out season regardless. We need everything we can get out of the likes of LaFell, Vereen, and even Amendola, who came off the milk carton this week to score. And Tim Wright. And [your name here.]
We do it that way, and we'll have a team that knows how to win. That doesn't necessarily mean a team that knows how to beat the spread when heavily favored.
All that to say, I'll take it.
