Game Thoughts: Nice to have a hard fought "home' win in San Diego Edition

Sciz said:

Yep. Players have said exactly that.
https://twitter.com/mikegiardi/status/541842901357977600

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All things considering, that was a beast of a hit. Browner a big CB, and against these TE he gives up 20-40 lbs and he still laid Green hit.

Just watched a few videos of this game at NFL.com, Deion quite emphatic that the Browner call was the "worse call of the season"..

DarrylS said:

What would be the end point for situations that can be reviewed?? I am more in favor of adding an official or two, and more conferring on controversial calls... but more officials means more cutting into the bottom line for the owners...

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I don't know. But you could start with adding an automatic video review in NY to all personal foul penalties. In the majority of cases it is so obvious that it will not take any time. In the handful complicated cases it might help get penalties right.

15yd are costly in their own, combine this with a voided INT + TD return and we are talking a potential back breaker.

I'm quite surprised no one is talking about our turnstile LT . Solder was beyond bad today which was a continuation of an average seasonat best. I honestly hope we do not resign him .Patriots should definitely draft a LT in the draft. Solder is one of my main concerns about factors stopping this team from winning the superbowl. I can just envision a playoff game where he absolutely get's taken to school.

DarrylS said:

What would be the end point for situations that can be reviewed?? I am more in favor of adding an official or two, and more conferring on controversial calls... but more officials means more cutting into the bottom line for the owners...

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The "end point" is that teams are only allowed 3 challenges. Belichick has said that he thinks those three challenges should be able to be used on any play on the field.

The thing about reviewing penalties such as the Browner non-head hit is this: In almost every case, it wouldn't take any more time than is currently lost when a player is down. Within 30 seconds of that hit, and the flag being thrown, millions of viewers saw the replays from multiple angles and speeds, and could clearly see that it was a legal hit.

In fact, you could see that not only was Brownder leading with his shoulder, but he was also turning towards his left to try and keep HIS head out of the hit and away from the Chargers player.

So in those sorts of cases, it can easily and quickly be done. The refs already review every touchdown and most turnovers from up in the booth, and they have that whole new facility in NYC that is live for every game, so it can be done and with little impact, IMHO, on the game time.

What it CAN do is ensure that the game is called correctly and fairly.

Marinlik said:

Some quick game thoughts:


There are few times that I've seen national football media agree as much on something as they did in saying that the call against Browner on the pick TD last night was horrendous and that those plays need to be reviewable. NFL has to do someting about that. I agree with the NFL that the head to head hits of old need to be gone. Those are just bad for the game in the long run. But you can't just throw a flag just because it looks like a hard hit when its shoulder to chest. Make the play reviewable as it can be very hard to see in real time.

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I have a lot of sympathy for the referee crew as it is a bang bang play and unless you have a perfect angle (which would have put you out of position for anything else) you're reading the shoulder, you're reading the head, you're reading the follow-through. All of those reads from certain angles screamed personal foul in a tenth of second. The refs are being evaluated on keeping players safe in a fair manner; that is a safety call that has been banged into the refs heads. I understand the basic mistake. I've made similar mistakes in a different sport where everything looks horrendous from my view but further review/input from another ref at a different angle shows later on it was ugly, but legal. That was the Browner hit -- a false positive for ugly and illegal but really clean, hard and legal.

I hate to see it but, the defense looked better without Hightower.










Just kidding. Defense is going to look real good with Hightower and Jones back.

kudzif said:

I'm quite surprised no one is talking about our turnstile LT . Solder was beyond bad today which was a continuation of an average seasonat best. I honestly hope we do not resign him .Patriots should definitely draft a LT in the draft. Solder is one of my main concerns about factors stopping this team from winning the superbowl. I can just envision a playoff game where he absolutely get's taken to school.

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Solder did have a decent 2nd half in pass protection. I was going to originally say "improved", but that wouldn't have qualified it as it could still have been awful. I think that is a fairly positive thing, but the beginning was unacceptable.

Them again, I saw on one play where the (Ingram?) head butted him in the helmet and then pulled his facemask down. Kinda hard to play well if you are getting abused like that without penalties being called (not that that explains most of his lame attempts to block).

And no mention of Bolden's play that was actually a fairly significant special teams play. Bad news for their punter and that should have lead to some points for the offense as the first 2-3 punts went for about 30 yards +/- (giving us a short field -- like getting a normal 50 yard punt and getting 20 return yards).

fester said:

I have a lot of sympathy for the referee crew as it is a bang bang play and unless you have a perfect angle (which would have put you out of position for anything else) you're reading the shoulder, you're reading the head, you're reading the follow-through. All of those reads from certain angles screamed personal foul in a tenth of second. The refs are being evaluated on keeping players safe in a fair manner; that is a safety call that has been banged into the refs heads. I understand the basic mistake. I've made similar mistakes in a different sport where everything looks horrendous from my view but further review/input from another ref at a different angle shows later on it was ugly, but legal. That was the Browner hit -- a false positive for ugly and illegal but really clean, hard and legal.

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True. And this won't stop the commish from leveling a fine against Browner for the hit...go figue.

kudzif said:

I'm quite surprised no one is talking about our turnstile LT . Solder was beyond bad today which was a continuation of an average seasonat best. I honestly hope we do not resign him .Patriots should definitely draft a LT in the draft. Solder is one of my main concerns about factors stopping this team from winning the superbowl. I can just envision a playoff game where he absolutely get's taken to school.

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Replacing him, Aiken, and finding a new Jabar Gaffney would be an awesome offseason.

One comment I forgot to make last night is that Philip Rivers is very Dan Marino-like in that every time a defender put him on his butt, the first thing he did was go to his offensive lineman and chew him out. There are a lot of things to admire about Rivers, but the way he calls out his teammates on the field like he does isn't one of them.

kudzif said:

I'm quite surprised no one is talking about our turnstile LT . Solder was beyond bad today which was a continuation of an average seasonat best. I honestly hope we do not resign him .Patriots should definitely draft a LT in the draft. Solder is one of my main concerns about factors stopping this team from winning the superbowl. I can just envision a playoff game where he absolutely get's taken to school.

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He had a rough go of it, and a tough start to the year, but he is still a good LT. He's already signed for 2015 and I expect the team to try to extend him.

Rob0729 said:

One comment I forgot to make last night is that Philip Rivers is very Dan Marino-like in that every time a defender put him on his butt, the first thing he did was go to his offensive lineman and chew him out. There are a lot of things to admire about Rivers, but the way he calls out his teammates on the field like he does isn't one of them.

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Especially when most of the time it was the 5th center of the season that he was yelling at.

* If NE Brady, McDaniel and Solder hadn't been engaged in a d*ck stepping contest in the first half, this would have been a comfortable 30-10 win.

* All you could do is laugh at the first few possessions of the second half. At one point I told my wife, "look at this, they can't get out of their own way right now!" and sure enough, a false start and stupid screen turned 1st and 10 at midfield to 2nd and 21.

* Two straight weeks of subpar offensive production against two below average defenses. Is it NE running out of steam after this brutal stretch? Foreshadowing of playoff performance? Just facing amped up teams on the road?

* That was an all-pro performance by Collins.

* I know some will think I'm overrating him, but I still see no reason why Jonas Gray only got 2 touches. If you like Blount better, by all means play him. But why not take advantage of your clearly capable 235 backup to do some additional pounding? How many teams can trot out two such RBs and how many defenses can hold up to 60 minutes of that?

I'm not asking for 37 carries again, but the kid deserves 7-8, no?

* This just warms my heart.

DEFENSIVE TACKLE
Vince Wilfork -- 31 of 56
Sealver Siliga -- 25 of 56
Chris Jones -- 24 of 56
Alan Branch -- 16 of 56
Dominique Easley -- 9 of 56

With that kind of talent and rotation, it's no wonder the defense just had it's best game in recent memory.

* Even though I'm fully on board with how well the D played yesterday, I find the plethora of, "we've finally shown we can win if Brady has a bad game!" comments amusing. Didn't we say the same thing after the Baltimore comeback in 2010? Or the AFCCG in 2011? How about after the 13-10 slugfest against the Jets last year?

This group is better than those, of course, but it still strikes me as having a short memory.

BradyFTW! said:

can barely talk right now. There was an absolutely enormous Pats tailgate, even Kraft crashed it about an hour before kickoff. Just awesome all around, might as well have been a home game.

Almost all of the Chargers fans were great, but a small group was looking to cause problems after the game. But even they thought better of it once they saw how outnumbered they were.

Also, like hellolin said, half of the Chargers fans in my section left immediately after the Edelman TD.

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That's awesome. Did Kraft bring the keggers

I had to mute the announcers, they were driving me crazy.

I thought going to 5 wide was a mistake. I think it usually is. It gives away that it's a pass, obviously. On some of the running plays in the 2nd half, with Blount single back, it was like SD absolutely knew it was a run. They must not pass out of that formation. Play action?? Why not try that.

SD is the team that got shut out against Miami? What? They looked pretty impressive. Or maybe the Pats OL isn't as good as I thought.

Also what is up with Collins' teeth? He has those gold "grill" type things on the bottom? ARe those removable? Does he play with them during the game? Seems a strange thing to have in your mouth. I'd think it'd cause all kinds of cavities as bacteria would build up. He said he didn't want to say hi to anyone...maybe just nervous.

Oswlek said:

He had a rough go of it, and a tough start to the year, but he is still a good LT. He's already signed for 2015 and I expect the team to try to extend him.

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I agree. I wouldn't roll the dice on replacing a starting LT.

Rob0729 said:

Everyone was complaining all week about the pass rush, but tonight showed they certainly can rush the passer when they want to.

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The stunting/blitzing worked, but I felt the Chargers were complicit in how badly Rivers played. It seemed like his drops were oddly shallow and his O-line didn't consistently give him much of a pocket. Their center play was a problem.

I liked what Siliga showed and Branch has been playing well too.

JackBauer said:

I agree. I wouldn't roll the dice on replacing a starting LT.

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Athletic 6'8" guys don't grow on trees. And people seem to forget that Matt Light was good for 2-3 bed ****ters per year. How did Dallas' best OL in the league do against Washington and Philly?