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Just some musingx to help get you through to the game. enjoy
1. DEPTH - Its a word we use all the time, but on most NFL teams rarely see. But if you think about it, beyond most NFL teams, the Pats have proven to really have a wealth of quality depth. After about 3 years of getting whacked around by the "injury stick", the Pats have had a relatively good year so far (knock on wood) But still there have been critical season ending injuries to Mayo, and Ridley fairly early in the season, and more recently Easley; as well as fairly long term injuries to ChJones and Siliga. Clearly not as bad as some teams have gone through, but we've had our share.
Yet its how well we've managed to deal with these injuries shows how long we've come from recent years. Think about it. We picked up a released player and elevated a practice squad player and now have as good a rushing game as anyone going into the playoffs. Gray, Blount and Vareen give us great skill in that area. When Jones and Siliga were down, we added Branch and Ayers and didn't miss a beat. And with their return only made our defense more flexible deep and talented.
This week we will be without Edelman Arrington and Connolly. I have no doubt that their roles will be adequately filled by Amendola, Dennard and Kline. I can't remember at time in the last several years when I can remember a Patriots team with THIS kind of quality depth in so many areas. In the past a loss like Arrington would have had us looking for an UDFA, or refugee from the offense, while this year we can go to last year's 2nd best CB/
2. Amendola is likely to get around 8 or more targets this week, and I fully expect him to take advantage of the opportunity. Last season he was injured. This season he's been relegated to being the 4th or 5th option. For tomorrow at least he will be the 3rd. His detractors will either have to eat some crow, or get to pile on even more. I think it will be the former.
3. This is going against the grain, but contrary to the current wisdom, I don't think the Pats mishandled the end of the first half of the Dolphin game. The ball was on the 15 with only 4o some seconds left. Not only had Brady already been picked off once, he had had several passes blocked during that first half. The Pats had a 2 score lead, and even with the TO's, they only had time for about 6 more plays. So even if your offense HAD been running smoothly to that point, it wouldn't be a great idea to try and move the ball through the air, since Miami had 3 TO's as well.. So the Pats went for a strategy that should have given the ball back to Miami on its own 30 with 30 odd seconds left and no TO's I'd take that every day.
If the Pats don't give up one of the longest punt returns of the season, its doubtful the Dolphins score.....but they do. Even then, IIRC, the announcers said it would have been a 55 yd FG from hat point. And while the critics universally condemned BB for having Butler on Wallace, I thought he did a decent job and had him fairly well covered, enough so Wallace was forced to make a one-handed falling down catch to make the play. Kudos to Tannyhill and Wallace for a great throw and catch. I'm not sure how much better people expected Butler to play him.
So too points. It was less a failure of strategy than execution on the punt coverage (until that point an area of great strength), And less an issue of poor coverage by Butler than great execution from Tannyhill and Wallace.
4. I'm constantly amazed had how well Rex is coming off as his regime flounders to close in NJ. Everyone seems to get blamed EXCEPT Rex. It only goes to show you that when the media falls in love with you because you give good copy, you can go far. IMHO (and I know some don't agree) Bill Parcells gets over rated because he got and keeps getting great press. BTW - getting good press means having all your successes and good qualities continually hyped while having your negative qualities and failures relatively ignored.
Rex has a great defensive mind, and he gets his players to consistently play hard for him. But as a HC, he doesn't pay attention to the details, doesn't hold his players and coaches accountable, is horrible in assessing players, and has dramatically failed to develop and improve the players on his roster.
I will miss him when he leaves the Jets He was a true "character" and his flaws would keep the Jets from becoming a serious long term threat.. I will probably enjoy him if/when he joins the media. If the hype helps get him another HCing job immediately, I will look forward to the disaster he'll likely to become.
5, As far as the game goes, I expect the Jets to come out and give it their all. I expect them to keep it close into the 2nd or 3rd quarter, but at some time, the Pats will expand the lead to 2 scores and the Jets will realize that its over and give up the ghost. When that happens will determine whether this is a 31-13 game or a 45-10 game
6. How bad is it to be a Jet fan now and how badly the rivalry has diminished. If you check out the new JI board, or ganggreen, and you will find only one very short thread between the 2 boards discussing tomorrow's game, and, with rare exceptions, you think the posts were written by Pats fans. Things are so bad there now, there is only one thing of which I'm 100% certain. Midway through the 4th quarter, there will be more Pats fans at Met Life stadium, than Jet fans,
7. One thing I'm curious to see Sunday is how persistent we will be to run the ball. Common sense would be to spread them out and attack their terminally weak secondary and avoid the strength of the team, their front 7. But something makes me think that BB wants to establish more physicality and balance going into the playoffs, and the Jets weak offense gives us more patience to do it.
8. Great come back by the Chargers. I turned that game off twice. The last time after Kapernick's 90 yd run, and didn't realize the Niner's had lost until well after the game was over. A good lesson in why you DON'T call off the dogs until well into the 4rh quarter. A remarkable game by a courageous team. Not having their best RB and WR, and continuing to incur injury after injury, makes me a closet Charger fan for the rest of this season. I'm going to hate that they might not get into the playoffs while NO, Caroliina, or Atlanta might.
9. In the same respect, bad choke by the Eagles. Very hard to look at the stats of that game and match it up to the final score. Hard to believe Philly is going to need a lot of help to even get into the playoffs. It really IS a long season and there isn't much room for error.
1. DEPTH - Its a word we use all the time, but on most NFL teams rarely see. But if you think about it, beyond most NFL teams, the Pats have proven to really have a wealth of quality depth. After about 3 years of getting whacked around by the "injury stick", the Pats have had a relatively good year so far (knock on wood) But still there have been critical season ending injuries to Mayo, and Ridley fairly early in the season, and more recently Easley; as well as fairly long term injuries to ChJones and Siliga. Clearly not as bad as some teams have gone through, but we've had our share.
Yet its how well we've managed to deal with these injuries shows how long we've come from recent years. Think about it. We picked up a released player and elevated a practice squad player and now have as good a rushing game as anyone going into the playoffs. Gray, Blount and Vareen give us great skill in that area. When Jones and Siliga were down, we added Branch and Ayers and didn't miss a beat. And with their return only made our defense more flexible deep and talented.
This week we will be without Edelman Arrington and Connolly. I have no doubt that their roles will be adequately filled by Amendola, Dennard and Kline. I can't remember at time in the last several years when I can remember a Patriots team with THIS kind of quality depth in so many areas. In the past a loss like Arrington would have had us looking for an UDFA, or refugee from the offense, while this year we can go to last year's 2nd best CB/
2. Amendola is likely to get around 8 or more targets this week, and I fully expect him to take advantage of the opportunity. Last season he was injured. This season he's been relegated to being the 4th or 5th option. For tomorrow at least he will be the 3rd. His detractors will either have to eat some crow, or get to pile on even more. I think it will be the former.
3. This is going against the grain, but contrary to the current wisdom, I don't think the Pats mishandled the end of the first half of the Dolphin game. The ball was on the 15 with only 4o some seconds left. Not only had Brady already been picked off once, he had had several passes blocked during that first half. The Pats had a 2 score lead, and even with the TO's, they only had time for about 6 more plays. So even if your offense HAD been running smoothly to that point, it wouldn't be a great idea to try and move the ball through the air, since Miami had 3 TO's as well.. So the Pats went for a strategy that should have given the ball back to Miami on its own 30 with 30 odd seconds left and no TO's I'd take that every day.
If the Pats don't give up one of the longest punt returns of the season, its doubtful the Dolphins score.....but they do. Even then, IIRC, the announcers said it would have been a 55 yd FG from hat point. And while the critics universally condemned BB for having Butler on Wallace, I thought he did a decent job and had him fairly well covered, enough so Wallace was forced to make a one-handed falling down catch to make the play. Kudos to Tannyhill and Wallace for a great throw and catch. I'm not sure how much better people expected Butler to play him.
So too points. It was less a failure of strategy than execution on the punt coverage (until that point an area of great strength), And less an issue of poor coverage by Butler than great execution from Tannyhill and Wallace.
4. I'm constantly amazed had how well Rex is coming off as his regime flounders to close in NJ. Everyone seems to get blamed EXCEPT Rex. It only goes to show you that when the media falls in love with you because you give good copy, you can go far. IMHO (and I know some don't agree) Bill Parcells gets over rated because he got and keeps getting great press. BTW - getting good press means having all your successes and good qualities continually hyped while having your negative qualities and failures relatively ignored.
Rex has a great defensive mind, and he gets his players to consistently play hard for him. But as a HC, he doesn't pay attention to the details, doesn't hold his players and coaches accountable, is horrible in assessing players, and has dramatically failed to develop and improve the players on his roster.
I will miss him when he leaves the Jets He was a true "character" and his flaws would keep the Jets from becoming a serious long term threat.. I will probably enjoy him if/when he joins the media. If the hype helps get him another HCing job immediately, I will look forward to the disaster he'll likely to become.
5, As far as the game goes, I expect the Jets to come out and give it their all. I expect them to keep it close into the 2nd or 3rd quarter, but at some time, the Pats will expand the lead to 2 scores and the Jets will realize that its over and give up the ghost. When that happens will determine whether this is a 31-13 game or a 45-10 game
6. How bad is it to be a Jet fan now and how badly the rivalry has diminished. If you check out the new JI board, or ganggreen, and you will find only one very short thread between the 2 boards discussing tomorrow's game, and, with rare exceptions, you think the posts were written by Pats fans. Things are so bad there now, there is only one thing of which I'm 100% certain. Midway through the 4th quarter, there will be more Pats fans at Met Life stadium, than Jet fans,
7. One thing I'm curious to see Sunday is how persistent we will be to run the ball. Common sense would be to spread them out and attack their terminally weak secondary and avoid the strength of the team, their front 7. But something makes me think that BB wants to establish more physicality and balance going into the playoffs, and the Jets weak offense gives us more patience to do it.
8. Great come back by the Chargers. I turned that game off twice. The last time after Kapernick's 90 yd run, and didn't realize the Niner's had lost until well after the game was over. A good lesson in why you DON'T call off the dogs until well into the 4rh quarter. A remarkable game by a courageous team. Not having their best RB and WR, and continuing to incur injury after injury, makes me a closet Charger fan for the rest of this season. I'm going to hate that they might not get into the playoffs while NO, Caroliina, or Atlanta might.
9. In the same respect, bad choke by the Eagles. Very hard to look at the stats of that game and match it up to the final score. Hard to believe Philly is going to need a lot of help to even get into the playoffs. It really IS a long season and there isn't much room for error.
