guidance needed from experts

Ken, Rob - I don't see your useful game day thoughts yet, and so decided to ask these two queries of mine:

1. Reasons behind the OL shaky play in the first Q especially when there the field was so silent (so no noise to interfere):
- did TB have a whole lot of new audibles and he kept changing it @ the last minute seeing the weird looks of the Bills D,
- or was the OL just not able to deliver,
- or, were Rex's schemes really quite confusing for Brady,
- or is it a combination of all
- or something more that I missed?

2, That 4th Q interception that TB threw when we had about 9 minutes on the clock and he had just completed a great pass to Gronk. I was puzzled because isn't this the first time we were seeing Harper (forgive me if I got the WR wrong; i thought it was him running towards goal line past Gronk) in the game filling in for AD? Why not continue to target short throws to Gronk? Was TB's comfort factor with Harper so high to make that long throw when TB knew that he cannot expect the OL to keep holding back the pressure for more than two/three seconds? I first thought that this was TB going for the killer blow all of a sudden to put the game away, but given the # of times he was hit and was under the pressure, was this a good call?

Would appreciate the experts thoughts.

Thanks!

Maybe Brady and the O line would have been better off with quick snaps instead of the cerebral approach of assigning protection at the LOS. An awful lot to process on every play. The absence of a blitz-pickup RB was frustrating as well...given the beating Brady received.

I think the o-line problems had multiple reasons why they struggled:

• o-line play is all about continuity. You need to know what the guy next to you is doing almost instinctively. If you keep shuffling the o-line or you have many players return from injuries, that communication can suffer.
• I credit Ryan for a brilliant game plan. At times he would crowd the line and make it look like an all out blitz and then drop everyone, but three rushers into coverage. Other times he would crowd the line up and down the line and the just do an overload blitz on one side while dropping the rest in coverage. He also switched from primarily man to zone. This game reminded me of what Ryan did in the 2010 playoffs. He blitzed far more than in that game, but he did much of the same things in coverage taking away Brady's receivers.
• Lack of weapons for Brady. Without either Edelman or Lewis, Brady has to hold onto the ball more and the Bills could dedicate more attention to Gronk.
• Poor game plan by the Pats. The Pats seemed intent on a more vertical passing game last night. It didn't make much sense considering the fact the Pats had problems protecting Brady, the Bills have good DB and their weakness is the LBing corp, and LaFell (their most consistent outside threat) seemed to be on a pitch count for some reason.

Now that I gave away a large part of my game day thread, I guess I don't need to do one.

I agree that defensive plan from Rex Ryan was freaking brilliant. It was a great test for our offense. Glad we got out with a W, thanks in part to our great D.

The bills came to play, simple as that.

Our oline is patchwork right now at best, too many injuries means fellas need to move around, once youstart doing that, and you are going up against a team with over 100 million dollars worth of salary cap on the Dline you get a little edgy. The bills executed their game plan perfectly. Get in bradys face, hit him every play. too many free rushers were getting through.

The pats should have been rushing the ball ALOT more, and shortened the game, blunt wasn't great but we was picking up yardage. when we had a ten point lead we should have been seeing rush/rush/pass on 1/2/3 downs almost every time, with maximum clock eating, instead we got a lot of hurry up throws into the feet of the recievers because brady had about half a second before a rusher came through.

This is a game the patriots need to keep them motivated for the final stretch, maybe the coaches put a ****ty game plan in place intentionally.

The entire OL was out to lunch I thought Bryan Stork played horrible last night alot of pressure and missed assignments up the middle. I thought we had a Strong Interior Brady ain't buying them lunch or dinner this week...pick up your own tabs boys!.

PatsFan2 said:

The entire OL was out to lunch I thought Bryan Stork played horrible last night alot of pressure and missed assignments up the middle. I thought we had a Strong Interior Brady ain't buying them lunch or dinner this week...pick up your own tabs boys!.

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Thanks!

Can you shed more light on why you think that our OL missed assignments - was it due to the clever coverage schemes by Rex? or just those darn games where OL had an off day, especially with new audibles?

Edit - Posted this before I read Rob's feedback on the OL. Still curious if you have anything more to add. Thanks,

The makeshift OL had kept TB relatively clean in all the game so far, including the one with the Giants. That is why I was surprised to see them not break down yesterday @ home.

I am sure that they are going to have an excellent practice this week and strangely feel quite confident that we will not see that kind of a performance again this season.

Rob0729 said:

I think the o-line problems had multiple reasons why they struggled:

• o-line play is all about continuity. You need to know what the guy next to you is doing almost instinctively. If you keep shuffling the o-line or you have many players return from injuries, that communication can suffer.
• I credit Ryan for a brilliant game plan. At times he would crowd the line and make it look like an all out blitz and then drop everyone, but three rushers into coverage. Other times he would crowd the line up and down the line and the just do an overload blitz on one side while dropping the rest in coverage. He also switched from primarily man to zone. This game reminded me of what Ryan did in the 2010 playoffs. He blitzed far more than in that game, but he did much of the same things in coverage taking away Brady's receivers.
• Lack of weapons for Brady. Without either Edelman or Lewis, Brady has to hold onto the ball more and the Bills could dedicate more attention to Gronk.
• Poor game plan by the Pats. The Pats seemed intent on a more vertical passing game last night. It didn't make much sense considering the fact the Pats had problems protecting Brady, the Bills have good DB and their weakness is the LBing corp, and LaFell (their most consistent outside threat) seemed to be on a pitch count for some reason.

Now that I gave away a large part of my game day thread, I guess I don't need to do one.

Click to expand...

Thanks Rob! Sorry, didn't mean to have your thunder stolen in my thread.

But I am sure you have more to say about the game. Please do provide your usual thoughts and we can merge this with them.

borg said:

Maybe Brady and the O line would have been better off with quick snaps instead of the cerebral approach of assigning protection at the LOS. An awful lot to process on every play. The absence of a blitz-pickup RB was frustrating as well...given the beating Brady received.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I was also wondering the same (just do quick snaps) but then admonished myself that in no way I should second guess the greatest QB that we are all fortunate to witness.

I was a bit taken aback to see the seemingly long time it took during every snap - especially in the first Q. I first thought that Brady was trying to make the D into showing their hand, but then realized that he might have genuinely needed that time to process the looks and identify the best option.

Fascinating.

I am glad we had a W last night even with this poor performance by our O. My only disappointment is that of Dola's injury (and to an extent Dobson, but I had very low expectations of him and so wasn't that surprised when the poor guy got hurt again).

Here is looking to see how Harper and the other WRs step up this week.

GO PATS!!

chasa said:

maybe the coaches put a ****ty game plan in place intentionally.

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I doubt it.

chasa said:

The bills came to play, simple as that.

Our oline is patchwork right now at best, too many injuries means fellas need to move around, once youstart doing that, and you are going up against a team with over 100 million dollars worth of salary cap on the Dline you get a little edgy. The bills executed their game plan perfectly. Get in bradys face, hit him every play. too many free rushers were getting through.

The pats should have been rushing the ball ALOT more, and shortened the game, blunt wasn't great but we was picking up yardage. when we had a ten point lead we should have been seeing rush/rush/pass on 1/2/3 downs almost every time, with maximum clock eating, instead we got a lot of hurry up throws into the feet of the recievers because brady had about half a second before a rusher came through.

This is a game the patriots need to keep them motivated for the final stretch, maybe the coaches put a ****ty game plan in place intentionally.

Click to expand...

That sounds like the game plan the Giants used in two Super Bowls. Better to face it in the regular season and have experience if one of the playoff teams tries the same approach. Obviously you need the right personnel to make it work but give Ryan his due, he can make life miserable for Brady and company.....

chasa said:

maybe the coaches put a ****ty game plan in place intentionally.

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I think they would never do that against a division rival in the middle of a season.

neuronet said:

I think they would never do that against a division rival in the middle of a season.

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fair enough, if that's the case then mcdaniels just called a really poor game, and didn't adjust at all at anypoint.

chasa said:

fair enough, if that's the case then mcdaniels just called a really poor game, and didn't adjust at all at anypoint.

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That, and we just got outplayed. With Amendola out, we lost our best active short route runner. We ended up with routes that took much longer to develop. Not good, as that takes away the key strength of our offense: its ability to do extremely quick passes in the face of blitz.

Rob0729 said:

...

• Poor game plan by the Pats. The Pats seemed intent on a more vertical passing game last night. It didn't make much sense considering the fact the Pats had problems protecting Brady, the Bills have good DB and their weakness is the LBing corp, and LaFell (their most consistent outside threat) seemed to be on a pitch count for some reason. ....

Click to expand...

...maybe the coaches put a ****ty game plan in place intentionally.

Click to expand...

I think it's more likely the coaches were working with the new WR selection and trying them out to see how they did getting separation and going vertical. That fits with my mental image of Belichick as a mad scientist trying different experiments all season to see what happens so he's ready for whatever the postseason throws at him. Also makes some sense with Edelman out to try to use the available receivers at what they do best rather than forcing them into the mold that worked for Jules. That's a hallmark of Belichick's approach, utilizing players' strengths. I'm sure that BB did not gameplan a poor O line performance, if they'd done better the rest of the game plan would've worked better too.