Game Thoughts: The Pats beat the Bills and Gene Steratore's rogue whistle edition

Here I go:

• First and foremost, this was one of the worst officiated games I have ever seen. Steratore and his crew should be embarrassed and Steratore should be suspended. He could have cost the Pats the game. And even after that he got the call wrong on the inadvertent whistle. And that was just the most glaring screw up. There were bad calls and no calls all game. There should have been a personal foul at least twice on hits on Brady (one when he threw the interception that was overturned by offsetting penalties and a defender just clocked him and then one when he was hit in the chin).
• Congratulations to the defense that now is the best defense in the NFL in terms of yards allowed. Other than that one TD drive, they were pretty much stifling. They totally took away Sammy Watkins (funny Revis got his balls washed for a week for doing a lesser job on Watkins a few weeks ago). Other than a couple of runs, they shut down Shady McCoy on the ground. Other than their problems with not covering Chris Hogan (he had 40.7% of the Bills' receiving yards), they shut down the passing game too. It was a mostly dominant performance.
• I can't remember this team being more snake bitten by injuries since 1989 when they lost Tippett, Veris, and Lippett all in the final preseason game. I give the Pats credit. Probably 30 of 32 teams would have folded when you have your best defensive player, your top two WRs, and your best RB out of the game with only three healthy WRs act and the o-line in flux because of injuries. This team is showing a lot of heart right now.
• I am not so concerned about the o-line. I think it was a masterful gameplan by Ryan on defense. I also think o-line is about continuity and they need to get it back. I don't think the o-line will be as good as early in the season since Brady will need to hold onto the ball more with a depleted receiving corp.
• I didn't get the offensive game plan last night. Seems they wanted to attack the Bills' strengths rather than their weaknesses. Why start of running Blount up the middle? Why are they continuing throwing deep and making Brady hold onto the ball? I felt they needed to attack the outsides of Bills' defense with the run and a lot more shorter passes.
• Marcus Cannon played like crap last night. I don't know if he is still injured. I still think they should have Vollmer protecting Brady's blindside regardless.
• Glad to see Mayo looks to reverting back to form. I think people wrote him off too quickly. The guy tore a patella tendon which is one of the hardest injuries to come back from. I think he is getting closer to 100%.
• I have been impressed with the secondary this year. Butler has been really good. I have been singing Ryan's praises for a while. McCourty is still McCourty. Chung has been pretty good. What surprised me was how well Tavon Wilson played last night. He was impressive at least for one game at nickelback.
• I want to give Rex Ryan credit for the defensive game plan. It reminded me of what he did in the 2010 playoff against the Pats. He switched from his typical man coverage and went to straight zone flooding the zones with extra defenders and rushing only 3 or 4. He did blitz a lot more and did a great job disguising his rushes, but it was similar to the defense that gave Brady fits in 2010.

The rule should just be to play through the whistle, you can't undo that screw up. I thought they emphasized years ago for refs to hold the whistle because they kept blowing plays dead at the tackle and it negated a bunch of fumbles.

I can't think of a reason a whistle should ever be blown mid play.

Rob0729 said:

First and foremost, this was one of the worst officiated games I have ever seen. Steratore and his crew should be embarrassed and Steratore should be suspended. He could have cost the Pats the game.

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Timeout for a second. He didn't blow the inadvertent whistle, so that makes literally no sense.

Rob0729 said:

And even after that he got the call wrong on the inadvertent whistle.

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Wrong. He actually benefited New England as best he could, since technically, they should have called it NO CATCH and replayed the down.

Rob0729 said:

There should have been a personal foul at least twice on hits on Brady (one when he threw the interception that was overturned by offsetting penalties and a defender just clocked him and then one when he was hit in the chin).

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Wrong again. You are right on the interception hit no doubt, but the other hit was not on Brady's chin. That's legal. Its his chest.


So in summary, for Steratore specifically, he missed one call. The hit on Brady after a negated interception.

Speaking of poor officiating, did anyone see the offsides that wasn't called on the 3rd down play after the inadvertent whistle? I may have to go back and check the DVR, because it looked like a Bills D lineman had his hand a good foot or two past the line of scrimmage at the snap, no call. Now, it could be that the line on the TV was inaccurate, or the angle made it look worse than it is, but it looked so blatant I was stunned when there was no flag. Anyone else notice that?

Adding more of Rob's thoughts on our OL: (he was kind enough to give this in a response to my query.)
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...why 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.

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CISGS said:

Timeout for a second. He didn't blow the inadvertent whistle, so that makes literally no sense.



Wrong. He actually benefited New England as best he could, since technically, they should have called it NO CATCH and replayed the down.



Wrong again. You are right on the interception hit no doubt, but the other hit was not on Brady's chin. That's legal. Its his chest.


So in summary, for Steratore specifically, he missed one call. The hit on Brady after a negated interception.

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No Brady definitely got hit in the chin.

CISGS said:

Timeout for a second. He didn't blow the inadvertent whistle, so that makes literally no sense.



Wrong. He BENEFITED New England as best he could, since technically, they should have called it NO CATCH and replayed the down.



Wrong again. You are right on the interception hit no doubt, but the other hit was not on Brady's chin. That's legal. Its his chest.


So in summary, for Steratore specifically, he missed one call. The hit on Brady after a negated interception.

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My bad about Steratore. They said he blew the whistle on the broadcast. I didn't bother to look up that it was someone else. But the line judge who blew the whistle needs to be suspended.

And Brady was hit on the chin. And the rule is you cannot hit the QB high at the head and neck area. Roughing the passer is called all the time for hits like that.

And I am right that Steratore did get the call wrong. As you pointed out, they blew the whistle before Amendola caught the ball and should have replayed the down rather than awarding him the catch. Correct me if I am wrong, but if the proper call is that the down should be replayed and they call it a reception instead, the call was wrong. I didn't say that they got the call wrong that benefitted the Bills. I just said he got the call wrong.

This team really is showing me the rebuild is for all intents and purposes complete. Some things could be better as always but the D is working like you would expect with all the draft capable we put into it and the offense when healthy was great. I think the offense can and will be better.

On a side note while I gave the Pats a congrads for being the #1 D in the NFL... What does it say abou the state of today's game when 18.2 PPG is the good enough for the best statistical D in the NFL?

Usually you need to be around 15PPG to have that honor.

Rob0729 said:

And I am right that Steratore did get the call wrong. As you pointed out, they blew the whistle before Amendola caught the ball and should have replayed the down rather than awarding him the catch. Correct me if I am wrong, but if the proper call is that the down should be replayed and they call it a reception instead, the call was wrong.

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Yes, looking at it that way, you are definitely correct.

I thought you were looking at it from a Patriots' perspective. Also, in his pool report, he stated some "judgement" goes into that ruling, which I interpreted as "The guy who blew the whistle ****ed up, let's make sure that the Patriots aren't entirely too screwed on this mess up"

CISGS said:

Yes, looking at it that way, you are definitely correct.

I thought you were looking at it from a Patriots' perspective. Also, in his pool report, he stated some "judgement" goes into that ruling, which I interpreted as "The guy who blew the whistle ****ed up, let's make sure that the Patriots aren't entirely too screwed on this mess up"

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Yeah, I agree that is what they probably did, but they are not supposed to do that. I mean it benefitted the Pats that they decided to disregard what happen and claim that Amendola caught the ball before the whistle, but if you look at it as an unbiased observer they screwed both the Pats and then the Bills on that sequence.

We definitely need Jamie Collins back this week. We need the D to come up huge this week vs. Denver.

And yet Bills fans are complaining they got screwed by the refs and we got all the calls....that fan base is...wow

glm said:

No Brady definitely got hit in the chin.

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Rob0729 said:

My bad about Steratore. They said he blew the whistle on the broadcast. I didn't bother to look up that it was someone else. But the line judge who blew the whistle needs to be suspended.

And Brady was hit on the chin. And the rule is you cannot hit the QB high at the head and neck area. Roughing the passer is called all the time for hits like that.

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That is really tight.

Needs to be crown of the helmet to chin, for that to be RTP.

BobDigital said:

This team really is showing me the rebuild is for all intents and purposes complete. Some things could be better as always but the D is working like you would expect with all the draft capable we put into it and the offense when healthy was great. I think the offense can and will be better.

On a side note while I gave the Pats a congrads for being the #1 D in the NFL... What does it say abou the state of today's game when 18.2 PPG is the good enough for the best statistical D in the NFL?

Usually you need to be around 15PPG to have that honor.

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Not in the age of fantasy football directed rule changes and constant drive-extending DPI/illegal contact flags.

CISGS said:

That is really tight.

Needs to be crown of the helmet to chin, for that to be RTP.

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Gonna need an actual video or gif rather than one picture still.

CISGS said:

That is really tight.

Needs to be crown of the helmet to chin, for that to be RTP.

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Watching live I also thought I saw contact with Brady's chin. In any case, exactly this gets a RTP call 70% of the time (90% if it is Rodgers). Its the inconsistency of those calls that upsets viewers.

BobDigital said:

This team really is showing me the rebuild is for all intents and purposes complete. Some things could be better as always but the D is working like you would expect with all the draft capable we put into it and the offense when healthy was great. I think the offense can and will be better.

On a side note while I gave the Pats a congrads for being the #1 D in the NFL... What does it say abou the state of today's game when 18.2 PPG is the good enough for the best statistical D in the NFL?

Usually you need to be around 15PPG to have that honor.

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I'm wondering how many PPG would the Broncos be giving up if Manning hadn't been intercepted 17 times? From what I can see, at least three were pick sixes which alone would be nearly 2 PPG over 11 games. Others undoubtedly led to short fields for the opposing offenses. I'm guessing if you had even an average game managing QB back there the Broncos PPG would be at that 15PPG mark.

CISGS said:

That is really tight.

Needs to be crown of the helmet to chin, for that to be RTP.

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One picture doesn't prove anything either way.

luuked said:

Watching live I also thought I saw contact with Brady's chin. In any case, exactly this gets a RTP call 70% of the time (90% if it is Rodgers). Its the inconsistency of those calls that upsets viewers.

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Not only did I see contact with Brady's chin, Brady clearly hurt his chin on the play and ever rubbed it as he was getting up.

Rob, I know the injury situation sucks this year, but I think nothing tops 2013.

Gronk, Vollmer, Mayo, Wilfork all on IR, meanwhile Amendola, Dobson, Tompkins, all missed time with injuries that year.

Looking back at it, i cant believe that team went to the AFC championship.