Team had a bad attitude

n6249c said:

exactly what I meant by bad attitude, they did not respect the Eagles, nor take tha game seriously. They got off to a slow start, put up two TDs and looked like things were rolling. Then they gave the Eagles a short field with Ebner's drop kick and Philly scored. Pats still thought things were well in hand, non-chalanted the end of the first half and let the Eagles back into it. Momentum gifted, and a couple of other breakdowns, things got out of hand quickly. Theyd ete sloppy all over, but that end of the half sequence showed it most obviously.

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Were you complaining when they recovered the onside kick against the Redskins? These kicks are planned when certain tendencies are shown that make them more likely to succeed.

The Ebner kick gave the Eagles the ball at their, not the Patriots 41 - 59 yards to score. They had to move the ball about 60 yards. What makes you think an added 20 yards would have changed that outcome?

Chip Kelly, for all the Iggle disasters this year, is still a very smart coach Belichick found sufficiently impressive that he visited him at Oregon to learn his system. Maybe he was capable of seeing some vulnerabilities at this point.

The Pats have had 2 physical, brutal games in a row before this, and are missing Gronk and JE 11 games into the season. 14 points from special teams issues is not the norm, nor is a 100 yard pick 6. I am sure wins every week is preferred, and God forbid the Pats lay an egg in one game, but maybe the "bad attitude" you divine is a good team that has suffered enough losses to impact its play and show cracks.

If you believe the Pats coaching is predicting wins, then maybe read up on the information available on game preparation and Belichick's speeches every week on upcoming opponents. Lacking primary weapons, yes I'm sure the Pats knew they would win this. Athletes have no understanding of who the best players on the team might be and what is lost to injuries, so I am sure the team was overconfident here.

Or maybe this has nothing to do with a lack of respect for the Eagles. Maybe this is a mentally drained team right now. Look at everything they've had to endure since the off season basically started. Constant media scrutiny, defending champs, injuries, is the league targeting Gronk and the game last week. We usually laud them for being able to turn the page quickly, especially after losses, but that one last week was TOUGH. These guys are human. Gronk and High go down. Gronk being out changes YOUR WHOLE offense.

And still, this team put themselves in position to do something at the end. Sometimes, it just becomes too much. Tom throwing to guys who would not be on this team were it not for injures and other inconsistent guys. The team has been through a lot, and even the most mentally tough have moments of weariness. Let's see how they recover. They almost certainly have to win out now, and HFA would still not be a guarantee (I don't believe).

n6249c said:

The end of the first half showed that the team was not taking the Eagles nor the game seriously. They had time to run the two minute drill and put up at least three points, but they didn't try to score. Nor were they effective at successfully running the clock out. Instead they screwed around and ended up having to punt. It bit them in the ass bigtime, providing the margin of defeat for the game. It ws terrible, sloppy and showed no pride in their craft. That series was the game, in a nutshell. Thoughts?

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It was the same as the end of the half last week except there was more time left and they had to punt instead of throw the ball away.

Bruins29 said:

I said exactly that. They had 2 choices at the end of the half. Take a knee. Try to score. Somehow they chose neither and did some sort of half hearted football playing. It was strange and it bit them in the ass.

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The Patriots have always done it this way.

They try for a field goal. They have always taken safe plays to see if it is worth a shot. I've seen the Patriots do this maybe 50 times. Maybe they do it so effectively normally that no one notices? Or maybe it rarely ends in a blocked punt for a TD?

Team did not have a bad attitude.

I do think there is a lack of confidence with the offensive communication. No hurry up offense at the end of the game or at the end of the half. This tells me that all the players aren't ready for the high octane play calling yet.

At the beginning of the season the Pats had too many weapons and Brady could find which one was open. Now that Jules, Gronk and Lewis are out and Amendola is banged up the opposing defenses have less to focus on. Did I see Keyshawn Martin in double coverage? Yeah that doesn't happen when Jules or Gronk are on the field.

Good news is that White played his best game (IMO) and K. Martin has played well. This is the second time I've seen K Martin wide open down field but Brady didn't have enough time to get it to him.

Get Jules and Gronk back and the O Line issues will settle down to a minimum.

This team just needs the health fairy to show up soon.

you either go for points or you don't..they were scattered and finally decided to go for points after a 12 yard run?

upstater1 said:

The Patriots have always done it this way.

They try for a field goal. They have always taken safe plays to see if it is worth a shot. I've seen the Patriots do this maybe 50 times. Maybe they do it so effectively normally that no one notices? Or maybe it rarely ends in a blocked punt for a TD?

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Right. The strategy is to not leave enough time on the clock for the other team to get a quick score before the half and to run a few plays and see how much success they have.

It's a conservative approach that makes all the sense in the world....as long as your punt doesn't get blocked.

I don't think the end of the first half was the result of an attitude problem, but I do think the team has one. Or maybe more accurately, a resiliency problem. They seem very captive to their emotions this year. When things are going great, they're great. When something major goes wrong, they fold and take a while to recover. It happened with Edelman's injury, Gronk's injury (yeah, they had the tying drive, but it seemed the wind was out of their sails for the rest of the game), and the failed onside attempt and punt block this week.

Obviously part of that is the real problem of dealing with a change to the plan when something bad happens, but it seems like they have trouble getting back on track when thrown out of rhythm. That seems more concerning to me than the end of the first half, which seems like just an odd strategic decision that went wrong.

n6249c said:

It ws terrible, sloppy and showed no pride in their craft. Thoughts?

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Wrath Mania said:

I don't think anything that happened at the end of the 1st half was a bad attitude (lol what?) as much as it was poorly coached.

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Poor clock management (for the second week in a row at the end of the 1st half) and poor execution. Blah.

sambam94 said:

you either go for points or you don't..they were scattered and finally decided to go for points after a 12 yard run?

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Exactly. whiskey tango foxtrot?

Ever since they lost Edelman they have been doing stupid trick plays, almost losing, and now actually losing.

I don't get it, when you played straight up football you were winning 13 straight and nobody could touch you, now they are doing little trick kicks, throwing deep balls into quadruple coverage, tossing passes to our 38 year old QB etc. When we were winning people would diss teams like IND for running trick plays and stuff and now we are doing just what our opponents used to do and losing because of it.

I don't think that there was a badf attitude on the part of the players.

Rather, I think that this was the worst coached game in recent memory. The coaches acted as if they couldn't lose.

mgteich said:

I don't think that there was a badf attitude on the part of the players.

Rather, I think that this was the worst coached game in recent memory. The coaches acted as if they couldn't lose.

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I thought it was both. Agree it was poorly coached. But also feel the players did not execute very well.

End of the half showed both. The first couple of plays were desultory, run calls with no sense of urgency, like they were planning to just run the clock down. Then they got a couple of good gains on those runs and it seemed like they suddenly started thinking they could get within field goal range and called time out. Brady was sacked on the next play. Play after that was a run, which left them with third and five on their own 38 yd line, nineteen seconds left. Brady threw a short pass that was incomplete, even if completed it would not have done much to get them closer to FG range even if it moved the chains. Whole thing was a cluster. Mostly on the coaches, but the player execution was also mediocre on the pass plays, not good protection and incompletions as the result.

I agreed until the middle of the fourth quarter. I was absolutely disgusted by what I saw from the mid-2nd to mid-4th quarters. But, to the team's credit, they fought back at the end, and while it was too little too late it was an encouraging sign that maybe they do have the 2014 mentality that won them SB49.

mgteich said:

I don't think that there was a badf attitude on the part of the players.

Rather, I think that this was the worst coached game in recent memory. The coaches acted as if they couldn't lose.

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What exactly gave you that impression? Seriously, because I didnt see many questionable coaching decisions. All I saw were individual mistakes on three plays that led to 21 points.

luuked said:

What exactly gave you that impression? Seriously, because I didnt see many questionable coaching decisions. All I saw were individual mistakes on three plays that led to 21 points.

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Last 1:30 of the first half. Ebner's drop kick. A good bit of the play calling. Plus I consider the coaching responsible for failure to execute when that failure is consistent and widespread.

n6249c said:

The end of the first half showed that the team was not taking the Eagles nor the game seriously. They had time to run the two minute drill and put up at least three points, but they didn't try to score. Nor were they effective at successfully running the clock out. Instead they screwed around and ended up having to punt. It bit them in the ass bigtime, providing the margin of defeat for the game. It ws terrible, sloppy and showed no pride in their craft. That series was the game, in a nutshell. Thoughts?

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They played like the Key Stone Cops coached by Laurel and Hardy. Having injuries is one thing what we saw on sunday afternoon is another. Blocked punts, punt return for a score, the running back runs into the qb, ints, a drop kick that was not needed that ended up giving the other team confidence and momentum, not trying to score at the end of the half. I'm sure i'm missing some, but this is enough.