Game Thoughts: I am embarrased by this loss edition

DaBruinz said:

You are totally ignoring that the Pats, essentially had less than 40 players healthy players available for today's game.

You're expecting rookies who have never played more than 12 games in a season to not be run down after 13 straight weeks of non-stop football..

You're expecting this team to be successful when starting it's 5th different LT and 3rd different RT on the season. When it's top 2 RBs are out for the season and they are trying to work a guy who has all of 9 snaps and is 32 years old into the game plan?

They were missing 2 of their top D-line in Jones and Easley. Ninkovich was playing hurt.. He clearly wasn't even 75%.

McCourty wasn't 100% either and should have been on the sidelines the entire game instead of playing.

Come on. People need to take a step back and realize that regardless of what we think, there is a mental toll that this all takes.. They have two weeks to get healthy, both mentally and physically and we should see that in the play-off game in Foxboro.

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I was more disgusted with the coaching last week than the players. Belichick and McDaniels coached scared last week. The Pats could have won if the Belichick didn't get conservative at the end of the first half with plenty of time to get at least a field goal or choose to kick in overtime.

This week it is on everyone. The Dolphins are bad enough to beat short handed.

saspack said:

What's the point? The outcome would be the same, failure in playoff.

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The difference is that the Pats will be getting Edelman, Vollmer, Jones, Hightower, and Coleman back for the play-offs. That Amendola (knee), LaFell (foot), Ninkovich (shin), Chandler (knee), Chung (foot) and McCourty (ankle) will have another 2 weeks to get healthy. By all accounts, they WILL be healthy.. You're talking about 7 of 22 starters there.. That's a huge difference..

Rob0729 said:

I was more disgusted with the coaching last week than the players. Belichick and McDaniels coached scared last week. The Pats could have won if the Belichick didn't get conservative at the end of the first half with plenty of time to get at least a field goal or choose to kick in overtime.

This week it is on everyone. The Dolphins are bad enough to beat short handed.

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I was disappointed in Belichick for making that call.
This week, I don't blame anyone. The attrition finally caught up to them..

My big problem is that I don't understand what they were trying to do.

I'm (mostly) ok with them deciding to rest the starters and I'm OK with them trying hard to win.

But I can't for the life of me understand the "we are not going to try to win but we'll expose the starters to injury anyway" stuff we saw today.

I could even see a "give it a decent shot and see if Miami folds early and if not, pull the starters at halftime" approach.

But the coaches seemed to do the worst of all possible worlds

God, there is so much stuff here that I disagree with..

Rob0729 said:

This was a pathetic effort by everyone. No one is excused from this loss. The Pats were out coached, out played, and out classed today.

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Nobody got outcoached in this game. We were playing conservatively from the very first snap until the end. Conservatively means mostly minimizing injury risks. And even playing like that resulted in Brady getting hit again and again.

You make it sound like we had a screwup in the gameplan when the gameplan was keep the game close and minimize risks. Maybe you should just adjust your expectations about how important the #1 seed is for BB.

Rob0729 said:

I am not one to jump on McDaniels (in fact I defend him more than most), but I don't get his offensive strategy this entire month. Either they go with the three and out overly conservative offense or the three and out huck the ball down the field offense. What happened to spreading them out and go to the short quick passes. And before people say it isn't working, it is because they aren't trying it.

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So let me get this straight. We score 28 against the Eagles in a game that we lost because of ST screwups, 27 against the Texans, 33 against the Titans which secured us a BYE. All of this was done with missing key pieces on the offense. Then in the last two games where our injuries pile up even more we go conservative and suddenly its the entire month that didnt work.

You are assuming that McDaniels didn't think of spreading it out or using our patented quick game when in reality it looks like the coaching staff made a conscious decision to play health over anything else.

Rob0729 said:

I hate that Belichick is coaching scared down the stretch. He might as well were a cut off hoodie that reads "My offense sucks and I don't trust them". I know that the offense is struggling quite a bit, but he is shattering their confidence consistently showing that he doesn't trust them at all.

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He didn't just castrate the offense but at the same time also started to play totally vanilla defense if you haven't noticed. He is not playing scared offense, he is playing essentially preseason football all over the board. You can't telegraph intentions more than that. As I have said multiple times this week, you can disagree philosophically with that approach but don't say that this is cluelessness or arrogance, because it is not.

Rob0729 said:

They need to move Gronk around more in motion. He is getting too much attention and could benefit from more motion. I know that he has had to stay in and block has been a big factor in that.'

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Again, they are not risking his health with risky routes/calls. He hasn't gotten more than maybe 1-2 seam routes the last three weeks. He is mostly blocking and is getting some low risk sideline stuff. Again, it is pretty obvious that they are holding back on purpose.

Rob0729 said:

With the strategy they came into the game, they should have sat Brady and others. They were never going to win with the strategy of trying to win 2-0 because they had no intention of scoring points on offense going into the game. I have no problem with the loss, but I have a problem with how they lost.

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No you don't do that. For the most part they did it right with minimizing risk, while still trying to keep the game close. There can always be a blown coverage or turnovers that give you a short field and you really want to have your QB out there to take advantage.

What you definitely don't do is run your normal stuff with only 38-39 healthy players and an unstable OL.


In the end losing against the Jets and Dolphins suck but there were no more serious injuries. We know the potential that team has and have to be patient and see if they can play up to that when we get reinforcements in two weeks.

Two weeks of horrific coaching. Should be able to regroup with better health heading into postseason.

libra957 said:

We look like the Broncos from last year, peaked early in the season but faltering late

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We could be that or the 2012 Ravens that was 1 and 4 the last 5 games of the season or the 2006 Colts that was 3-4 the last 7 games because of injures but pulled it together for the play-offs. That is what I'm thinking will happen here but we will see in two weeks.

just got home from that crap game.

I'm still waiting for us to try

DaBruinz said:

Pats will be getting Edelman, Vollmer, Jones, Hightower, and Coleman back for the play-offs. That Amendola (knee), LaFell (foot), Ninkovich (shin), Chandler (knee), Chung (foot) and McCourty (ankle) will have another 2 weeks to get healthy.

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No guarantees on the first five names - hopes, but no guarantees. Add in that even if back, those guys could be only the same effectiveness the bottom six were today (of which I thought Chung was most effective, McCourty the least with most nearer to McCourty than Chung as to their "percentage" either healthy or not rusty).

The team has little positives on which to build right now. Can they turn on the switch in two weeks? History says yes given their track record of doing it, but the current situation doesn't support it with where they ended.

It's baffling. Why would the Pats run run run in the first half and occasionally act like they're trying and then try really hard in the third quarter and then pretty much give up in the fourth?

There was no gameplan. I mean, if you're going to rest guys, rest them. If you're trying to win, do the things you're good at.

QuantumMechanic said:

My big problem is that I don't understand what they were trying to do.

I'm (mostly) ok with them deciding to rest the starters and I'm OK with them trying hard to win.

But I can't for the life of me understand the "we are not going to try to win but we'll expose the starters to injury anyway" stuff we saw today.

I could even see a "give it a decent shot and see if Miami folds early and if not, pull the starters at halftime" approach.

But the coaches seemed to do the worst of all possible worlds

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You summed it up exactly. I can get behind either strategy, but this half assed trying to win but not really BS drives me nuts.

DaBruinz said:

I can understand it can be confusing. You clearly weren't in the Game Day thread. Not sure if you were in the Game Day Chat. But the Game Day thread was ridiculous.. And the negative nancies got their own thread started by 102. He didn't name names, but the people who he was talking about let their guilt show through and proceed to whine in there the way they did in the game day thread.

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Do u have a police badge on this site? Lol

Rob0729 said:

I was more disgusted with the coaching last week than the players. Belichick and McDaniels coached scared last week. The Pats could have won if the Belichick didn't get conservative at the end of the first half with plenty of time to get at least a field goal or choose to kick in overtime.

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And Brady could have been injured and out for the season if Waddle misses yet another block and Richardson crashes into Brady's knees.

Wanna continue playing the could have game ? How about the Jets could have knocked Gronk out for the season if we call for one of the usual seam patterns to get into FG range at the end of the first half ? Or how about we elect to receive and could have muffed the kickoff in OT like it had happened in 4 games in a row before ?

Say something of substance instead this pointless "could have" stuff then we can actually have a discussion about coaching choices.

archstanton543 said:

It's baffling. Why would the Pats run run run in the first half and occasionally act like they're trying and then try really hard in the third quarter and then pretty much give up in the fourth?

There was no gameplan. I mean, if you're going to rest guys, rest them. If you're trying to win, do the things you're good at.

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There is this myth that the Patriots could have rested more players. Apart from Brady this is not even realistically possible. Chandler has been on the verge of being inactive for 4 weeks straight with his knee issue so you don't really have someone to play instead of Gronk. Dola only played a fraction of snaps so he was also on a snapcount.

DMac couldn't sit the game out because Richards is also on a snap count after the hit that knocked him out against the Jets in OT. With Hightower out and Freeney still awol there is no one that can take over for Jamie Collins.

Who would you sit apart from Brady and who would be the replacement ?

luuked said:

And Brady could have been injured and out for the season if Waddle misses yet another block and Richardson crashes into Brady's knees.

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Your definition of purposefully coaching conservative today is strange. Brady WAS injured playing your definition of what the coaches conservative gameplan is by Suh today. Actually conservative, as Rob indicates is sitting Brady for JG, or doing the same gameplan they ran the first couple series of run, run, run. It's not slow developing, 30 yard pass plays which were 40% of the plays in the second half.

It was as Rob says - some amalgamation of conservative and trying to win at the same time, which defies most logical analysis.

luuked said:

And Brady could have been injured and out for the season if Waddle misses yet another block and Richardson crashes into Brady's knees.

Wanna continue playing the could have game ? How about the Jets could have knocked Gronk out for the season if we call for one of the usual seam patterns to get into FG range at the end of the first half ? Or how about we elect to receive and could have muffed the kickoff in OT like it had happened in 4 games in a row before ?

Say something of substance instead this pointless "could have" stuff then we can actually have a discussion about coaching choices.

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Well, if you are going to throw out highly unlikely scenarios to counter a very likely scenario I pointed out, then more power to you.

The Pats got the ball back with 1:57 left in the half with two time outs left. There was plenty of time to drive down and at least get a field goal. If another team did what the Pats did against the Pats, we all would have laughed at their head coach. To this day, I know people who still complain about Pete Carroll having Bledsoe take a knee with about 1:37 left in the half way back in 1999.

The odds of the Pats getting at least 3 points in that situation was infinitely more likely than Brady getting injured.

And to counter your scenario, why didn't the Pats take out Brady when he hurt his ankle. If the Pats cannot go for it with nearly two minutes left in the half with two time outs to protect Brady, why are you letting Brady play with a hurt ankle and the o-line getting him hit almost every time he drops back today? You cannot have it both ways. If you played to protect Brady in that game, you do the same in this game.

This game had the look and feel of the last pre-season game (including a majority of third stringers playing)

I remain confident that when the "regular season" starts and they have as many starters back as possible, we'll see a different product

nabwong said:

This just in. Bye week favorite to beat the pats.

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Denver is the favorite you are right

Rumors are McD has some head coaching opps....I for one am pulling for him

IcyPatriot said:

I am not one to complain much ....
Just 1 complaint ....

Someone tear that delayed hand off play away from McDaniels ....
Has it worked well even 1 time this season?
Other than that we're hobbled ... let's hope for the best in 2 weeks.

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Brady is nothing without a solid OL....even healthy....these guys aren't getting it done....hopefully we do a better job in drafting/FA for OL next year

Rob0729 said:

Brady with a healthy supporting cast can pretty much do anything with one leg. I am concerned that him being injured without weapons could spell disaster. My concern is about a 1-2 right now out of 10, but is something to monitor over the next few weeks.

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