BB didn't "throw away HFA"

titletownpats said:

I really wish we got homefield but Denver deserved it. They beat more playoff teams than us like GB, KC, Pats, Bengals, and Vikings. I think it's amazing the pats earned a bye with all the injuries. Has anybody ever had more offensive line combinations? Great job by the coaching staff dealing with all the injuries when most teams would fold.

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Looking at the analysis of since 2009 (see The Most Injured NFL Teams Since the 2009 Season - Man-Games Lost ) our year is up there with the most severely injured teams since 2009.

Makes sense that last year worked out for us as we were middle of the pack in terms of injuries while having a great team. It just tells you once again that this game is not only about having the best team but about having the healthiest team in January.

A man named Brady said:

We suck on the road in the playoffs. It's all about home field

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And we suck in denver more specifically. We had a great opportunity to not have to play there. Things could have turned out differently if we didn't, whatever. I'm disappointed still but I'm over it mostly. Belichick chose to not go after HFA aggressively, we have to live with the results. It is what it is.

titletownpats said:

I really wish we got homefield but Denver deserved it. They beat more playoff teams than us like GB, KC, Pats, Bengals, and Vikings. I think it's amazing the pats earned a bye with all the injuries. Has anybody ever had more offensive line combinations? Great job by the coaching staff dealing with all the injuries when most teams would fold.

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I agree that Denver was definitely a better overall team, and that was mostly due to physicality and tougher play in the trenches. They beat us twice in the same season. That's not easy to do.

I can't believe the number of posters here who continued to overlook them since day one. Worse off, they doubled down and made the same comments this time again.

supafly said:

I agree that Denver was definitely a better overall team, and that was mostly due to physicality and tougher play in the trenches. They beat us twice in the same season. That's not easy to do.

I can't believe the number of posters here who continued to overlook them since day one. Worse off, they doubled down and made the same comments this time again.

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First time was mostly ********. Refs stole that game with a couple of horrific calls.

supafly said:

It has been a remarkable run. It also sucks that it took 5 conference championship appearances that resulted in failure 4/5 times. Lots of wasted potential and hype. We should have at least one more title and at least one more appearance in the SB out of that.

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I agree, but all the fans of other teams that have lost during this journey feel somewhat the same way.. at least we have been there...there is a little bit of luck involved also.

IMO the talent is overstated, just look at our defense which is kickass.. imagine what Patricia/BB could do with the Denver personnel??? Even on O, we went into that game with no run game.. a crappy O line and aside from Gronk/Edelman/Amendola not a lot of offensive fire power.. this team has relied on the savvy and talent of #12 too much, there is only so much he can do..

Froob said:

First time was mostly ********. Refs stole that game with a couple of horrific calls.

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They also ran the ball down our throats and played much more physically in the trenches, though, so kudos to them.

titletownpats said:

I really wish we got homefield but Denver deserved it. They beat more playoff teams than us like GB, KC, Pats, Bengals, and Vikings. I think it's amazing the pats earned a bye with all the injuries. Has anybody ever had more offensive line combinations? Great job by the coaching staff dealing with all the injuries when most teams would fold.

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I will always maintain that this 2015 Denver team is one of the least deserving SuperBowl teams I've ever seen.

Even when they were 8-0 I wasn't impressed. I couldn't believe some of the ridiculous, incompetent plays and decisions by their opponents at that time, and throughout the entire season.

Boomer B said:

I hear what you are saying, but if treating Miami like a preseason game why was Brady playing and getting killed? If he's gonna play Brady, Gronk, etc...then play to win. Home field is to valuable to play it the way they did.

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Running the ball at a 90% rate was put into the game plan to avoid Brady from "getting killed". Problem is BB thought they could go into second half of game with lead by only running. When that didn't work out, they had to throw the ball to go for the win and that's when Brady "got killed" (or sprained his ankle ).

To CTPats point, the dilemma was (a) allow injured players another week to get healthy, with an O-line that was missing several players including Seabass. or (b) put in a simple offensive game plan that could actually result in a win over the "ready to play golf" LOLphins, while at the same time allowing offensive skill players to get healthy. I'm sure the medical staff had input to this decision as well.

Bottom line is if the Bengals were not the Bengals, (KC could have gone into Denver and knock off a very familiar opponent), and if the Steelers don't fumble midway through the 4th last week the AFCCG is in Foxboro. I think BB weighed all these odds. Didn't work out, so the Pats had to travel to Denver only to come up a 2 point conversion and a coin flip short. Don't get me wrong, I'm pissed off about the result, but the team fought through a lot this season, including the NFL commissioners agenda

Who would have guessed Jamie Collins would get beat twice on double hook moves by a nobody tight end for 14 points and virtually the difference in the game?? If the tablets don't go down I bet they coach up JC so it doesn't happen the second time. Roger the clown....are you listening????

zoostation said:

Running the ball at a 90% rate was put into the game plan to avoid Brady from "getting killed". Problem is BB thought they could go into second half of game with lead by only running. When that didn't work out, they had to throw the ball to go for the win and that's when Brady "got killed" (or sprained his ankle ).

To CTPats point, the dilemma was (a) allow injured players another week to get healthy, with an O-line that was missing several players including Seabass. or (b) put in a simple offensive game plan that could actually result in a win over the "ready to play golf" LOLphins, while at the same time allowing offensive skill players to get healthy. I'm sure the medical staff had input to this decision as well.

Bottom line is if the Bengals were not the Bengals, (KC could have gone into Denver and knock off a very familiar opponent), and if the Steelers don't fumble midway through the 4th last week the AFCCG is in Foxboro. I think BB weighed all these odds. Didn't work out, so the Pats had to travel to Denver only to come up a 2 point conversion and a coin flip short. Don't get me wrong, I'm pissed off about the result, but the team fought through a lot this season, including the NFL commissioners agenda

Who would have guessed Jamie Collins would get beat twice on double hook moves by a nobody tight end for 14 points and virtually the difference in the game?? If the tablets don't go down I bet they coach up JC so it doesn't happen the second time. Roger the clown....are you listening????

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Don't start with the tablets. I'm sure they have a backup for whatever they do on the tablets. It's ****ty that Denver doesn't have to shut their's down too but whatever...

ctpatsfan77 said:

I've seen a number of posts today claiming that BB either "threw away HFA" or "didn't value it" or what have you.

In reality, it's not as simple as BB deciding "he didn't want" HFA. He was actually faced with a difficult choice: trying to maximize the likelihood of reaching the Super Bowl, while doing two things:

• Minimizing the number of injured players entering the playoffs
• Maximizing the likelihood of winning HFA

Unfortunately, those two goals were at odds with one another. For example, he could have played Edelman in Miami, but what if he got injured and missed the playoffs?

If the injuries hadn't mounted as badly as they had, and you still saw what happened the last two weeks, then I think the idea that BB doesn't care for HFA would be much easier to sell. But that wasn't really what was happening.

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His plan to not try to win in Miami failed.


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luuked said:

What stupid decisions ?

Lets take away the the shiny, red herring that is the dropkick

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But you can't take that away, because it's not a red herring.

zoostation said:

Who would have guessed Jamie Collins would get beat twice on double hook moves by a nobody tight end for 14 points and virtually the difference in the game?? If the tablets don't go down I bet they coach up JC so it doesn't happen the second time. Roger the clown....are you listening????

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This is exactly what McD and Brady are excelling at. Finding something in tape that they can exploit. Kudos to Denver for finding it either by accident or by film study. Those two throws were the only thing that kept the Broncos in the game yesterday.

BB makes mistakes. This is one of them.

Deus Irae said:

But you can't take that away, because it's not a red herring.

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He said decisions, plural. One of them is definitely the dropkick.. I'd simply like to know what the other stupid decision(s) were.

Froob said:

Don't start with the tablets. I'm sure they have a backup for whatever they do on the tablets. It's ****ty that Denver doesn't have to shut their's down too but whatever...

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I hear you and I agree. Not blaming loss on tablets even though it obviously didn't help. Just pointing out that several factors had to be weighed into not playing starters against LOLphins and giving away HFA.

TBR said:

I will always maintain that this 2015 Denver team is one of the least deserving SuperBowl teams I've ever seen.

Even when they were 8-0 I wasn't impressed. I couldn't believe some of the ridiculous, incompetent plays and decisions by their opponents at that time, and throughout the entire season.

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In my opinion a team that beats the Steelers and Patriots in the playoffs, deserves to go to the Superbowl. I'm also impressed anytime a team starts 8-0. It's hard to win in the NFL and the Pats have only started 8-0 twice.

Kind of sucks we have to play in Denver next year and in 2017. I do feel very positive about the team next year though. We are stacked, no major free agents, and will be one of the better teams in the NFL again. It's the best to be able to root for a team that always has a shot at a SB. We are spoiled and I love it

Anyone who thinks BB purposely threw away HFA is an idiot, BUT he definitely misplayed the hand he was dealt with some questionable calls in several games.

luuked said:

This is exactly what McD and Brady are excelling at. Finding something in tape that they can exploit. Kudos to Denver for finding it either by accident or by film study. Those two throws were the only thing that kept the Broncos in the game yesterday.

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Without a doubt. The moves to get wide open and the throws. Ground game did nothing against the D. I'm not a mathematician but change those scores to field goals and 18 points (or really 19 points) win it. Then again if my aunt had nuts.....

Anyway, to quote BB - Is what it is

supafly said:

I can't believe the number of posters here who continued to overlook them since day one. Worse off, they doubled down and made the same comments this time again.

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Well, I don't know that I overlooked them, but I did think the Pats would win this game handily, barring turnovers. Brady's first pick gifted Denver a TD, but the Pats got a TD off a turnover too, so can't really blame that.

But generally speaking, I thought the Pats' defense would stop the Broncos running game, which it more or less did--30 carries, under 100 yards. I'd add "and take away that one 30-yard run..." and I guess I just did add it, but every run counts. Still, there was no consistent running attack.

Manning was what we thought he would be. I think a more aggressive secondary from the get go would have made a difference.

But the big miss for me was on the offensive side--very much thought having Edelman and Amendola back would mitigate any issues with the O-line. If the Pats were winning last time 21-7 in the 4th, thought they'd get their 27 this time.

To the focus of this thread, the gameplan in Miami was definitely weird, injuries or not. And the drop kick against Philly was an abortion.

Jesus, it wasn't the ****ing injuries in the Miami game - what was that bullschitt running the ball nonstop and throwing the ball FIVE times in the first half? And then the second half it becomes chuck and duck a la Flacco? And at the time I wasn't so upset about the rugby player kick vs Philadelhia, but looking back now I'm really mad.
Why would you give a team hope? You kick it through the EZ and they get it at the 20. they haven't moved the ball all day. But instead of making them go 80 for a td, now they have a shorter field by 21 yards. Stupid call by the coach, once again trying to prove he's the smartest guy in the room.