Samuel... then Hawkins
 

I know we were all trashing on Samuel for being so inconsistent and having an off year, but in his 2 passes to Coles, he picked one off, and made a great play on another, wheras Hawkins looked obviously out of position at CB and got burned for 2 TDs. Hopefully Samuel will be back soon, and Hawkins can move back to safety. And get Sanders in there too for some plays.

i totally agree with you.
Samuel surely has not impressed this year but i think we are better with him then without him...

so i hope he will be ok for the play-offs together with Tedy and Bethel

He just lost the fight for the ball on Vinnies TD and the other corner job was simply a perfect pass play - hard to stop those.........

Samuel looked good, and Hawkins did get burned twice, but not for lack of effort/positioning. Secondary looked good until the Pats stopped rushing the passer in the second half.

Hawkins was still playing S on those TD passes to Coles, he had good position, but just lost the height battle - happens. Poteat was Sante's relief, he still took the slot WR in the nickel, with Hawkins picking up the wideout. I'm not sure yet who they brought in, maybe Sanders to play some S. In the first series they were in nickel against a 4 wide with Hobbs and Poteat on one side, Samuel and Hawkins on the other. Probably had to be Sanders coming in on the nickel after Samuels got dinged, then Wilson could play like a corner if needed.

Yeah. I'm not an expert, but it looked like the coverage was as good as it could be on that TD catch. It was a jump ball scenario and the receiver won the battle.

Vinnie certainly wasn't throwing to a wide-open receiver. It was one of those close-your-eyes-and-heave-it-downfield throws.

I was pretty sure he was playing corner, man to man, both plays. Can anybody confirm this?

In Nickel and Dime packages he is the coverage S, leaving Geno or Geno and Sanders to be the help over top. He was man in both situations (you are correct) and was out-jumped by Coles, you could call him a Corner, but I saw him as a S with different responsiblities from say Hobbs (in the dime we play with three S and three CBs, since Hawkins is now a primary S that affects how I perceive him even when he's in man coverage on a WR).

I know Hawkins isn't loved on this board, but I think he's actually done a pretty decent job. In man situations he sticks to the reciever pretty well when I've seen him (including on the Coles touchdown...it wasn't really bad coverage that was the problem, it was height).

I'm more worried about Stone myself. He's played well on special teams but he's made a number of mental errors where he should be playing up top on a reciever (the Bills game comes to mind) and he doesn't.

Vanilla Defense
 

After the Pats long drive to start the third Quarter, the Pats played a very vanilla defense for the rest of the game.

I was surprised they left Hawkins out there man on man with Coles, I don't think they do that in the regular season without help coming from somewhere else.

I was very surprised they didn't give Poteat a chance to see what he could do with Coles.

Judging by the way Samuel fell, I think he got a concussion or one of those nasty neck stingers (the kind where you lose felling in your arm for a while) Even if BB "rests him for the Miami game, if I'm right he should be fine for the playoffs.