My observations from the game
 

I am by no means a "football expert", only a die hard fan. Here is my 2 cents.


1. We need to get taller, more athletic in our secondary . Wide Receivers today are too big, fast, athletic for our 5'10 corners/safety's to be abl to compete with them on jump balls/ 1 on 1 coverage.

2. Tom Brady cannot get a first down to seal the victory. This has been a recurring pattern for many years now. Is it the playcalling or is it Tom Brady's fault? I think a combination of both

3. Our offense has been struggling to score touchdowns in the Red Zone in 2012 Gronk is nowhere near the animal he was last year when he was the most dangerous player in the redzone in the NFL. These days, he hardly gets any looks at the goal line. Tom Brady seems to lack the ability to consistently throw the ball in the endzone this year(his td production has gone way down). I loved that fade to Hernandez, hopefully we add it to the playbook.

4. Solid performance by the O-Line. They did there job the other day, I was really proud of them. Tom, that one's on you.

5. We might have the worst kick returners in the NFL- It's been 2 seasons now, something has got to change. We need to find a fast, young, athletic home run man to return kicks. We pose ZERO threat on the kick return.

6. Brandon Lloyd is a team player- Making a leaping dive on an uncatchable balls in attempt to keep the hopes of winning the game alive was a special moment. That's a winner.

7. We need to go after guys who can cover, not big hitters- One thing I notice about our team. We have a lot of very good tacklers, big hitters, cloggers(mayo, chung, spikes, hightower, mccourty). We don't have any elite cover guys. In today's passing NFL, I feel getting defensive players who are elite cover guys is more important than finding "big hitters, run stuffers"

8. This years team reminds me of the 2009 New England Patriots- Had a lot of talent and the ability to compete with anyone, but always choked in close games, couldn't get it done when it counted most. They wound up at 10-6. It seems we are headed in that direction.

9. Chandler Jones is are only Pass Rusher - What a great draft pick, looks to be a future star in the NFL, on pace for a 12-13 sack season as a rookie! Unfortunately, we have no one on the opposite side to help him out. Jermaine Cunningham is serviceable, but lacks game changing ability. We need to find another elite pass rusher to take some pressure off Chandler, or he will start getting double teamed every game.

10. Ron Brace, Ras I Dowling- Where are you guys? High 2nd round picks, you can't even get on the playing field?

Re: My observations from the game
 

This is 2005 and 2009 all over again. Unfortunately, the NFL is much stronger and we may not get to 10 wins, let alone 8. ):

Re: My observations from the game
 

Seems like everyone knows what we're going to do in those situations. Two runs and hope Welker is open on the 3rd and long. Newsflash, he's not always open.

If we are able to put up 400+ yards on a team most of the game, why don't we just stick to that type of playcalling?

Re: My observations from the game
 

the pats have had issues they have gotten past in the past.

I think this years secondary is already as good as it gets and is not something that can be dealt with sufficiently

Re: My observations from the game
 

Biggest issue to me is that this team has a horrible 4th quarter identity right now. There shouldn't be a fan on this board that feels confident they are going to ice a win unless they are up by three scores minimum. Call it killer instinct, call it whatever you want, but what I see is a team that consistently goes soft/conservative in every facet of the game trying to preserve a lead versus actually winning a game. It's almost as if they play to win for 3 quarters and then simply hope the clock runs out in the 4th. I have no problem with Josh McDaniels play calling until the 4th quarter, where he then abandons any and all aggressiveness and then goes vanilla/time killing ball protection stuff. They generally look scared in the 4th quarter, relying on praying the clock keeps going(throwing that Bills game out the window). That's not winning football.

If there is anything to be learned in this one, this team still cannot rely on it's defense to win them games if it has the choice to win with their offense. When they forced that last Seattle punt, there was going to be plenty of time for Seattle with or without their timeouts to drive down the field. So deferring to what was really a three and out likelihood scenario of play calling just made no sense to me. Get aggressive, don't play on your heels. Put a game away with your strength, which has always beena BB philosophy.

Playcalling is always going to be judged when you lose, just like the refs, etc. I just don't think the late game playcalling is playing to the odds/strengths/numbers right now and I'm really hoping this game helps recalibrate. Because in order to win big games, the late game approach taken thus far is not going to work.

They're still fine and I do think some of these early season losses can be healthy in the long run in helping a team figure itself out.

Re: My observations from the game
 

One thing to note about in response to #1 is the receivers the WRs that the DBs practice against all the time. The Patriots don't have that one big, strong and physical receiver (unless you want to count Lloyd but he is not that big of a WR). All the Patriots have are slot receivers/inside guys and pretty much nothing else to practice against (Gronk is a physical presence but he is a TE and Hernandez isn't an outside guy). It's also pretty ridiculous that most of the DBs that the team drafted in the past 4-5 years have not worked out either (Wheatley, Butler, Wilhite, etc.).

I agree with #3, Gronk hasn't been the same redzone threat he used to be last year. All the touchdowns that went to him or Hernandez in the redzone last year are turning into field goals this year.

And for #8, I pray that this team doesn't end up like that 2009 team. That team was just hard to watch that year.