2009 NE @ NYJ, Game 2 Breakdown

[BradyManny]

I'll get this thread started, while I can't promise or deliver the same kind of analysis BOR does.

I began a re-watch last nite, and I could only stomach the quarter of the game for now. But here are some initial thoughts garnered from that:

Run blitzing Maroney: After two successful runs by Maroney, the Jets began to run blitz LoMo. At some point, I hope to see more play-action with Maroney, as teams are clearly respecting #39 and are stacking the box against him.

Should we run the ball more? Reiss made a comment in his mailbag yesterday that he didn't see any instances of where we could've run the ball more. I agree, to some extent. We were putting ourselves in 1st and long (penalties) or 2nd & 3rd and long (penalties, incompletions). But there was a play on the 2nd drive, I believe, where the Jets countered our spread by putting in 2 DL and a few LBs hanging around in the box, which would've made it easy to run on. I hope to see us run out of the spread more in the upcoming weeks, so far, its been successful, and its easy to see why.

Brady under pressure: Obviously, I'll have to watch the second half of this game to get a good idea of what was going on. But on the first couple of drives, a man broke free twice. Once (2nd & 10 on drive #2), Brady got the ball off quick to Galloway, and on the other (3rd & 7 on drive #1), he basically threw it away (in Baker's direction). On one or two plays - so far - when Brady was pressured, he did look flat-footed and his throws were off. Does it have to do with the knee? I don't know. In general, I think he looked OK and a lot of the offensive problems were tied to penalties & miscues, and the talk about his rust is overdone.

The refs sucked. OK, again, I'm only a quarter in, but these refs were very inconsistent. The holding calls on Baker & Neal that butchered our first scoring drive were no worse than what Lito Sheppard got away with on Joey Galloway on a 3rd down pass on drive #2. This new emphasis on holding is a problem if it doesn't extend to the rest of the field. Receivers can't get mauled at the line of scrimmage and then O-lineman get called for holds that wouldn't have been called a year ago.

I intend to watch more over the next few days and will share my reactions if it generates any discussion.

 

[BradyManny]

REISS:

Pees on why we didn't blitz much

Dropped passes a problem for Pats

Defensive snaps

Offensive snaps

 

[Box_O_Rocks]

You go mahn! :rocker:

 

[everlong]

REISS:

Pees on why we didn't blitz much

The Jets were 1-of-3 for 5 yards against the blitz......

One of the downers for the Patriots was a third-and-13 late in the third quarter that could have shifted field position in a 13-9 game.

The line of scrimmage was the Jets' 12 and the Patriots rushed three, initially dropping eight into coverage. The Jets still converted, with running back Leon Washington catching a pass down the middle and lunging for the first-down marker.

Asked about the play, Pees said: "We thought we had what would have been a decent call against it, but it turned out not to be. We got out of our zones a little bit, got a little antsy. Give [Sanchez] credit, he stuck one in there on us. That was certainly a third down we should have gotten off the field and we didn't. We just have to do a better job of coaching that and playing that particular defense."

This is the exact type of situation where I want them to start to be more aggressive.

 

[SVN]

The Jets were 1-of-3 for 5 yards against the blitz......

One of the downers for the Patriots was a third-and-13 late in the third quarter that could have shifted field position in a 13-9 game.

The line of scrimmage was the Jets' 12 and the Patriots rushed three, initially dropping eight into coverage. The Jets still converted, with running back Leon Washington catching a pass down the middle and lunging for the first-down marker.

Asked about the play, Pees said: "We thought we had what would have been a decent call against it, but it turned out not to be. We got out of our zones a little bit, got a little antsy. Give [Sanchez] credit, he stuck one in there on us. That was certainly a third down we should have gotten off the field and we didn't. We just have to do a better job of coaching that and playing that particular defense."

This is the exact type of situation where I want them to start to be more aggressive.

3rd and very long pats always seem to play coverage. they figured with 8 men back they could stop the jets from getting 13yards. as most cases it was wrong.

 

[bucky]

The refs sucked. OK, again, I'm only a quarter in, but these refs were very inconsistent. The holding calls on Baker & Neal that butchered our first scoring drive were no worse than what Lito Sheppard got away with on Joey Galloway on a 3rd down pass on drive #2. This new emphasis on holding is a problem if it doesn't extend to the rest of the field. Receivers can't get mauled at the line of scrimmage and then O-lineman get called for holds that wouldn't have been called a year ago.

The holding call on Neal, IMO, was a legit penalty. But the one on Baker was total BS. I agree, though, that there were a number of really bad calls.

The one thing that struck me in the game was how Brady missed so many throws - especially to Edelman and Galloway. Most of these times, Brady was under pressure, but sometimes he wasn't and just missed open receivers. I wonder if this is because (a) Brady had a bad game, (b) Brady got rattled by so many blitzes, or (c) Brady doesn't have timing with Edelman (understandable) and Galloway (not so understandable).

 

[bucky]

3rd and very long pats always seem to play coverage. they figured with 8 men back they could stop the jets from getting 13yards. as most cases it was wrong.

I found it interesting that on 4th and 10 at the end of the game, the Jets brought 7 guys leaving all the DBs 1 on 1 with no help. Worked out well for them, but this is definitely a gamble. If Brady throws a split second later and 3 yards further, Galloway might have had a TD. But that's the way it goes. The Jets DBs generally did a good job tackling and/or making plays on the ball. I would not feel 100% comfortable leaving and DB on this team in 1-1 coverage with no help.

Bodden - jury's out on him, but he would be my most likely guy to leave on an island until he proves otherwise.
Springs - has been good historically, but has missed a large number of tackles so far in the preseason and first 2 games
Merriweather - repeatedly burned in 1-1 by WRs throughout his career. Also doesn't wrap up when tackles.
Sanders - not good 1-1 coverage guy
Butler - has the skills and make up speed. I'd be OK leaving him if I knew the blitz would get there quickly and he wouldn't be subject to double moves.
Wilhite - I like this guy, but that attempted tackle on Cotchery was abominable. He might be more of a cover 2 corner.

 

[BradyManny]

This is the exact type of situation where I want them to start to be more aggressive.

Agreed, especially when you need the ball back and need to jumpstart a stalling offense.

 

[BradyManny]

The holding call on Neal, IMO, was a legit penalty. But the one on Baker was total BS. I agree, though, that there were a number of really bad calls.

The one thing that struck me in the game was how Brady missed so many throws - especially to Edelman and Galloway. Most of these times, Brady was under pressure, but sometimes he wasn't and just missed open receivers. I wonder if this is because (a) Brady had a bad game, (b) Brady got rattled by so many blitzes, or (c) Brady doesn't have timing with Edelman (understandable) and Galloway (not so understandable).

Re: the holding calls, I think both could've gone either way, and maybe the Neal penalty was legit. I just think if they are going to call those on the Pats, then Sheppard shouldn't get away with grabbing Galloway's pads and holding him from running his route.

So far, from what I've seen, Brady made bad throws because he was under pressure. When he has time, his throws are generally perfect (minus the overthrow to Edelman that would've been an easy TD...). Plus, it didn't help that they had penalties pushing them back and forcing clear passing situations. Or it was just good D/borderline PI. That aforementioned 3rd & 5 pass to Galloway, would've been a 1st down if Sheppard didn't have his arm up Joey's jersey.

 

[upstater1]

The holding call on Neal, IMO, was a legit penalty. But the one on Baker was total BS. I agree, though, that there were a number of really bad calls.

The one thing that struck me in the game was how Brady missed so many throws - especially to Edelman and Galloway. Most of these times, Brady was under pressure, but sometimes he wasn't and just missed open receivers. I wonder if this is because (a) Brady had a bad game, (b) Brady got rattled by so many blitzes, or (c) Brady doesn't have timing with Edelman (understandable) and Galloway (not so understandable).

C.

This is where we suffered most. Brady is out of sync with his receivers.

On the other hand, I was optimistic since I thought Brady was moving around the pocket pretty well. Even if his technique was off and he was out of sync.

The way I look at it, he can get into sync with WRs with familiarity. That's the first key. The second key is his comfortability in the pocket and moving around. He looked good IMO. So check. The last one may be the hardest to solve. His mechanics are off.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

C.

This is where we suffered most. Brady is out of sync with his receivers.

On the other hand, I was optimistic since I thought Brady was moving around the pocket pretty well. Even if his technique was off and he was out of sync.

The way I look at it, he can get into sync with WRs with familiarity. That's the first key. The second key is his comfortability in the pocket and moving around. He looked good IMO. So check. The last one may be the hardest to solve. His mechanics are off.

Pressure will flumox both timing and mechanics. This is not the first time we've seen that happen to Brady. That's why I'm convinced it's not the knee or concerns about being hit that caused any of what happened Sunday. Monday, absolutely throughout the first half. As JAWS said he was feeling his way back. But he cleared that hurdle in the last 2 drives. This was all about pressure and timing and execution and a QB throwing off his back foot (whereas Monday night he was failing to plant his back foot) to receivers wearing playcall armbands...

And BTW it's on the WR to get in synch with the QB here, not visa versa...

He had one supposed constant out there and it was successfully taken away. He had Watson but under that pressure our TE don't get out into their routes very often. Mini me is a rookie and while he shows potential to indeed be another Welker he's not there yet nor could he be expected to be. He juggled a TD catch for an incompletion. Galloway shows signs he's getting there but he's not there yet. He got held on a 3rd down conversion in the red zone that wasn't called and had a drop and was probably out of position at least a couple of more times. It's a matter of inches on this offense. Guys aren't getting much seperation considering the pressure Brady is under so that makes for a dicey proposition on a team that stresses ball security.

And while the masses will call for a ground game because of all that, as Reiss pointed out there were factors at work like the penalty induced long yardage situations and an evaporating game clock that really made it a moot point.

 

[bucky]

C.

This is where we suffered most. Brady is out of sync with his receivers.

On the other hand, I was optimistic since I thought Brady was moving around the pocket pretty well. Even if his technique was off and he was out of sync.

The way I look at it, he can get into sync with WRs with familiarity. That's the first key. The second key is his comfortability in the pocket and moving around. He looked good IMO. So check. The last one may be the hardest to solve. His mechanics are off.

One play stands out in my mind - it was in the first half and it was a 3rd and long. Brady had to scramble out to his left. He threw on the run and overthrew a wide open Galloway who would have had a first down in FG territory. Then the announcers said "Brady is not good throwing on the run".

Now I'm not an expert on Brady's mechanics, but I do remember previously when Brady would partially scramble out of the pocket, set his feet and square his shoulders, then make a perfect throw just as he's about to get hit. It would appear to me that on the play in question Brady had enough time to set his feet and square his shoulders, but instead he threw sort of on the run.

I don't know if the example I'm siting is an exception of not. But it does seem like Brady is making more of an effort to avoid big hits. And that will obviously make him less effective against the blitz. Hopefully that's something he'll be able to turn on and off, so that he can avoid the hits early, but be able to take them and still make the play later in the season.