AFC divisional finals, Jets vs Pats breakdown/analysis

[Patspsycho]

Disagree. Brady's INT took 7 points off the board for the Pats. If the Pats have those 7 points they are playing with a lead instead of from behind going into the half (10-7), which means there's no way we would have had the unbelievably dumb fake punt attempt.

My argument was that the game isn't won in the first quarter- also as I mentioned before, I was talking about the mentality of the team and it didn't appear to change after the interception.

But I think you make a great point in saying that if we had a lead, that botched fake punt would never have happened and you are right.

There were quite a few 3rd and shorts were the Pats could have solved the Jets fancy coverage by just pounding the ball for a couple of yards or less. Where was our DOUBLE TE formation??

They were in there. The frustrating thing was, they were being used as receivers and were easily covered by the extra DB's.

 

[lillloyd]

I was trying to find more info on what the Jets did and I found this from MMQB:

Rex Ryan explains Jets win, Aaron Rodgers, Jay Cutler, more - Peter King - SI.com

I came away from the game wondering if the Patriots were simply the victim of lousy timing in terms of the ongoing, game-to-game chess match of offensive schemes and (Jets) defensive schemes.

What I mean is this: there's an ebb-and-flow to coaching strategies and the plans that the opposition comes up with to combat them. The Pats IMO perfected their post-Moss offense following the Cleveland game. They got tremendous production out of a short (vertically at least) passing game featuring underneath throws and their rookie TEs. Teams they played down the stretch had never seen the post-Moss offense and couldn't defend it. Most teams were obliterated, and the Pats looked unstoppable.

But a new scheme is like a new pitcher making the rounds in baseball; he may be unhittable the first time around, but the second time through the hitters have seen him, and make adjustments. The Jets obviously built a very specific and effective defense for this game (if you have the stomach for them, the articles on the Jets defensive adjustments are very interesting), based on their previous blowout loss, as well as what's now 12 weeks of footage on the "new" Patriots. And unfortunately for the Patriots, it was their turn to be at a loss, in-(playoff) game, regarding how to adjust to the Jets counter-scheme. (Obviously it's always the case that coaches make adjustments between games; however I think the impact were magnified in this case because the Pats made such large changes, post-Moss, so the game-to-game swings between opponents would be larger)

If this had been a regular season game, I have no doubt that BB and Brady would have devised tweaks to their scheme to address the Jets new defense, so that by the time the the playoffs rolled around it would have been the Patriots dictating with *their* new wrinkles, and the Jets hurrying to catch up.

FWIW, I think a lot of the current talk on this board is overreaction (completely understandable btw, *every* fans' board does it after a loss). You still have BB and Brady, which to my mind puts you in contention just on that basis. You have good, young talent with another year under their belts, and the sting of a playoff loss to drive them. You have a boatload of premium draft picks, plus a front office that's willing to go out and sign key veteran pieces. I think Brady probably has another 5 good years in him, and so long as that's the case you'll be near, or at, the top.

Hopefully when the sting of this loss goes away, most Patriots fans will see what a tremendous season they've had. They went from seemingly being a year away (with all their young players) to dominant in the span of a few weeks (a tribute to BB and one of his finest coaching jobs). They just got caught a little flat, maybe a little rusty, in a playoff game where the other coaching staff devised an outstanding new scheme to defend you.

lillloyd

 

[sevengables_2207]

Excellent thread, OP. As I was watching Sunday afternoon, I was flummoxed over why the running game was used so sparingly despite the Jets defense continually trotting out so many defensive backs. I believe that if BOB had decided to take what the Jets defense was giving his offense, the Patriots would have went smash-mouth and it could have changed the ebb-and-flow of the game, possibly to the Patriots benefit.

This may be a facile question, but I will ask it anyways. Why does this team skew balance in favor of the passing game at seemingly inopportune times? They see the Jets in nickel and dime personnel defensively throughout the majority of the game early on, and yet they do not capitalize on this opportunity to use a very good running game that featured BJGE. At the very least, it may have forced the Jets to back into their base personnel, opened up play-action more effectively, etc.

IF anyone with a better knowledge of x's and o's can explain, it would be appreciated.

 

[RHbT76]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention- it's good to find corroborating evidence.

Just so you know the inactives are posted an hour prior to gametime, so that would be the time where BB would find out about the extra DB's being dressed, and see that plenty of linemen were being benched.

There are just so many questions that will probably go unanswered. Would looking at the list of inactives change the gameplan at so late a stage?

Also, why didn't BB interfere with BOB and tell him to run the ball when seeing so many DB's on the field so repeatedly? I would find it hard to believe that BB would fail to recognize that himself.

Yeah I know I actually saw it before the game. I dug up the thread on JI I mentioned:

Brad Smith Inactive - Jets Insider.com Forums

Only 4 D-Linemen active again, Jets activate all their LBs and DBs. Small ball.

Rex going in with as many DB's as possible. Cook and Trufant in.

Obviously not enough time to come up with a completely new gameplan from scratch, but I would think we would have enough existing plays out of 2 TE and similar formations that would allow us to jam the ball down their throats until they were wore down and stopped over committing on the pass.

If we didn't have the brainpower to draw something simple like that up on gameday then some is seriously wrong.

 

[letekro]

I came away from the game wondering if the Patriots were simply the victim of lousy timing in terms of the ongoing, game-to-game chess match of offensive schemes and (Jets) defensive schemes.

What I mean is this: there's an ebb-and-flow to coaching strategies and the plans that the opposition comes up with to combat them. The Pats IMO perfected their post-Moss offense following the Cleveland game. They got tremendous production out of a short (vertically at least) passing game featuring underneath throws and their rookie TEs. Teams they played down the stretch had never seen the post-Moss offense and couldn't defend it. Most teams were obliterated, and the Pats looked unstoppable.

But a new scheme is like a new pitcher making the rounds in baseball; he may be unhittable the first time around, but the second time through the hitters have seen him, and make adjustments. The Jets obviously built a very specific and effective defense for this game (if you have the stomach for them, the articles on the Jets defensive adjustments are very interesting), based on their previous blowout loss, as well as what's now 12 weeks of footage on the "new" Patriots. And unfortunately for the Patriots, it was their turn to be at a loss, in-(playoff) game, regarding how to adjust to the Jets counter-scheme. (Obviously it's always the case that coaches make adjustments between games; however I think the impact were magnified in this case because the Pats made such large changes, post-Moss, so the game-to-game swings between opponents would be larger)

If this had been a regular season game, I have no doubt that BB and Brady would have devised tweaks to their scheme to address the Jets new defense, so that by the time the the playoffs rolled around it would have been the Patriots dictating with *their* new wrinkles, and the Jets hurrying to catch up.

FWIW, I think a lot of the current talk on this board is overreaction (completely understandable btw, *every* fans' board does it after a loss). You still have BB and Brady, which to my mind puts you in contention just on that basis. You have good, young talent with another year under their belts, and the sting of a playoff loss to drive them. You have a boatload of premium draft picks, plus a front office that's willing to go out and sign key veteran pieces. I think Brady probably has another 5 good years in him, and so long as that's the case you'll be near, or at, the top.

Hopefully when the sting of this loss goes away, most Patriots fans will see what a tremendous season they've had. They went from seemingly being a year away (with all their young players) to dominant in the span of a few weeks (a tribute to BB and one of his finest coaching jobs). They just got caught a little flat, maybe a little rusty, in a playoff game where the other coaching staff devised an outstanding new scheme to defend you.

lillloyd

Nice post. Good luck. We're all Stiller fans this week.

 

[upstater1]

We keep hearing the platitudes in interviews and press conferences that you have to eliminate mistakes, and that in the playoffs mistakes are magnified because the teams are so good.

This time you could see exactly what people like Brady mean. You throw an interception, drop a ball, and pretty soon you'll be doing stupid things like punt fakes.

The Patriots lost because they did the exact thing Patriot teams are not supposed to do. They pride themselves on eliminating mistakes and playing situational football. They did neither. They did not execute.

And though we can go back and look at the problems with the O-Line, QB and D-line, I still say that those problems would be minimized if it weren't for the earlier mistakes. The Jets do not drop back and dare the Patriots to run if the score is 7-7. They don't stick with short passes and runs if they're down 10-7. Being up 14-3 do to bad situational football and Patriot mistakes allows the Jets a luxury.

Now, when the score was 14-11, then you can question their inability and rather lackluster pass rush.

But, for once, I think the things you hear about in press conferences about execution and mistakes and situational football, those things were the difference.

 

[JMarr]

I may be mistaken, but that wouldve been a 52 yard FG right? I havent rewatched the game, but thats what I remembered. If it was, maybe BB wasnt confident that Graham had enough leg for that.

As I've said elsewhere, the way that drive was going we practically would have run out the clock had we managed a TD. Getting in position to kick a FG is an absolute no-brainer there and the Pats should have called different plays on 2nd or third down (a RUN maybe?) to get Graham within reasonable FG range.

 

[skinnydog]

What do we do after this? Do we adapt? Do we recognize that the Jets are daring us to run on them? They are essentially conceding the run game to us in favor of going MOFC on Brady. No. Empty, woodhead, empty, woodhead, empty, empty, and ******* empty. I'm reminded of a ******* first grader trying to force a ball through a square. You may raise the point that Woodhead is after all, a running back, and I will point out that he is NOT a POWER back. Jets will not adjust for him in the same way they adjust for BJGE who you must cluster on or he will just power through.

I'd just as soon like to see no empty backfield sets next year. You simply can't be one dimensional and succeed for Long in the NFL. With Brady in the gun and no backs or Woodhead or for that matter Faulk the last few years, teams have ignored the run and played pass from the snap of the ball. That's a huge advantage to give to the defense. The frustrating thing is that, I thought they had effectively gone away from that style of play. They ran the ball pretty damn well out of three tight end sets this year.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I'd just as soon like to see no empty backfield sets next year. You simply can't be one dimensional and succeed for Long in the NFL. With Brady in the gun and no backs or Woodhead or for that matter Faulk the last few years, teams have ignored the run and played pass from the snap of the ball. That's a huge advantage to give to the defense. The frustrating thing is that, I thought they had effectively gone away from that style of play. They ran the ball pretty damn well out of three tight end sets this year.

This is because deep down they want to pass the ball, despite that Brady used to throw the ball 25 times per game, and that was a championship formula. They used to stay in games and rely on their running backs to keep it close, and save all of their gameplan wrinkles for when it mattered late in the game, and that was really why we were so clutch on offense. Now we basically unload the kitchen sink of the first few drives of the game. If we win that battle, we then confuse the defense and they are playing on their heels. If we lose that battle, you see what happens.

But back to running the football. It used to be an effective way to score points. For a long time now, it's just been a means to an end. It's all about opening up the passing game, and that's it. Ultimately, the Patriots have already given away their poker hand before every game, because for a team that likes to find another team's tendency, they sure have some strong tendencies. This is ultimately how the Patriots beat the Rams in the Super Bowl; Belichick realized that Faulk was Warner's safety blanket, and despite all of the talent and passing records, the Rams really wanted to win the game through Faulk. The Patriots have now become that team and Brady is the focal point. It's too bad because the running game was pretty darn good this year and probably could have run amok over the Jets had they kept pounding it and put Fred Taylor on the actives list, especially considering the Jets had eleven defensive backs.

 

[Patspsycho]

Branch: Jets had 'great game plan'

Corroborating my increasing belief that there was a gameplan and that it simply wasn't followed, either by playcalling or by on field recognition and adjustment.

 

[Patspsycho]

just a brief look at the 2nd half:

3rd and one on the first drive of the 2nd half, Koppen again. Devito blows by him to get in the backfield to take away any chance for BJGE to cutback. One thing here is if Morris is the I offset strongside then I don't really understand why Brady hands off weakside unless Morris was a decoy and I think that highly unlikely for such a short yardage situation. Just a strange play and a blocking failure.

One thing that's become pretty noticeable is that even though our D didn't sack Sanchez or intercept him, or pressure him that often, they still caused enough 3rd and outs for the offense to have quite a few opportunities to get something going up to this point in the game.

There's a graphic that shows that Jets have been starting on their 46 on average, and we have been starting on our 24.

On the 2nd and 10, 8:46, tank package (all 3 TE on field) Hern as HB, Gronk motions to the slot, and this turns into a play action and Brady completely ignores a wide open BJGE on the 6 yard line, and a completely wide open Hernandez streaking up the sideline on the backside. Crumpler loses control of his block and this leads to the fumble. This is another man look that turns zone and this fools Brady because you see he is thinking MOFO and his first check is there as well as his second. In the 3rd slow replay, you can tell he never takes his attention away from the deep middle. He just tunnel-visions on Branch who runs the high drag.

The next play is a worthless completion to Hernandez, but it is noteworthy that Connolly simply loses control of Harris who gets to Brady and hits him, and yet again Brady is on his ass.

Yet another stop by the D. Sanchez finally gets hit, but this is the play where Ninko hurts his knee. Interesting to see Fletcher line up as a LDE in 3 point he does a loop stunt and comes in on the strongside B gap to pressure Sanchez.

Next offensive possession with around 4 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. Finally Jets show man and play man and Brady nails it and targets Gronk for a very long completion, two quick incompletions and then on the 3rd and 9, Jets show a quarter defense (7 DB) with only 1 lineman (Ellis) and a single high safety, but Brady & co luck out because Revis drops back to anticipate the pick by the Welker/Branch stack and Smith moves over on the under to pick up Branch and of course quickly loses that matchup.

1st and 10 on Jets 14. Formation and alignment really rankles me. You guessed it- empty again, trips left. Jets are in dime with only 2 linemen, and the rest are backers. Light blows the play with a false start, but the Jets read the screen very well.

NOW, on the next snap, Jets show the same defense (dime), but BJGE is in and what happens? A 11 yard gain because of the ease of blocking (no heavyweights up front) and BJGE has big holes to go through. This sets up the next few plays which naturally leads to a TD, and a beautiful, well-designed 2 point play which is a direct snap to Morris. This really caught the Jets by surprise.

We are just down by 3 and at this point, if you look at that, strictly.. the game is just not over by any means.

 

[Uncle Rico]

just a brief look at the 2nd half:

3rd and one on the first drive of the 2nd half, Koppen again. Devito blows by him to get in the backfield to take away any chance for BJGE to cutback. One thing here is if Morris is the I offset strongside then I don't really understand why Brady hands off weakside unless Morris was a decoy and I think that highly unlikely for such a short yardage situation. Just a strange play and a blocking failure.

One thing that's become pretty noticeable is that even though our D didn't sack Sanchez or intercept him, or pressure him that often, they still caused enough 3rd and outs for the offense to have quite a few opportunities to get something going up to this point in the game.

There's a graphic that shows that Jets have been starting on their 46 on average, and we have been starting on our 24.

On the 2nd and 10, 8:46, tank package (all 3 TE on field) Hern as HB, Gronk motions to the slot, and this turns into a play action and Brady completely ignores a wide open BJGE on the 6 yard line, and a completely wide open Hernandez streaking up the sideline on the backside. Crumpler loses control of his block and this leads to the fumble. This is another man look that turns zone and this fools Brady because you see he is thinking MOFO and his first check is there as well as his second. In the 3rd slow replay, you can tell he never takes his attention away from the deep middle. He just tunnel-visions on Branch who runs the high drag.

The next play is a worthless completion to Hernandez, but it is noteworthy that Connolly simply loses control of Harris who gets to Brady and hits him, and yet again Brady is on his ass.

Yet another stop by the D. Sanchez finally gets hit, but this is the play where Ninko hurts his knee. Interesting to see Fletcher line up as a LDE in 3 point he does a loop stunt and comes in on the strongside B gap to pressure Sanchez.

Next offensive possession with around 4 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. Finally Jets show man and play man and Brady nails it and targets Gronk for a very long completion, two quick incompletions and then on the 3rd and 9, Jets show a quarter defense (7 DB) with only 1 lineman (Ellis) and a single high safety, but Brady & co luck out because Revis drops back to anticipate the pick by the Welker/Branch stack and Smith moves over on the under to pick up Branch and of course quickly loses that matchup.

1st and 10 on Jets 14. Formation and alignment really rankles me. You guessed it- empty again, trips left. Jets are in dime with only 2 linemen, and the rest are backers. Light blows the play with a false start, but the Jets read the screen very well.

NOW, on the next snap, Jets show the same defense (dime), but BJGE is in and what happens? A 11 yard gain because of the ease of blocking (no heavyweights up front) and BJGE has big holes to go through. This sets up the next few plays which naturally leads to a TD, and a beautiful, well-designed 2 point play which is a direct snap to Morris. This really caught the Jets by surprise.

We are just down by 3 and at this point, if you look at that, strictly.. the game is just not over by any means.

.. and then Cotchery with another inexplicably huge play for him against the Pats.

Sounds like Brady's favorite receiver WASN'T the open receiver Sunday? Ugh. Randy Syndrome all over again.

 

[skinnydog]

I share your frustration with the Pats over use of the empty backfield so much. You give the D a huge advantage when they know they only have to play pass from the snap, especially for a good defense like the Jets. And in the red zone why tell the other with your formation here comes the pass and onto of that the basically went all in on pass defense for the whole game.

They seem to some back to the gun and the empty backfield as a security blanket almost. I know Brady loves to be in the gun looking over the defense and letting the play clock go down trying to get them to reveal their defense but it was clear early on that the Jets were to refusing to reveal their coverages until after the snap. The game cried out for a coordinator telling Brady to get under center mix in some power runs or passes out of formation that at least makes the Jets think about defending against the run.

One other thing on the Pats D. While they didn't exactly play bad their were 3 key defensive series in the game and the Pats failed in 2 of 3. The first was after the Brady int. The D came up big and actually drove the Jets backward on the first 2 downs. The second was after the botched punt. While the field position was bad, holding the Jets to 3 would have been huge but they basically folded. The third was after the Pays pulled within 3 points. Result? The Jets slice through them for 75 yards in 5 plays.