Excellent proposal: reduce the complexity of the offense

[Salva135]

I don't want to change the complexity of the offense, I just want a more balanced one, with a better running game and WRs who can make plays outside of the numbers, so safeties can't cheat up on them.

Relying on a timing-based short-passing offense that is mostly effective in the middle of the field makes us easily exploitable by the Steelers, Ravens, and Giants of the league. If Lloyd plays like he usually does and Ridley/Vereen become playmaking threats, then we're completely fine imo. I would definitely like to see more straightforward play-action downfield plays, though.

 

[Arrington Planet]

With our too complex offense, we've won 29 games (including playoffs) during last 2 seasons, the QB won an MVP one year and posted the 2nd highest passing yardage in a season the other one. It's not like we need to do major changes in our offense to keep it at such a great level.

 

[Patspsycho]

In your example, 25 possibilities does sound better. However, each play has a time limit.

In the early stages of WWII, many of the Japanese failures were the result of overly complicated and sophisticated plans. Likewise, the difference between Montgomery and the guys he followed was he knew he had superiority and used it. He didn't get sucked into a fluid mobile battle and lose.

With the 2012 additions, the actual physical talent is much better and with with more possibilities; the offense over the season will be more complex.

However, on a game by game basis, we will have better matchups so the need for complex options is not as great.

Better talent= not needing to be so "cute".

If you can run the ball down your opponents throats and both know it can't be stopped........do you switch to sophisticated 5 WR plays?

You're talking about Montgomery, as in Bernard Montgomery, as in "Monty" of the Operation Market Garden fiasco? He was a prima donna and the only reason the allied effort moved as slowly as it did. The best thing he ever did was to break through Rommel's line of defense in Africa and ride on that one accomplishment.

 

[Patspsycho]

First off - for anyone to want the Patriots to make sweeping philosophical changes b/c of the outcome of the Super Bowl, that's asinine.

Do me a favor and actually read the article or listen to the podcast before you comment.

 

[Rob0729]

I still think this theory is ridiculous. This like Apple saying that their iPads are too difficult for their customers to use and taking out the WIFI and ability to download Apps to make it it easier.

BTW, can anyone give one example of a young WR who came to the Pats and failed and then went on to be a success elsewhere in a less complicated offense. I know it is too early to tell with Taylor Price since he spend like a quarter of the season with the Jags, but we know Chad Jackson is a bust. Brandon Tate is just a JAG with the Bengals. No one else I can think of was even a really good back up. Or is the Pats' offense so complicated that it totally ruins a young WR for the rest of his career even after he leaves the Pats?

 

[Rob0729]

Not going to come down to offense, but to execution, as BB would tell you.

I did not say make the system less complex, just to take away complex aspects of it, but for those who master it- don't change a thing (e.g., Welker).

You cannot have one without the other. You pare down the presnap reads and it makes the offense less complex.

Besides on that matter. What if most of the WRs who fail in this offense because of its complexity are not failing because they don't know all the route adjustments, but they have trouble reading the defense to know which route adjustment they need to make. In that scenario, it doesn't matter if they have two options or 100 options on presnap route adjustments. They are still going to run the wrong route.

 

[Off The Grid]

HILARIOUS Thread!!

1 ~ Is it not painfully obvious that the very complexity of our Offense is precisely what gives it its greatest advantage, by keeping the Defense guessing, and constantly on its toes???

2 ~ Frankly I think adding two guys ~ Brandon Lloyd + Donte Stalworth ~ who're fluent in our Offense's complex language and who've proven able to make split second adjustments...has solved the problem.

3 ~ From 2007 to 2009, Moss allowed us to stretch the Field Horizontally ~ and Vertically, less importantly.

4 ~ From 2010 to 2011, Gronk and Aaron the Navigator tore up the middle...as did Welker, all along.

5 ~ For the first time, with Lloyd ~ and sometimes Stalworth ~ consistently stretching the field Horizontally ~ and Vertically, as well ~ Gronk and Aaron are going to have the middle opened up for the first time in their young careers. Just THINK of the implications of that, if you will!!

I, for one...am looking forward to it!!

And, somewhere...Tom Brady is smiling.

 

[BradyManny]

Do me a favor and actually read the article or listen to the podcast before you comment.

I did and I stand by my post.

 

[hovis]

Excellent proposal: YOU GO TO HELL, YOU GO TO HELL AND DIE!!!!!!

 

[supafly]

When I first scanned the board, I thought this thread said "reduce the complexity of the defense."

That didn't sound like too bad of an idea, as I assumed the thinking was to try and make it more friendly for some of the potential draft prospects.

I wouldn't change anything about the offense, besides maybe running the ball with more balance.

 

[THELAWFIRM226]

With all due respect, I totally disagree with this thread. I also totally disagree that Chad Jackson and Brandon Tate were busts because of this offense as someone stated earlier. If the offense was responsible, why are they not lighting it up for another team? This complex offense has done quite well for this team, 3 Super Bowls and countless AFC East titles there's no need to tweak anything. Don't fix it if it ain't broke fellas.

 

[ausbacker]

Given the ongoing success of the Patriots organization both on and off the field, how people complain about the things that give the Patriots a competitive advantage baffles me.

Stuff reducing the complexity, make it more complex. Let defenses deal with that.

 

[patsderoer]

Stuff reducing the complexity, make it more complex. Let defenses deal with that.

+1 The clowns who propose dumbing down Pats offense must be working for the opposition.

 

[RayClay]

You have to learn this offense, not by studying alone. You have to perform correctly in multiple situations until you can be trusted to make the same decision the QB makes.

What do Troy Brown, David Patten, David Givens and Deion Branch have in common? Smarter, quicker than other NFL receivers? Middle of the pack, at best probably.

Could it be they knew (the diminutive Branch being on the cusp of the third round, far and away the best prospect) that they had one chance to make this team, or to move from a special teamer, third down receiver to a permanent starter, in the case of Brown, and that was to stick like glue to Tom Brady, until they could always make the same read as he would?

Part of it is focus (85). Part of it is intense and disciplined practice and persistence, as if one's life (in the NFL) depended on it. There's one ticket to success for a WR in New England and that is riding the Tom Brady train. Period.

As a recent devotee of Napoleon Hill, I can see it in David Patten's words and, of course, Troy Brown is the poster child for achieving anything that can be achieved.

"What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve." Total dedication until the rapport and trust with your quarterback is achieved is what it takes in this offense. If you're where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there (or the correct adjustment when knocked off or blocked) according to the defenses play, you will get the ball.

Whether you're religious, or not (I'm not), it's faith and persistence and repetition. Trust will develop.

Tom Brady called former teammate and free agent David Patten this offseason to say he wanted Patten to return to the New England Patriots.

Given the way the Patriots stocked up on receiving talent this past summer, Brady's call might seem like an odd audible. But even though Patten had only 23 catches in the two previous seasons with the Washington Redskins, Brady still valued the veteran.

"For Tom to want me back after all I had been through in Washington was truly a great honor," said Patten, who collected three rings and a Super Bowl touchdown pass in a four-year run with Brady. "Tom said to me, 'When I received my first opportunity, it was you who was on the other end of my passes. I know you. I trust you.'"

Patten, 33, credits his Christian faith for overcoming immense odds several times on his NFL journey. Between ending his playing career at Western Carolina and trying to impress at an NFL free-agent tryout, Patten loaded 75-pound coffee bean bags for 12 hours a day to make a buck...

But just when you think Patten is down and out, he emerges. Ask the Seattle Seahawks. On Oct. 14, he burned them for eight catches and 113 yards in leading the Saints to their first victory of the season.

He entered that game with just five catches.

"We have a problem trying to get David to slow down," Saints wide receivers coach Curtis Johnson said. "He is always trying to do something. He sets a great example for our young receivers. He is almost like an extended coach. After our 0-4 start, he told the team that the Patriots started 1-3 in 2001 and won the Super Bowl. It was just what we needed."

As optimistic as he is, Patten has had his faith tested several times in his five-team NFL career that began in 1997.

"My first five years in the league, I never felt like I was a guarantee to make the team," Patten said. "I always felt that I needed to prove myself all over again, but that is what drives me. I never go into an offseason thinking I have it made."

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3099276

 

[RayClay]

I'm no X and O guy, but i don't think our offense is complex at all, from the point of view of an individual receiver. It's true false, on every route. you just need to be right in the high nineties consistently. If I don't miss my guess, you're correct read might not be the one that gets you open being that the play's complexity lies in all receivers doing their job, leading to at least one having to be open. If you decide to get open instead of doing your job, maybe you cause the defense to shift in such a way, the receiver who is supposed to be open, isn't. Of course, if the receiver is you, you've left a hanging curveball for the defense in the spot you were supposed to be in.

I only surmise this, because that's the main reason people washout from our defense, you cover your area, rather than go for the tackle. the defense is designed to funnel the play to the tackler and, obviously, leaving your lane leads to busted plays later.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Yeah, that's the problem. The offense. It just can't put up points.

 

[Snake Eyes]

The Patriots offense, like the defense, requires the player read to and react, in other words the receiver is supposed to diagnose what is happening and make a decision based on that information in real time, not everyone can do that.

When the Patriots have those kind of receivers it's like TFB is just playing catch with them, cutting through the defense almost as if they don't even exist. When they don't thinks get rough, it's a very sharp blade that cuts both ways.

They don't need to reduce the complexity of the offense, they need to improve their process of evaluating receivers.

 

[RayClay]

the patriots offense, like the defense, requires the player read to and react, in other words the receiver is supposed to diagnose what is happening and make a decision based on that information in real time, not everyone can do that.

When the patriots have those kind of receivers it's like tfb is just playing catch with them, cutting through the defense almost as if they don't even exist. When they don't thinks get rough, it's a very sharp blade that cuts both ways.

They don't need to reduce the complexity of the offense, they need to improve their process of evaluating receivers.

+1 - 100%........

 

[mgteich]

So, we are to go to back to 2007 when we depended on our passing offense less, and didn't depend on only 2 wide receivers??????

 

[patsfan13]

I don't want to change the complexity of the offense, I just want a more balanced one, with a better running game and WRs who can make plays outside of the numbers, so safeties can't cheat up on them.

Relying on a timing-based short-passing offense that is mostly effective in the middle of the field makes us easily exploitable by the Steelers, Ravens, and Giants of the league. If Lloyd plays like he usually does and Ridley/Vereen become playmaking threats, then we're completely fine imo. I would definitely like to see more straightforward play-action downfield plays, though.

IMO between adding and (hopefully) Vareen becoming a factor cathing balls out of the backfield the O will be more diverse and able to match up against any D.