Game Thoughts: The Pats got their tundras frozen in Green Bay edition

[PatsFan2]

For the most part (the Nelson TD catch being the notable exception), the Pats made GB beat them with their 3rd, 4th and 5th options. Those guys played well, so give them credit, but if not for Aaron Rodgers extending plays it wouldn't have been close. Rodgers was the difference in this game.

A Rookie WR Devante Adams made us look like crap yesterday wish our 3rd and 4th options were that good.

 

[mayoclinic]

• One thing I got tired listening to last night is how the Pats have no pass rush and it is going to kill them in the playoffs. Do people already forget the last month where they successfully pressured Manning, Luck, Cutler, and Stafford? The pass rush is fine.

• That brings me to the my point of the Pats played contain with the Rodgers. The game plan was not to sell out the pass rush to Rodgers. Rodgers is arguably the most dangerous passer on the run. You need to keep them in the pocket. That is what the Pats did. Even when they took away outside rushing lanes from Rodgers, he still found ways to scramble outside.

I predicted and fully expected that the Pats' would attempt to contain Rodgers, rather than selling out the pass rush. They had a ton of guys around him many times, but Rodgers did a great job of avoiding the pressure and extending plays.

• I have given McDaniels tons of credit for totally recreating this offense from week to week, but this game the game plan sucked and I didn't love the play calling either. I think they should have committed to the run and not just draws with Vereen. They should have used Blount from the beginning and hammered him through the line. Using Bolden was questionable at best.

I thought that GB would have to win the turnover battle to win this game. Obviously, that was incorrect. But I think McDaniels deserves an "assist" for this one. There is no way that the GB defense should hold this offense to 21 points. The execution was flawed, but so was the game planning. I agree with Os, I don't understand why Jonas Gray was not used more in this game. Or Tim Wright.

 

[thenepatsrule]

I cant remember the last time I was proud of this team and the way they played in a loss. The way we played yesterday was nothing to be ashamed of. Its better to lose a game or two before entering the post season so that you can go back to the drawing board and rethink your strategy.

 

[Galeb]

Again - if you go on a per drive basis, they were just about as effective. Less than a tenth of a point per drive less, and they actually put up more yards per drive than they have on average.

As for GB's defense, they are not dissimilar to the Patriots defenses in recent years. Bend, don't break - cause TOs.

Yes, and in a vacuum, that would support your point. The reality is that stat includes the first 4 games where the Patriots O was horrendous. If you look at the points per drive for the last several games, it would be significantly higher even with those games containing a lot of garbage time. GB has a defense that sucks when it doesn't generate turnovers. Since there was no garbage time or turnovers, the O should have performed much better than they did against a mediocre D.

 

[luuked]

I predicted and fully expected that the Pats' would attempt to contain Rodgers, rather than selling out the pass rush. They had a ton of guys around him many times, but Rodgers did a great job of avoiding the pressure and extending plays.

I thought that GB would have to win the turnover battle to win this game. Obviously, that was incorrect. But I think McDaniels deserves an "assist" for this one. There is no way that the GB defense should hold this offense to 21 points. The execution was flawed, but so was the game planning. I agree with Os, I don't understand why Jonas Gray was not used more in this game. Or Tim Wright.

I remember somebody posting a tweet from one of the beat guys in the game thread during the first half that Wright had a hamstring issue or something like that. I never checked up any further on it though.

 

[deters]

This game is a classic case of lose the battle to win the war. BB knows he may very well see GB in the superbowl and didn't want to show too much like we did with the giants, not saying we threw the game but it felt like we were trying to sneak a win without pulling out all the stops. AND we almost did, this loss is very tolerable as I think we win out and still grab HFA

I have no clue if they did this, but i was thinking the same thing. Something about the game just wasn't right. I do believe they held back in certain areas on offense and defense, however they didn't execute the plays they did run and that bothered me some.

The Packers played their A game, Pats played C game and still only lost by 5. I think NE was and is the better team, but I'm not going to lose sleep on this one because I didn't expect us to win anyways since GB was at home.

I'm not too worried about the Chargers, who are the most bipolar team in the NFL. The rest of our schedule should allow for us to get HFA and we should be fine in the long run. We just need Chandler back for the playoffs because our pass rush has been poor.

 

[Rob0729]

A Rookie WR Devante Adams made us look like crap yesterday wish our 3rd and 4th options were that good.

Ummm.... Edelman or LaFell says "Hello" (depending on who you consider the 2nd option and who you consider the 3rd option). The Pats clearly have a better third option than the Packers. And it isn't even close.

 

[mayoclinic]

Ummm.... Edelman or LaFell says "Hello" (depending on who you consider the 2nd option and who you consider the 3rd option). The Pats clearly have a better third option than the Packers. And it isn't even close.

They should have a better 4th option, too, if they get Wright or Vereen more involved. 1 target for each yesterday.

Gronk - Edelman - LaFell - Vereen - Wright is plenty of weapons for Brady, if they use them all.

 

[PatsFan2]

They should have a better 4th option, too, if they get Wright or Vereen more involved. 1 target for each yesterday.

Gronk - Edelman - LaFell - Vereen - Wright is plenty of weapons for Brady, if they use them all.

Everytime Tim Wright touches the ball its a positive but McDaniels cannot find a way to give him more snaps with the Offense.

 

[Rob0729]

They should have a better 4th option, too, if they get Wright or Vereen more involved. 1 target for each yesterday.

Gronk - Edelman - LaFell - Vereen - Wright is plenty of weapons for Brady, if they use them all.

Wright was injured. It might have affected his play and unlike other teams, the Packers actually tried to cover him too. I don't know why Vereen wasn't targeted.

But then again, the Pats had so many drives that were under 6 plays (5 of the 8 drives had 5 plays or less), that they didn't get a lot of players involved.

 

[Rob0729]

Everytime Tim Wright touches the ball its a positive but McDaniels cannot find a way to give him more snaps with the Offense.

He played like 60 snaps last week and 30 of 57 snaps this week. He is getting on the field plenty in the last few weeks.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Were it a loss caused by the Pats making some bad drops or turnovers, I think the loss may bode well. I don't think losing in the trenches to a team like GB bodes well. Let's hope the OL can pull it together.

Despite getting beat in the trenches, they almost won. Add fleming as a sixth blockr and chandler jones and it will be a different game.

 

[PatCat]

I have no clue if they did this, but i was thinking the same thing. Something about the game just wasn't right. I do believe they held back in certain areas on offense and defense, however they didn't execute the plays they did run and that bothered me some.

The Packers played their A game, Pats played C game and still only lost by 5. I think NE was and is the better team, but I'm not going to lose sleep on this one because I didn't expect us to win anyways since GB was at home.

I'm not too worried about the Chargers, who are the most bipolar team in the NFL. The rest of our schedule should allow for us to get HFA and we should be fine in the long run. We just need Chandler back for the playoffs because our pass rush has been poor.

Kudos! Couldn't have said it better

 

[reflexblue]

It's as if you watched this game from inside my head. This was exactly what I saw. We made so many threads prior to the game about what we had to do to win this game, and the funny thing was we basically accomplished those things and yet Rodgers beat us anyway. For the most part, we took away Lacy, Nelson and Cobb and contained Rodgers in the pocket and Green Bay still got the upper hand. I now know what it is like facing a Brady led offense or at least I suspect it feels very much like yesterday.

With better o line play and game plan that featured more running we could have won that game. Except for some lapses (end of the half td comes to mind) the defense played well, they were facing a great qb and offense and managed to hold it to 26 points despite being on the field most of the first half.

 

[mayoclinic]

Everytime Tim Wright touches the ball its a positive but McDaniels cannot find a way to give him more snaps with the Offense.

I agree. The Pats have better offensive weapons than GB, but the Packers did a better job of using their 3-4-5 weapons yesterday. That's different.

Looking at Reiss' offensive snap analysis, the Pats played the vast majority of the game with multiple TE sets, and a very small percentage with a 3rd WR. Yet they only targeted a TE other than Gronk twice, and only ran the ball 17 times with their backs. Very odd.

 

[PatCat]

I did wonder a little bit about this, given some of the game planning question marks. I'm sure there will be a lot of different wrinkles if we happen to see them again.

Exactly. Only this time there will be no make up game and we will be leaving with the lombardi, Belichick will show his hand when it's to late to counter.

 

[doesntmatter1]

I'm not happy about this loss whatsoever. It felt too much like our recent playoff defeats where our offense doesn't do enough. Our inconsistent use of the run usually leads to games like this. We need bigger chunk plays to start off games because it seems like our dink and dunk is off in the early goings and we don't convert 3rd and short. We also have to get more creative with our runs on 3rd and short because they look like goal line stand offs half of the time.

 

[Galeb]

Despite getting beat in the trenches, they almost won. Add fleming as a sixth blockr and chandler jones and it will be a different game.

I agree, I just worry about how they may fare against stouter Defenses. The return of Jones, Siliga and Flemming does give hope. It's just one game. Let's hope they learned from it and improve.

 

[A man named Brady]

When you hold Nelson/Cobb under 100 yards and overall the packers under 30 points at Lambeau you have to win that game

 

[luuked]

I have no clue if they did this, but i was thinking the same thing. Something about the game just wasn't right. I do believe they held back in certain areas on offense and defense, however they didn't execute the plays they did run and that bothered me some.

The Packers played their A game, Pats played C game and still only lost by 5. I think NE was and is the better team, but I'm not going to lose sleep on this one because I didn't expect us to win anyways since GB was at home.

I'm not too worried about the Chargers, who are the most bipolar team in the NFL. The rest of our schedule should allow for us to get HFA and we should be fine in the long run. We just need Chandler back for the playoffs because our pass rush has been poor.

I would love it to be that way but I doubt that BB would hold things back the way the third and fourth quarter went. The game was easily in reach and I don't see him giving up a game when nothing had been clinched yet.

Now, the caveat with all I wrote is that obviously we held back everything that we were not able to run due to injuries or other circumstances (Ch. Jones, Fleming, Easley still working his way back, Siliga, Dennard playing rarely).

Having then available obviously makes it possible add new wrinkles. But I somehow doubt that BB held back stuff that might have helped us to stop GB 2-3 times more often (and thus win).