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After last weeks loss, like most of us I was pretty disgusted. I turned off the TV and have pretty much kept away from all football talk this entire week until now. I haven't visited the any Jet boards, or this one for that matter. I avoided virtually all the media even down to Patriots all acess, though I will watch it tomorrow morning. So its been a pretty football free week for me to apologizes in advance for any material I might regurgitate that I have missed.
You see I wanted to avoid all the aggravation from the finger pointers here and in the media. Not that weren't fingers that deserved to be pointed, and I'll point a few in this post. But at the time it seemed pretty pointless, and too many people now get too much pleasure knocking other peoples well intentioned efforts
The title of this essay is 3 losses and 6 points for a reason. The Pats have now lost 3 games by the razor thin margins of 3, 2, and 1 point. We all should know by now that when you lose games by that small a margin there are more than a dozen different individual plays and calls that can be pointed out and seconded guessed. Player mistakes both mental and physical can be called to attention, and each one in the perfect clarity of 20-20 hindsight seem more critical than the last.
What we have is a very good football team who has in 3 games have done some very self destructive things that caused each loss, with the last one clearly the most painful of the 3. That was such a gift that the Pats gave to Seattle that I'm sure the thank you card is en route. The Pats had to literally bend over backwards to hand the game to a team that confirmed it is a pretty good football team as we saw on Thursday.....at least on the defensive side.
1. I think the greatest blame for this game has to be laid at the feet of the coaching staff, though it never should have come down to that point. We were inside the Seattle 5 yd line TWICE in that game and came away with ZERO points. If we manage only 3 then that last TD would have been merely garbage time points.....not a game winning TD.
2. Here is my complaint on Josh. Seattle did a much better job in playing the Pats run game than either of the 2 previous teams, BUT they didn't "shut it down" by any means. So why did Josh feel to throw the ball a record number of times in a difficult hostile environment. Its always much easier to run the ball on the road.
3. Also f you have a good runing attack it makes your play action pass offense much more effective......UNLESS you rarely use it.
I have no answer to the question, why we ran so much empty backfield packages when we were in short yardage (less than 5 yds) situations. Why even when we put a back there, we rarely bothered to run a fake. We left several bullets in our gun on Sunday and that was one of them.....for no apparent reason.
4. My question for Matt is there a rule against the Pats running any stunts or blitzes. Have the Jets requested we play the same damned defense game after game as a way to make up for our offensive prowess.
Baltimore, Arizona, and Seattle at the end of the game ALL sold out on defense to get that last stop when the Pats could have closed out the game. And all 3 were successful. In those 3 games I can recall only one time the Pats ran a strong blitz and when it failed we never went back to it again. What makes matters worse is we don't even FAKE blitzes We rarely do anything at the LOS that would make a QB nervous or feel presnap that he has to get the ball away early.
If not Blitzes Matt, how about some stunts or zone blitzes where you still only rush 4 or less, but make the offense have to guess WHICH 4 or where they are coming from. I KNOW we have them in our arsenal. We just never seem to use them.
Now please understand. No one respects the "bend but don't break philosophy" more than I. I don't care about yards, and BB's success doing it HIS way should make his point. HOWEVER there are points in a game when you have to open the play book. I KNOW this is a young defense who were missing BOTH their experienced Safeties....but still!.....
5. OK I got that off my chest. Time to move on. Nothing that has happened has made me move off of the opinion that while we may be just .500 team right now, when the playoffs roll around in January, this will be a stronger and more physical overall football team than the one that entered the post season last year.
I strongly believe we have the physical talent to be that team. Its going to be a matter of determining whether this group has the mental toughness to win those close ball games.
6. On to the Jets: I haven't even bothered to troll Jet boards. There simply is no need. This latest whine that the league needs to "slow down" the Pats hurry up offense just confirms the clown college that is running that organization from top to bottom is still running the show.
Here we have two 3-3 teams yet its been years since the "gap" has seemed greater between the 2 organizations than it does right now. And what makes trolling Jet board less enjoyable now is that even the die hard Jet fans realize it now
They have come to realize that their HC is is clown and is really little more than a good DC who gives entertaining press conferences. That their owner is an embarrassment. And after years of telling us how BB couldn't draft, have come to the understand that THEIR GM has left the cupboard bare.
They know that their 3-3 record is merely a mirage that will start to disappear Sunday afternoon and isn't going to get better as the weeks go on. While our 3-3 is just an anomaly and at the end of the season the Pats will be atop the AFCE again.
7. On the more technical side. The Jets have one of the worst rushing defenses in the league, so I'm sure we will see a return to more rushing and more play action passes.
I look forward to seeing Gronk get some looks downfield for a change
1 look forward to seeing Sanchez soiling his pants when he looks up and sees 8 guys lining up at the LOS. And if we can at least see that, I won't care if Matt never sends them. I'll settle for a damned fake blitz. I'd also like to see a few DT/.DE stunts and stems if he insists on only rushing 4 guys.
1 also look forward to seeing how BB is going to play his safeties since we aren't sure who will be available and for how long. I've said for a couple of week now. We miss Steve Gregory.
8. I hope this missive adds to your Sunday morning ritual. This game can't get here fast enough to wash off the stink of that Seattle game. I might have been infinitely more productive this past week, but it hasn't nearly been as much fun.
You see I wanted to avoid all the aggravation from the finger pointers here and in the media. Not that weren't fingers that deserved to be pointed, and I'll point a few in this post. But at the time it seemed pretty pointless, and too many people now get too much pleasure knocking other peoples well intentioned efforts
The title of this essay is 3 losses and 6 points for a reason. The Pats have now lost 3 games by the razor thin margins of 3, 2, and 1 point. We all should know by now that when you lose games by that small a margin there are more than a dozen different individual plays and calls that can be pointed out and seconded guessed. Player mistakes both mental and physical can be called to attention, and each one in the perfect clarity of 20-20 hindsight seem more critical than the last.
What we have is a very good football team who has in 3 games have done some very self destructive things that caused each loss, with the last one clearly the most painful of the 3. That was such a gift that the Pats gave to Seattle that I'm sure the thank you card is en route. The Pats had to literally bend over backwards to hand the game to a team that confirmed it is a pretty good football team as we saw on Thursday.....at least on the defensive side.
1. I think the greatest blame for this game has to be laid at the feet of the coaching staff, though it never should have come down to that point. We were inside the Seattle 5 yd line TWICE in that game and came away with ZERO points. If we manage only 3 then that last TD would have been merely garbage time points.....not a game winning TD.
2. Here is my complaint on Josh. Seattle did a much better job in playing the Pats run game than either of the 2 previous teams, BUT they didn't "shut it down" by any means. So why did Josh feel to throw the ball a record number of times in a difficult hostile environment. Its always much easier to run the ball on the road.
3. Also f you have a good runing attack it makes your play action pass offense much more effective......UNLESS you rarely use it.
I have no answer to the question, why we ran so much empty backfield packages when we were in short yardage (less than 5 yds) situations. Why even when we put a back there, we rarely bothered to run a fake. We left several bullets in our gun on Sunday and that was one of them.....for no apparent reason.4. My question for Matt is there a rule against the Pats running any stunts or blitzes. Have the Jets requested we play the same damned defense game after game as a way to make up for our offensive prowess.
Baltimore, Arizona, and Seattle at the end of the game ALL sold out on defense to get that last stop when the Pats could have closed out the game. And all 3 were successful. In those 3 games I can recall only one time the Pats ran a strong blitz and when it failed we never went back to it again. What makes matters worse is we don't even FAKE blitzes We rarely do anything at the LOS that would make a QB nervous or feel presnap that he has to get the ball away early.
If not Blitzes Matt, how about some stunts or zone blitzes where you still only rush 4 or less, but make the offense have to guess WHICH 4 or where they are coming from. I KNOW we have them in our arsenal. We just never seem to use them.
Now please understand. No one respects the "bend but don't break philosophy" more than I. I don't care about yards, and BB's success doing it HIS way should make his point. HOWEVER there are points in a game when you have to open the play book. I KNOW this is a young defense who were missing BOTH their experienced Safeties....but still!.....
5. OK I got that off my chest. Time to move on. Nothing that has happened has made me move off of the opinion that while we may be just .500 team right now, when the playoffs roll around in January, this will be a stronger and more physical overall football team than the one that entered the post season last year.
I strongly believe we have the physical talent to be that team. Its going to be a matter of determining whether this group has the mental toughness to win those close ball games.
6. On to the Jets: I haven't even bothered to troll Jet boards. There simply is no need. This latest whine that the league needs to "slow down" the Pats hurry up offense just confirms the clown college that is running that organization from top to bottom is still running the show.
Here we have two 3-3 teams yet its been years since the "gap" has seemed greater between the 2 organizations than it does right now. And what makes trolling Jet board less enjoyable now is that even the die hard Jet fans realize it now
They have come to realize that their HC is is clown and is really little more than a good DC who gives entertaining press conferences. That their owner is an embarrassment. And after years of telling us how BB couldn't draft, have come to the understand that THEIR GM has left the cupboard bare.
They know that their 3-3 record is merely a mirage that will start to disappear Sunday afternoon and isn't going to get better as the weeks go on. While our 3-3 is just an anomaly and at the end of the season the Pats will be atop the AFCE again.
7. On the more technical side. The Jets have one of the worst rushing defenses in the league, so I'm sure we will see a return to more rushing and more play action passes.
I look forward to seeing Gronk get some looks downfield for a change
1 look forward to seeing Sanchez soiling his pants when he looks up and sees 8 guys lining up at the LOS. And if we can at least see that, I won't care if Matt never sends them. I'll settle for a damned fake blitz. I'd also like to see a few DT/.DE stunts and stems if he insists on only rushing 4 guys.
1 also look forward to seeing how BB is going to play his safeties since we aren't sure who will be available and for how long. I've said for a couple of week now. We miss Steve Gregory.
8. I hope this missive adds to your Sunday morning ritual. This game can't get here fast enough to wash off the stink of that Seattle game. I might have been infinitely more productive this past week, but it hasn't nearly been as much fun.
