- Joined
- Jul 11, 2005
- Messages
- 15,532
- Reaction score
- 27,568
Just came in from a New Years Eve Party, so I'm still a little lit and its already 1:30am so I'm not exactly sure how this one is going to turn out. HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody and my apologies in advance. 
At first I was going to call this the "Happy New Year" edition but that was kind of trite. My next choice was the "so what" edition, in that does what happens under these game conditions and against the Jets, good or bad, really tell us anything about future events in the playoffs. At that time I really did't think so.
Then I saw the sack stats. There were 4 in this game. One for Lee. One for MFlowers. And TWO for James Harrison. Everyone the epitome of what a cast off truly is. Then when you take a closer look at key people in the roster you come to realize that this team is currently made up primarily of other people's trash, our own low draft choices, and UDFA's that litter the roster at every turn.
Just look at the list of players who were UDFA's when they came into the league
D Amendola
L Waddle
C Croston
D Andrews
J Hollister
B Hoyer
D Lewis
J Devlin
B Boldin
C Hogan
E Lee
A Butler
J Jones
M Butler
J Bademosi
B King
R Allen
J Harrison
For those of you keeping score that is over 33% of your current roster. Guys who weren't deemed to be good enough to be drafted by any of the 32 teams in the league.
Then if then count your players who came into the league being drafted in the 4th round or below the numbers are even greater, but I'm too tired to go through list. Feel free to do it yourself.
But the point of all this was to point out how good the coaching is here and how important good coaching is. This isn't any stacked roster of elite athletes like you see with Pittsburgh or Jags. Yet the perception is that the Pats always have a superior roster of talent. And perhaps they do. But that has more to do with how well these players are coached and motivated to play, than it has to do with their physical gifts.
OK I got that off my chest. Let's break down this game as quickly as possible so the discussion can get going on the playoffs.,,,and I can get to sleep
1 Offense - General
a. At first I was a little peeved when I saw the Jets taking Gronk completely out of the game plan simply by scheme. I even wondered if the Jets were given the rest of the league a "blueprint" of how to defend our biggest offensive weapon. Then I thought that Josh just didn't want to show our potential opponents just what those adjustments are going to be by using them against the Jets. So Gronk wasn't even targeted once, but he got a nice workout and was never in a position to get hurt.
b. I believe that when you are playing a game in the single digit conditions it WILL affect the ability of players to catch the ball. We had a few more drops today than we usually get, but on a day like today its a little more understandable. I was surprised there weren't more fumbles in the game. There was only one fumble and that one wasn't lost. In fact there were zero turnovers in the entire game. A credit to both teams given the conditions.
c. Hey Josh can we put that reverse to Cooks back on the shelf for the rest of this year. The Jets had no trouble recognizing it and Cooks is NOT a very good runner
d. QB- I counted a least 4 drops, which would have added around 100 more passing yds for Tom. There will be a lot of media narrative on how Brady wasn't particularly sharp. But it's hard to play when it's 10 degrees out there and you aren't aren't communicating well with your receivers and your best offensive weapon isn't in the game plan.
Last week the media conveniently forgot that Brady completed 75% of his passes because it didn't fit into the narrative that he hasn't been playing well recently. I'm sure the fact that he only completed around 50% of his passes, this stat will suddenly get mentioned a lot more than it did last week.
At any rate, I'm confident that it will get better during the bye week. Why? Because they'll recognize what the problems are and work on them. The beauty of the bye week, as Bill pointed out in his presser, is that you have the time to work on YOUR issues, because you don't have to prepare for a specific team.
e. OL - The NFL stats page had the Pats giving up 2 sacks (both in the first half), but for some reason I thought there was 3. At any rate there was one coverage sack where Brady should have gotten rid of the ball, and one where he went down own own and wasn't hit at all. I thought the OL did OK. Not as good as last week, but not bad.
i
The run game was decent. There were fewer wide open holes than last week, and production was down. (149yds) As with the rest of the offense. There are things that need to be worked on this week.
f. RB's - With White, Gillislee and Burkhead all out today, Dion Lewis got 28 carries, which were about 10 more than I would have liked, but who else was going to get them. Clearly he loved being out there and he did well again. He even showed some of that Levion Bell patience running for a couple of good gains. He's proven that he CAN carry a heavy running load, and teams will have to respect that going forward. BTW- nice job by Boldin in his 9 carries. Nice to know that your #5 RB doesn't suck
g. Receivers - Not their best day. Its going to be cold for at least 2 games in the post season. So they better get used to it. Maybe its just me, but I don't think Cooks could have gotten to that long pass even if he hadn't slowed down in his route.
Yeah, Dorsett had a bad drop, but I don't huy the narrative that Brady doesn't trust him because he had 3 catches for the game and almost as many targets as the rest of the WR's.
With Gronk getting doubled EVERY time, I would have liked to see Allen or even Hollister more looks. What did Allen get, one target?.
h. Defense - General.
1. I thought Matty P called a conservative game today. More zone than man, and very few blitzes
2. All we talked about for a great part of this season was how the Pats needed to find some people to get some sacks and more pressure on the QB Well, while I'm sure it will remain a question of concern, it should be noted that with the 4 sacks the Pats got today, they will end the season with 42 sacks, which is good for a tie for SEVENTH in the league.
Now be honest. How many would have guessed at the start of the season, the Pats would end up that high in the league? And if you really want to be stunned, I just checked the stats and the 5th best scoring defense in the league is none other than our very own NE Patriots only .1 points behind that vaunted Eagles defense. IIRC, the team ranked LAST in the league after week 5. That is a remarkable accomplishment.
c. If I had to name one big concern this year it would be the defense's inability to create turnovers. If someone could find the current number, I bet it wouldn't be horrible, but nothing like the top D's in the league.
d. This has TRULY been a remarkable job by Matty P this season. It really stands out. Too many job openings for him NOT to get a serious look this year. I can only hope his beard and clown shirt will count heavily against him.
e. If there is one thing you can rely on from the defense over the last half of the season, is that it WILL be better in the 2nd half than it was in the first. Today was no different.
f. Front Seven - One of the few areas that the Jets have consistently done well this season on offense is run the ball. Well the Pats held the Jets to 54 yds on 19 carries for a 2.8ypc average. And while the edges have been gashed from time to time, the middle area has been particularly solid for a while now and will only get better if Branch returns. Lawrence Guy and Malcolm Brown have been really good lately. In fact Brown has stood out. Could it be that he is "making the leap"....finally.
James Harrison had 5 tackles, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble, all in 28 snaps. That is a scary good performance for a 39 year old guy who just showed up 6 days ago. I was fully prepared for him to be one and done. But he showed he might actually be a key contributor going forward.
KVN dressed, but I don't know if he played and if he did, how many snaps. He didn't get any stats and I don't remember seeing him. I don't mind, because I know for a fact, days like this aren't good for a pulled calf. I hope to hell he didn't aggravate it early in a set back.
Eric Lee to me is a try hard guy who, right now, is a flawed player, who can be a liability if played too much. However MFlowers has really impressed me with his recent play. He is really taking advantage of this opportunity. I thought he has set the edge better the more he's played, has rushed the passer fairly effectively, and made plays in the run game as well. BTW- now that I think on it, I might have been unfair to Lee, who is in his first year, while Flowers has been in the league four years.
Secondary - After allowing some early big plays on the Jets first drive, the Pats secondary tightened up. Some guy named Sterling did some damage early, but none of their 3 top threats, Kerse, Anderson, and Powell did anything. Their total passing yds were 71 yds COMBINED.
This secondary is really the key to the defensive success. They are deep, versatile, and I think are finally able to morph into something different each week. This week they held the Jets to a remarkable 0-12 on 3rd down attempts.
3. ST's - Ryan Allen had his best game of the season pinning the Jets inside their 5 on 3 separate occasion, with a tip of the cap to Slater for downing the ball on 2 of those.
The KO coverage unit was consistently good too allowing only one return to cross the 25, and that was on a really short KO to the 15. Plus kudo to Cardonna for making good snaps all game in these conditions.
4. General observations.
a The best thing about this game was that no one looked like they got hurt. Fingers crossed on that though.
b. I know it sounded bad so they had to throw the flag. But if you watch the replay of the Gilmore hit that cause the personal foul, it looked to me that he did everything in his power to avoid it. His shoulder was turned and he lifted his arm to give him a forearm shiver. It almost looked to me that their heads collided incidentally. Dare I say, a case could be made that Anderson's head instigated the contact. At any rate I'd like to look at that again closer. I don't think he'll get fined for it.
c. There was another play which wasn't called but Romo though it should have been, where Flowers looked like he was blocked into the QB low almost unintentionally. It looked worse than it was because it was a low hit, but there was no way Flowers could have avoided it.
d. I hated that Nance seemed to be implying that the Pats were "getting the breaks" because of all the key penalties the Jets were getting on 3rd downs. NONE of these calls were ever in question. I wish he would have emphasized that point.
e. I have always laughed at the common wisdom that "no one wants to see the Ravens in the playoffs", and that they were a threat to NE at Foxboro cause they won a game back in 2009 there. I thought the Ravens would have been easy picking for the Pats and would have LOVED to play them and in one sense I'm sad they won't be in the hunt. On the other hand, how can you hate it when the Ravens lose. At least now we won't have to hear Harbaugh whine about the Pats getting a Saturday start.
f. As much as we make fun of them (and deservedly so most of the time), you have to feel good about the Bills FINALLY making it into the playoffs. The Fans deserve that much. I also feel really good for Kyle Williams who is my favorite Bills player and has been a good pro for 12 years and is finally getting to go to his first playoff game.
g. We take the Pats return to the playoff for granted. In fact not getting a bye week would be considered a virtual failure of the season, Yet look at how so few of last season's teams have made it back again this season. The AFC has only 3 teams back (Pats Steelers and Chiefs) while the NFC has only 1 (Atlanta - just barely) So only a third of the playoff teams this season are repeat teams. Kind of puts a perspective on what the Pats have accomplished since 2006.
OK - almost 4am and I'm getting sober....and very sleepy. I have now done my duty and need some sleep. No going back to see what I f*cked up. So sorry about that. tough it out.
HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone, and I hope its a great one for all of us.
At first I was going to call this the "Happy New Year" edition but that was kind of trite. My next choice was the "so what" edition, in that does what happens under these game conditions and against the Jets, good or bad, really tell us anything about future events in the playoffs. At that time I really did't think so.
Then I saw the sack stats. There were 4 in this game. One for Lee. One for MFlowers. And TWO for James Harrison. Everyone the epitome of what a cast off truly is. Then when you take a closer look at key people in the roster you come to realize that this team is currently made up primarily of other people's trash, our own low draft choices, and UDFA's that litter the roster at every turn.
Just look at the list of players who were UDFA's when they came into the league
D Amendola
L Waddle
C Croston
D Andrews
J Hollister
B Hoyer
D Lewis
J Devlin
B Boldin
C Hogan
E Lee
A Butler
J Jones
M Butler
J Bademosi
B King
R Allen
J Harrison
For those of you keeping score that is over 33% of your current roster. Guys who weren't deemed to be good enough to be drafted by any of the 32 teams in the league.
Then if then count your players who came into the league being drafted in the 4th round or below the numbers are even greater, but I'm too tired to go through list. Feel free to do it yourself.
But the point of all this was to point out how good the coaching is here and how important good coaching is. This isn't any stacked roster of elite athletes like you see with Pittsburgh or Jags. Yet the perception is that the Pats always have a superior roster of talent. And perhaps they do. But that has more to do with how well these players are coached and motivated to play, than it has to do with their physical gifts.
OK I got that off my chest. Let's break down this game as quickly as possible so the discussion can get going on the playoffs.,,,and I can get to sleep
1 Offense - General
a. At first I was a little peeved when I saw the Jets taking Gronk completely out of the game plan simply by scheme. I even wondered if the Jets were given the rest of the league a "blueprint" of how to defend our biggest offensive weapon. Then I thought that Josh just didn't want to show our potential opponents just what those adjustments are going to be by using them against the Jets. So Gronk wasn't even targeted once, but he got a nice workout and was never in a position to get hurt.
b. I believe that when you are playing a game in the single digit conditions it WILL affect the ability of players to catch the ball. We had a few more drops today than we usually get, but on a day like today its a little more understandable. I was surprised there weren't more fumbles in the game. There was only one fumble and that one wasn't lost. In fact there were zero turnovers in the entire game. A credit to both teams given the conditions.
c. Hey Josh can we put that reverse to Cooks back on the shelf for the rest of this year. The Jets had no trouble recognizing it and Cooks is NOT a very good runner
d. QB- I counted a least 4 drops, which would have added around 100 more passing yds for Tom. There will be a lot of media narrative on how Brady wasn't particularly sharp. But it's hard to play when it's 10 degrees out there and you aren't aren't communicating well with your receivers and your best offensive weapon isn't in the game plan.
Last week the media conveniently forgot that Brady completed 75% of his passes because it didn't fit into the narrative that he hasn't been playing well recently. I'm sure the fact that he only completed around 50% of his passes, this stat will suddenly get mentioned a lot more than it did last week.
At any rate, I'm confident that it will get better during the bye week. Why? Because they'll recognize what the problems are and work on them. The beauty of the bye week, as Bill pointed out in his presser, is that you have the time to work on YOUR issues, because you don't have to prepare for a specific team.
e. OL - The NFL stats page had the Pats giving up 2 sacks (both in the first half), but for some reason I thought there was 3. At any rate there was one coverage sack where Brady should have gotten rid of the ball, and one where he went down own own and wasn't hit at all. I thought the OL did OK. Not as good as last week, but not bad.
i
The run game was decent. There were fewer wide open holes than last week, and production was down. (149yds) As with the rest of the offense. There are things that need to be worked on this week.
f. RB's - With White, Gillislee and Burkhead all out today, Dion Lewis got 28 carries, which were about 10 more than I would have liked, but who else was going to get them. Clearly he loved being out there and he did well again. He even showed some of that Levion Bell patience running for a couple of good gains. He's proven that he CAN carry a heavy running load, and teams will have to respect that going forward. BTW- nice job by Boldin in his 9 carries. Nice to know that your #5 RB doesn't suck
g. Receivers - Not their best day. Its going to be cold for at least 2 games in the post season. So they better get used to it. Maybe its just me, but I don't think Cooks could have gotten to that long pass even if he hadn't slowed down in his route.
Yeah, Dorsett had a bad drop, but I don't huy the narrative that Brady doesn't trust him because he had 3 catches for the game and almost as many targets as the rest of the WR's.
With Gronk getting doubled EVERY time, I would have liked to see Allen or even Hollister more looks. What did Allen get, one target?.
h. Defense - General.
1. I thought Matty P called a conservative game today. More zone than man, and very few blitzes
2. All we talked about for a great part of this season was how the Pats needed to find some people to get some sacks and more pressure on the QB Well, while I'm sure it will remain a question of concern, it should be noted that with the 4 sacks the Pats got today, they will end the season with 42 sacks, which is good for a tie for SEVENTH in the league.
Now be honest. How many would have guessed at the start of the season, the Pats would end up that high in the league? And if you really want to be stunned, I just checked the stats and the 5th best scoring defense in the league is none other than our very own NE Patriots only .1 points behind that vaunted Eagles defense. IIRC, the team ranked LAST in the league after week 5.
That is a remarkable accomplishment.c. If I had to name one big concern this year it would be the defense's inability to create turnovers. If someone could find the current number, I bet it wouldn't be horrible, but nothing like the top D's in the league.
d. This has TRULY been a remarkable job by Matty P this season. It really stands out. Too many job openings for him NOT to get a serious look this year. I can only hope his beard and clown shirt will count heavily against him.
e. If there is one thing you can rely on from the defense over the last half of the season, is that it WILL be better in the 2nd half than it was in the first. Today was no different.
f. Front Seven - One of the few areas that the Jets have consistently done well this season on offense is run the ball. Well the Pats held the Jets to 54 yds on 19 carries for a 2.8ypc average. And while the edges have been gashed from time to time, the middle area has been particularly solid for a while now and will only get better if Branch returns. Lawrence Guy and Malcolm Brown have been really good lately. In fact Brown has stood out. Could it be that he is "making the leap"....finally.
James Harrison had 5 tackles, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble, all in 28 snaps. That is a scary good performance for a 39 year old guy who just showed up 6 days ago. I was fully prepared for him to be one and done. But he showed he might actually be a key contributor going forward.
KVN dressed, but I don't know if he played and if he did, how many snaps. He didn't get any stats and I don't remember seeing him. I don't mind, because I know for a fact, days like this aren't good for a pulled calf. I hope to hell he didn't aggravate it early in a set back.
Eric Lee to me is a try hard guy who, right now, is a flawed player, who can be a liability if played too much. However MFlowers has really impressed me with his recent play. He is really taking advantage of this opportunity. I thought he has set the edge better the more he's played, has rushed the passer fairly effectively, and made plays in the run game as well. BTW- now that I think on it, I might have been unfair to Lee, who is in his first year, while Flowers has been in the league four years.
Secondary - After allowing some early big plays on the Jets first drive, the Pats secondary tightened up. Some guy named Sterling did some damage early, but none of their 3 top threats, Kerse, Anderson, and Powell did anything. Their total passing yds were 71 yds COMBINED.
This secondary is really the key to the defensive success. They are deep, versatile, and I think are finally able to morph into something different each week. This week they held the Jets to a remarkable 0-12 on 3rd down attempts.
3. ST's - Ryan Allen had his best game of the season pinning the Jets inside their 5 on 3 separate occasion, with a tip of the cap to Slater for downing the ball on 2 of those.
The KO coverage unit was consistently good too allowing only one return to cross the 25, and that was on a really short KO to the 15. Plus kudo to Cardonna for making good snaps all game in these conditions.
4. General observations.
a The best thing about this game was that no one looked like they got hurt. Fingers crossed on that though.
b. I know it sounded bad so they had to throw the flag. But if you watch the replay of the Gilmore hit that cause the personal foul, it looked to me that he did everything in his power to avoid it. His shoulder was turned and he lifted his arm to give him a forearm shiver. It almost looked to me that their heads collided incidentally. Dare I say, a case could be made that Anderson's head instigated the contact. At any rate I'd like to look at that again closer. I don't think he'll get fined for it.
c. There was another play which wasn't called but Romo though it should have been, where Flowers looked like he was blocked into the QB low almost unintentionally. It looked worse than it was because it was a low hit, but there was no way Flowers could have avoided it.
d. I hated that Nance seemed to be implying that the Pats were "getting the breaks" because of all the key penalties the Jets were getting on 3rd downs. NONE of these calls were ever in question. I wish he would have emphasized that point.
e. I have always laughed at the common wisdom that "no one wants to see the Ravens in the playoffs", and that they were a threat to NE at Foxboro cause they won a game back in 2009 there.
I thought the Ravens would have been easy picking for the Pats and would have LOVED to play them and in one sense I'm sad they won't be in the hunt. On the other hand, how can you hate it when the Ravens lose. At least now we won't have to hear Harbaugh whine about the Pats getting a Saturday start. f. As much as we make fun of them (and deservedly so most of the time), you have to feel good about the Bills FINALLY making it into the playoffs. The Fans deserve that much. I also feel really good for Kyle Williams who is my favorite Bills player and has been a good pro for 12 years and is finally getting to go to his first playoff game.
g. We take the Pats return to the playoff for granted. In fact not getting a bye week would be considered a virtual failure of the season, Yet look at how so few of last season's teams have made it back again this season. The AFC has only 3 teams back (Pats Steelers and Chiefs) while the NFC has only 1 (Atlanta - just barely) So only a third of the playoff teams this season are repeat teams. Kind of puts a perspective on what the Pats have accomplished since 2006.
OK - almost 4am and I'm getting sober....and very sleepy. I have now done my duty and need some sleep. No going back to see what I f*cked up. So sorry about that. tough it out.
HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone, and I hope its a great one for all of us.
