Jaworski: Taking away Welker crippled Pats

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

Chris, after this week @ the Phins, we have 2 more road games, @ Bills and @ Texans.

Blanked on the Bills. Duh.

I put Buffalo in with Miami as a team that is QB-deficient. If the Pats play Buffalo the way they played Sanchize (in Foxboro, not NY), they should walk out with a win. I still think Houston is the main road threat ahead.

Regards,
Chris

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

The OC and Brady have to make better use of the likes of Aiken, Stanback, Edelman, Watson and Baker for this offense to really click.

Just like the Saints, if you potentially have 6 or 7 guys that you can pass to, how the hell can you scheme for that effectively? The answer is that you can't.

Those guys becoming serious weapons at this point is pretty much a non-starter for 2009.

It's not like the Saints WRs became deadly overnight. Everyone knows about Colston. Two years ago, Henderson looked like a budding star, then took a back seat to Moore and Meachum last year (even our old friend David Patten shined for them). When Devery Henderson is your #4 WR last year, you know you have talent at WR. Then they add Shockey who was always talented, but needed to get his head screwed on straight and he has appeared to have done so in the Big Easy.

The explosiveness and talent of the Saints' receivers is not a 2009 thing. It's been a work in progress that made a huge leap last year and continued the upward trend this year. The Pats' secondary receivers haven't made such a leap and I'm not holding my breath for that leap this year.

That being said, the Pats should use Faulk more as a receiver. He's Welker-light when it comes to moving the sticks.

Regards,
Chris

 

[RobertWeathers]

Those guys becoming serious weapons at this point is pretty much a non-starter for 2009.

It's not like the Saints WRs became deadly overnight. Everyone knows about Colston. Two years ago, Henderson looked like a budding star, then took a back seat to Moore and Meachum last year (even our old friend David Patten shined for them). When Devery Henderson is your #4 WR last year, you know you have talent at WR. Then they add Shockey who was always talented, but needed to get his head screwed on straight and he has appeared to have done so in the Big Easy.

The explosiveness and talent of the Saints' receivers is not a 2009 thing. It's been a work in progress that made a huge leap last year and continued the upward trend this year. The Pats' secondary receivers haven't made such a leap and I'm not holding my breath for that leap this year.

That being said, the Pats should use Faulk more as a receiver. He's Welker-light when it comes to moving the sticks.

Regards,
Chris

Great points, Chris. Although he started to get phased out later in the season, in 07 Stallworth made a huge difference in the offense. Just by being another accountable, deep threat to stretch the D, that helped open things up immensely for the other receivers and the running game

That dynamic is very similar to what the Saints are now enjoying. Field-stretchers across the board....

 

[Amnorix]

Pats are 0-4 in opponent's stadiums, Houston is the only remaining road game after this week (and I think Miami is too undermanned to win) and Houston has a DL that can bring pressure. Houston should have beaten the Colts...twice. I think "scare" is too strong a word, but the Pats will have their hands full in that game.

Regards,
Chris

I didn't see the first TExans/Colts game, but I heard that from others, so I'll accept it.

I saw the second one. Sure, the Texans got up on them early, but after that it was a wipeout. And don't blame the refs because while one of the PI calls was a bit ticky-tack, I saw other callst hat were plenty legit, and the Colts basically crushed them.

 

[Mack Herron]

Those guys becoming serious weapons at this point is pretty much a non-starter for 2009.

It's not like the Saints WRs became deadly overnight. Everyone knows about Colston. Two years ago, Henderson looked like a budding star, then took a back seat to Moore and Meachum last year (even our old friend David Patten shined for them). When Devery Henderson is your #4 WR last year, you know you have talent at WR. Then they add Shockey who was always talented, but needed to get his head screwed on straight and he has appeared to have done so in the Big Easy.

The explosiveness and talent of the Saints' receivers is not a 2009 thing. It's been a work in progress that made a huge leap last year and continued the upward trend this year. The Pats' secondary receivers haven't made such a leap and I'm not holding my breath for that leap this year.

That being said, the Pats should use Faulk more as a receiver. He's Welker-light when it comes to moving the sticks.

Regards,
Chris

Nice post. Expecting the Pats to suddenly develop Gaffney-like threats at third and fourth WR spots is like expecting a break-out game from Burgess each week. Aiken could be switched from STs (thus weakening 4 STs) to WR, but other than that we get whatever Edelman contributes. Taylor, unlike Maroney or BJGE, will bring a legitimate receiving threat out of the backfield and, unlike Faulk, he is also a serious threat to run. Watson can get downfield on ocassion, but our TEs are never used much in the passing game and that cannot change as long as the line remains so porous.

 

[borg]

Nice post. Expecting the Pats to suddenly develop Gaffney-like threats at third and fourth WR spots is like expecting a break-out game from Burgess each week. Aiken could be switched from STs (thus weakening 4 STs) to WR, but other than that we get whatever Edelman contributes. Taylor, unlike Maroney or BJGE, will bring a legitimate receiving threat out of the backfield and, unlike Faulk, he is also a serious threat to run. Watson can get downfield on ocassion, but our TEs are never used much in the passing game and that cannot change as long as the line remains so porous.

Taylor has 2 catches in 4 games...just saying

 

[RobertWeathers]

Taylor has 2 catches in 4 games...just saying

Yep but Taylor does have a better feel for the passing game than Maroney. Plus many of the opportunities/passing plays to RB go to Faulk.

But this all goes back to keeping the defense honest. If a LB or S needs to spy on Taylor when in motion, that may loosen up coverage somewhere else.

This team has too much talent on offense to stay down.

 

[Mack Herron]

Taylor has 2 catches in 4 games...just saying

Yeah, I'm being overly optimistic there. But that was before we needed to use him like that too. I don't expect major changes, but there needs to be better balance and mostly it needs to be the running game. If we make teams defend the run, they cannot play Welker like NO did.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

Great points, Chris. Although he started to get phased out later in the season, in 07 Stallworth made a huge difference in the offense. Just by being another accountable, deep threat to stretch the D, that helped open things up immensely for the other receivers and the running game

That dynamic is very similar to what the Saints are now enjoying. Field-stretchers across the board....

This point is definitely lost amongst the masses. Stallworth was definitely a guy safeties had to worry about if he went deep. Aiken and Stanbeck have a long way to go before they start meriting safety help on any regular basis.

Regards,
Chris

 

[RobertWeathers]

I don't expect major changes, but there needs to be better balance and mostly it needs to be the running game. If we make teams defend the run, they cannot play Welker like NO did.

Since the NYJ- 16-9 loss, look at run/pass ratios..

Run/Pass
30/32-ATL
39/42-BAL
27/33-DEN
30/45-TN
28/32-TB
24/37-Fins
28/42-Colts
35/41-NYJ
28/40-NO

56% pass....44% run. Thats not too bad. IMO they should have ran more vs Den & Colts. Miami maybe...

Playcalling & execution is more of the issue. I agre though, teams don't respect the run enough to crowd the LoS...

 

[Mack Herron]

No it's not bad (I mean they are 7-4). But it is not as balanced as NO either. I don't think they need radical changes (on offense).

 

[Kontradiction]

He's actually wrong. The very best way to beat the Pats is by taking Moss away. He's our heavy hitter on the offense in a way that he can most hurt the defense. Teams figured out ways to take him out a long time ago. The way they did it was by rolling a safety over the top. Defenses didn't want to do this with Welker because it would leave so many more people open. The Saints, however, gambled and shadowed Welker with a safety of his own. The only time I saw a safety closer than 10 yards to the line of scrimmage was when either Welker or Moss (mostly Welker) was doing work in the flats. The play when Sharper decapitated Faulk stands out. On top of that, they were able to get enormous amounts of pressure with their front four and thus took Brady out of the equation. The Saints basically gambled on the fact that Sam Aiken and our tight ends were not going to beat them and they were right. Aiken had a good chunk of yardage and could have caught a bomb had Brady not missed, but he was not going to win the game for us even if he had caught that for a touchdown. On top of that, due to injuries which once again presented themselves, our tight ends spent most of the game helping out our offensive line blocking (which did no good) and were never really factors themselves.

That's why I said that the Saints had pretty much just given everyone else the basic blueprint on how to stop the Patriots in the game thread. After I said that, some smartass immediately chimed in saying, "oh, get a pass rush with four guys. What a new concept!". No, idiot. That's part of it, but not the whole thing. The Saints were the first team to figure out that the Patriots do not have a game-changing threat at the third WR position and thus rolled their coverage over to take out both Welker and Moss, where other teams hadn't dared to do that to Welker and instead took out Moss. I don't even think Edelman could have helped out much against them at this point (though he will next year and in years to come). This is really the area that made our offense so hard to stop with Stallworth in the line-up. Teams couldn't just drop both of their safeties back to take out Welker and Moss because Stallworth could always burn them deep. We haven't had that viable third threat (and no, Gaffney wasn't it... though he was dependable) since he left the team for Cleveland and then ran over someone like he was inside the game "Grand Theft Auto".

Here's to hoping Tate emerges next season: :eat3:

 

[maverick4]

Jaworski: Taking away Welker crippled Pats - EagleTribune.com, North Andover, MA

It's pretty damn hilarious SVN is the who posts this, when for 3 days people here have been saying the same thing and he won't agree.

This team cannot manufacture a win if Welker doesn't have a good game. In another time, this team used to suffer league-leading starter injuries but were resilient and won 2 rings.

This offensive scheme is so predictable, inflexible, that it cannot win if Welker is stopped.

 

[jmt57]

Couldn't we have just given maverick4 a seven-day time-out instead?

 

[ALP]

Those guys becoming serious weapons at this point is pretty much a non-starter for 2009.

It's not like the Saints WRs became deadly overnight. Everyone knows about Colston. Two years ago, Henderson looked like a budding star, then took a back seat to Moore and Meachum last year (even our old friend David Patten shined for them). When Devery Henderson is your #4 WR last year, you know you have talent at WR. Then they add Shockey who was always talented, but needed to get his head screwed on straight and he has appeared to have done so in the Big Easy.

The explosiveness and talent of the Saints' receivers is not a 2009 thing. It's been a work in progress that made a huge leap last year and continued the upward trend this year. The Pats' secondary receivers haven't made such a leap and I'm not holding my breath for that leap this year.

That being said, the Pats should use Faulk more as a receiver. He's Welker-light when it comes to moving the sticks.

Regards,
Chris

lol, its difficult for our secondary recievers to improve and take a leap when we constantly let them go to other teams....

stallworth, gaffney, caldwell, washington

aiken is our only secondary reciever holdout from last year, and he didnt play last year....

 

[ALP]

He's actually wrong. The very best way to beat the Pats is by taking Moss away. He's our heavy hitter on the offense in a way that he can most hurt the defense. Teams figured out ways to take him out a long time ago. The way they did it was by rolling a safety over the top. Defenses didn't want to do this with Welker because it would leave so many more people open. The Saints, however, gambled and shadowed Welker with a safety of his own. The only time I saw a safety closer than 10 yards to the line of scrimmage was when either Welker or Moss (mostly Welker) was doing work in the flats. The play when Sharper decapitated Faulk stands out. On top of that, they were able to get enormous amounts of pressure with their front four and thus took Brady out of the equation. The Saints basically gambled on the fact that Sam Aiken and our tight ends were not going to beat them and they were right. Aiken had a good chunk of yardage and could have caught a bomb had Brady not missed, but he was not going to win the game for us even if he had caught that for a touchdown. On top of that, due to injuries which once again presented themselves, our tight ends spent most of the game helping out our offensive line blocking (which did no good) and were never really factors themselves.

That's why I said that the Saints had pretty much just given everyone else the basic blueprint on how to stop the Patriots in the game thread. After I said that, some smartass immediately chimed in saying, "oh, get a pass rush with four guys. What a new concept!". No, idiot. That's part of it, but not the whole thing. The Saints were the first team to figure out that the Patriots do not have a game-changing threat at the third WR position and thus rolled their coverage over to take out both Welker and Moss, where other teams hadn't dared to do that to Welker and instead took out Moss. I don't even think Edelman could have helped out much against them at this point (though he will next year and in years to come). This is really the area that made our offense so hard to stop with Stallworth in the line-up. Teams couldn't just drop both of their safeties back to take out Welker and Moss because Stallworth could always burn them deep. We haven't had that viable third threat (and no, Gaffney wasn't it... though he was dependable) since he left the team for Cleveland and then ran over someone like he was inside the game "Grand Theft Auto".

Here's to hoping Tate emerges next season: :eat3:

yea, D coords. were slow to figure that out, as u were to point it out

it was common sense, so much so that I, with little experience, was touting this double moss, double welker business about the time we lost gaffney....

 

[Kontradiction]

It's pretty damn hilarious SVN is the who posts this, when for 3 days people here have been saying the same thing and he won't agree.

This team cannot manufacture a win if Welker doesn't have a good game. In another time, this team used to suffer league-leading starter injuries but were resilient and won 2 rings.

This offensive scheme is so predictable, inflexible, that it cannot win if Welker is stopped.

I just want to thank whomever banned him. It wasn't his opinions that I didn't agree with. It was the fact that he expected you to agree with him and, when you ultimately didn't, got flamed and had personal attacks thrown your way for it. Truly a good job. And though I might be the only one here who is going to take a post to say it, I'm sure others will agree with me.

 

[SVN]

It's pretty damn hilarious SVN is the who posts this, when for 3 days people here have been saying the same thing and he won't agree.

This team cannot manufacture a win if Welker doesn't have a good game. In another time, this team used to suffer league-leading starter injuries but were resilient and won 2 rings.

This offensive scheme is so predictable, inflexible, that it cannot win if Welker is stopped.

i dont what you mean that i dont agree.. you keep saying pats problems are OC all the time and bring up insane facts thatbb doesnt have enough money to hire good coordinators. how is that related to me posting a column about jaworski's observation ? By the way , does jaws mention 'shotgun' anywhere ?

 

[SVN]

He's actually wrong. The very best way to beat the Pats is by taking Moss away. He's our heavy hitter on the offense in a way that he can most hurt the defense. Teams figured out ways to take him out a long time ago. The way they did it was by rolling a safety over the top. Defenses didn't want to do this with Welker because it would leave so many more people open. The Saints, however, gambled and shadowed Welker with a safety of his own. The only time I saw a safety closer than 10 yards to the line of scrimmage was when either Welker or Moss (mostly Welker) was doing work in the flats. The play when Sharper decapitated Faulk stands out. On top of that, they were able to get enormous amounts of pressure with their front four and thus took Brady out of the equation. The Saints basically gambled on the fact that Sam Aiken and our tight ends were not going to beat them and they were right. Aiken had a good chunk of yardage and could have caught a bomb had Brady not missed, but he was not going to win the game for us even if he had caught that for a touchdown. On top of that, due to injuries which once again presented themselves, our tight ends spent most of the game helping out our offensive line blocking (which did no good) and were never really factors themselves.

That's why I said that the Saints had pretty much just given everyone else the basic blueprint on how to stop the Patriots in the game thread. After I said that, some smartass immediately chimed in saying, "oh, get a pass rush with four guys. What a new concept!". No, idiot. That's part of it, but not the whole thing. The Saints were the first team to figure out that the Patriots do not have a game-changing threat at the third WR position and thus rolled their coverage over to take out both Welker and Moss, where other teams hadn't dared to do that to Welker and instead took out Moss. I don't even think Edelman could have helped out much against them at this point (though he will next year and in years to come). This is really the area that made our offense so hard to stop with Stallworth in the line-up. Teams couldn't just drop both of their safeties back to take out Welker and Moss because Stallworth could always burn them deep. We haven't had that viable third threat (and no, Gaffney wasn't it... though he was dependable) since he left the team for Cleveland and then ran over someone like he was inside the game "Grand Theft Auto".

Here's to hoping Tate emerges next season: :eat3:

fact that sam aiken caught 7 balls shows how much respect our other WR have and deservedly so. Saints played the defense like BB does. Take away the best players and let others beat them.aiken caught 7 passes but no one else.
I think think pass protection did not help us and our o line across is banged up .Other than mankins i think everyone has had an injury this yr.Still if we were patient in the last drive before the half where brady threw 3 times in the EZ with 20 tcks still left and a timeout ,it couldve helped.
And there wasanother insteresting stat about our 3 WR

Do the Patriots miss this man??? - Extra Points - Boston.com

Do the Patriots miss having another weapon like that? Yeah, sure they do, particularly because Brady had a pretty high level of trust that Gaffney would be in the right spot at the right time.

But the truth is that when Moss and Welker have been taken out of the game, it's been the backs and tight ends that have made the difference, and not the third receiver.

 

[PrairiePat]

Well Aiken caught 7, as someone mentioned above, and I specifically recall at least 2 deep balls to Watson which were overthrown. I'd say the offense adjusted to the defensive coverage on Moss and Welker somewhat, but the combination of Brady being pressured and/or off-target was more the culprit than having 'no 3rd option in the passing game'.

Aiken caught 7 balls as a 3rd receiver, what more exactly are people looking for out of him?

I really disagree that taking out Moss and Welker should slow this offense down - isn't TBs claim to fame that his favorite receiver is the open receiver? Now unless you're claiming that Aiken can't get open (stats vs NO seem to indicate otherwise) or that Watson can't get open (debatable), it would seem to be a matter of giving TB time to throw and having him make those connections.

Lining up Moss and WW together to one side of the formation and then throwing the other way -should- be a good way to exploit this type of defensive gameplan, I'd think. Or keeping RM/WW short and sending Aiken/Watson deep on the same side; force the deep coverage to make a decision.

If it comes down to the fact that TB just isn't getting enough time to throw, we need to limit the # of guys in the pattern, protect TB, and depend on his ability to hit the tight throws.