Josh McDaniels and the "Offense"

[Bill B.]

Stop picking on Woodhead and Edelman. As far as Woodhead getting more carries than Ridley, well Ridley was stuffed on his first few carries. As long as I've watched BB coach, he always has had RB by committee. He uses the personnel that he thinks is best suited for the situation. Last year LawFirm spent a lot of time on the bench when he couldn't get started. And don't forget the patriots went up against 2 of the best front 7s in the last 2 weeks. O-line wasn't opening any holes either.

 

[nekromantique]

While the loss sucks it was nice to see Brady have a solid game against the Ravens and for the Brady/Lloyd connection to continue to grow. The offense looks like it'll be fine, the defense will be a work in progress with a pretty high ceiling, and the Pats still look like one of the top 3 teams in the AFC. The end is not nigh.

yeah, bruschi nailed it when he said the team wont really be developed until thanksgiving.

thankfully, the pats play in the afc east, which gives them time to figure things out. the defense came around in the playoffs last year...and there is more raw talent on it this year in comparison...but its just that...raw.

i think people miss the fact that the super bowl teams had alot of veteran talent. this team is extremely young aside from our receiving core (actual WR's, not TE's) and quarterback.

 

[sieglo]

Re: Request for McDaniels Apologists

With 2 losses in a row we can be sure that a trick play in the 1st or 2nd quarter is just as stupid as calling one in the 4th quarter. Lesson learned

Really? Is the lesson learned?

 

[patsinthesnow]

Josh better figure it out quick.

-Brandon Lloyd is uncoverable 1 on 1. ( 8 catches 60 yards last week, 9 catches 108 yards yesterday)

-Welker is uncoverable 1 on 1.

-Gronk is uncoverable 1 on 1.

-When Edelman is actually running routes instead of reverses and screens, he's actually not bad, and is improving.

How do you not score 38 points a game with that? Most teams are doubling Gronk, leaving Brady to slice the field with Lloyd/Welker/Edelman. Let him do that.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Josh better figure it out quick.

-Brandon Lloyd is uncoverable 1 on 1. ( 8 catches 60 yards last week, 9 catches 108 yards yesterday)

-Welker is uncoverable 1 on 1.

-Gronk is uncoverable 1 on 1.

-When Edelman is actually running routes instead of reverses and screens, he's actually not bad, and is improving.

How do you not score 38 points a game with that? Most teams are doubling Gronk, leaving Brady to slice the field with Lloyd/Welker/Edelman. Let him do that.

The best weapons on this team in the passing game are Gronk, Welker, Lloyd, Branch, then Edelman. Yet the targets are almost inverted trying to force the ball to Edelman. Gronk only had 3 targets yesterday and Welker sat for 2 games until Hernandez's injury forced their hand. In the running game Ridley is their best weapon but they kept running Woodhead up the middle, behind new below-average lineman, right at Haloti Ngata.

I don't think it's Belichick. I miss Bill O'Brien.

 

[patsinthesnow]

The best weapons on this team in the passing game are Gronk, Welker, Lloyd, Branch, then Edelman. Yet the targets are almost inverted trying to force the ball to Edelman. Gronk only had 3 targets yesterday and Welker sat for 2 games until Hernandez's injury forced their hand. In the running game Ridley is their best weapon but they kept running Woodhead up the middle, behind new below-average lineman, right at Haloti Ngata.

I don't think it's Belichick. I miss Bill O'Brien.

Lloyd is on pace for 108 catches 1230 yards and Welker 85 catches 1330 yards. This is the best WR duo in the league. Throw in the best TE in the league and a 3rd WR showing some promise, this offense should have no problem. (This is all with Hernandez injured too!) I agree, and I hope Josh realizes how to use this abundance of riches soon.

 

[nekromantique]

The best weapons on this team in the passing game are Gronk, Welker, Lloyd, Branch, then Edelman. Yet the targets are almost inverted trying to force the ball to Edelman. Gronk only had 3 targets yesterday and Welker sat for 2 games until Hernandez's injury forced their hand. In the running game Ridley is their best weapon but they kept running Woodhead up the middle, behind new below-average lineman, right at Haloti Ngata.

I don't think it's Belichick. I miss Bill O'Brien.

gronk targets are skewed. he had to help in pass protection most of the time. with welker and lloyd getting easy receptions, it wasnt particularly necessary for gronk to do anything else. couldve used it on the last drive though...but pass protection started to break down then.

the run blocking was pretty terrible yesterday, but the pass-blocking was fantastic for 80% of the game.

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

Or if we did pass to Ridley and he dropped the ball people would be *****ing that Woodhead is the better receiver what is Ridley doing out there in an obvious passing situation.

We did pass to Ridley and he did drop the ball. It was an easy ball to catch (well seems easy to me).

I sure would liek to see Ridley be able to use the open space o na screen like that (he would have had several yeards before a defender closed in him...enough time to survey the field and pick his route to create some opportunity).

 

[UofApatsfan]

The offense put up 30 points against the Ravens last night, despite not having Hernandez, having Edelman get nicked up, having Branch working his way back into game shape, having Winslow being extremely limited because of his newness with the team, and having to deal with absolutely horrible officiating. I had problems with the direction of the offense in week one, and I hated what was going on in week 2, but last night was fine for the most part.

McDaniels is the best OC the Patriots have had under BB. I have no need to see either O'Brien or Weis back in that position.

So you have nothing to say about McDaniels forcing the ball to Woodhead in spite of how inefficient he was. Figures.

 

[Deus Irae]

So you have nothing to say about McDaniels forcing the ball to Woodhead in spite of how inefficient he was. Figures.

I'm sorry that you have a reading comprehension problem and seem to feel that my post needed to comment on every single item ever involved in any game. Since you do, though, let me break down the running situation with a post I made for another thread:

Woodhead is a good option for the shotgun sets.
Woodhead is a good option for the 3-1-1 sets.
Woodhead is a good option for any 4-0-1 sets.
Ridley is a better option for the 2-2-1 sets.
Ridley is a better option for the 1-3-1 sets.
Ridley is a better option for the 1-2-2 sets.

Going from there, and looking at last night's formations,

BALTIMORE -- A look at the positional groupings utilized by the Patriots in their 31-30 loss to the Ravens:

3 WR/1 TE/1 RB -- 60 of 82
2 WR/2 TE/1 RB -- 17 of 82
1 WR/3 TE/1 RB -- 5 of 82

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4730723/positional-groupings-back-to-3-wr

it's pretty easy to see why Woodhead was getting PT he got. For those who wish to argue against Woodhead, feel free to take a look at what Ridley did on the last drive of the night. If there's a question about the running last night, that question should be more along the lines of

"Why did they run the ball so much last night, when they were going up against the Ravens and were dominating them with the passing game?".

 

[UofApatsfan]

I'm sorry that you have a reading comprehension problem.

Avoiding the subject of the thread again.

 

[UofApatsfan]

Re: Request for McDaniels Apologists

Ridley was the RB in on that clock killing drive. How'd he do?

2 one yard runs
a dropped pass
a 3 yard run that was called back

Any corpse in the cemetery could had accomplished that.

This post doesn't mention Woodhead if it's what you're referring to.

 

[WhiZa]

Re: Request for McDaniels Apologists

Really? Is the lesson learned?

Good question. Time will tell

 

[ausbacker]

Interesting that nobody is starting threads about Matt Patricia. His unit's performance was worse.

 

[convertedpatsfan]

30 points on a solid defense and we're wondering what's wrong with the offense...

The Woody draw was getting a bit ridiculous, I admit. It almost seemed like Josh wanted to show everyone we could run out of it after the Cardinals claimed they knew we were going to pass whenever Brady was in the shotgun.

But still, 30 points on a solid defense. It's not perfect. It could be better. But it wasn't just on Josh or the offense.

 

[Froob]

Are there any good offensive coordinators in this league? Every fanbase claims theirs sucks. You can't get a first down or a touchdown on every play.....

 

[Bill B.]

A lot of people are upset at the OC for the plays he called. You know what? You never actually get to see what the OC calls. Brady was calling audibles all night. I don't know the exact number but I bet more than half of the plays were audibles. Brady probably saw something in the defense and called the best play he thought would exploit it. So to put this all on the OC is really rather dumb when more than half the plays are called at the line of scrimmage.

 

[jnug]

What part the offense had to play in this lost game is the same role it has played in several lost games. Thirty points against a tough defense is a good showing...exactly right. But that just makes the point.

At crunch time, the Pats begin playing offense not to lose as opposed to playing to win as they have the rest of the game. In my view this is a BB issue not a McD issue as it was not an O'B issue. Nor is it a Brady issue.

BB in my view is only willing to allow the offense a limited playbook at the end of the game which is I believe directly related to a willingness on his part, when push comes to shove to leave the game in the hands of his defense to win or lose.

This simply will not work as often as it did in the past now that the league is so committed to and biased toward aggressive offensive play. In my view if BB allowed our offense the freedom to play to win and in fact insisted that they play to win, we would put more of these games away with our offense as opposed to turning the ball over to the other team's offense and hoping our defense, hobbled by the same rules changes that favor our offense when it is on the field, can stop them.

BB needs to insist that the offense play these final critical minutes of the game as they have played the rest of the game. What was doubly galling in this case is that the plays that were succeeding for the Pats offense in this game were not very risky offensive plays. They were not even time consuming plays that take forever to develop. Yet we went away from what was working as so often happens.

Then when we do put our defense back out there, it is doubly hobbled by BB's bias toward players that learn his defensive schemes to the nth degree even if they are not outstanding athletes. Yet offenses now have incredible athletes running free in our secondary again as a consequence of the rules changes that allows it to happen. We need better athletes in our secondary. Guys that can make a play on a poor pass from the opposing QB easily as opposed to barely being able to stay upright as is so often the case with our guys.

I am not saying the game has passed BB by. But in my view he has been stubborn about this particular issue to a fault and if he continues he will also continue to lose to the better teams in the league. See the last two SB losses as reference points as they fall in step with this dilemma.

 

[juny]

the pats should have employed the "heave it up and hope for flags" offense. it worked well for the ravens.

 

[jnug]

BB will work it out. He is the greatest pro football coach of this era and maybe any era of pro football.