Looking ahead: Tebowmania - how the hell do we beat it?

[PatriotSeven]

Child, Please.

63.9% > 46.5%

I can't wait for the day when people stop using completion % as a means to show quarterback accuracy. Tebow has a sickly accurate deep ball. Tebow plays a lot like Brady when he first started, but a bit more conservative in that he CHOOSES to throw the ball away from coverage at the risk of an incompletion versus a possible interception. Except he has a worse offense.

This is the same thing that makes Brady good. This is the same thing that makes Rodgers good. Very smart football players that take the incompletion versus the forced pass, and the sack versus the throw away that leads to an interception. Tebow is just more conservative and has a much worse receiving squad.

Fortunately for the Pats though, we have all of those things as well as a quarterback, who's not just efficient and accurate, but also a more experienced QB, who places the ball accurately and more importantly even better at leading and DIRECTING his receivers. Pats also have a superior pass defense.

The way to beat Denver is the same way they did it the first time. Put pressure with the offense, tight pass defense and force a fumble. Don't get caught by the big pass play which John Fox and Tebow are a master in setting you up. It worked on the Steelers selling you so much on stopping that 5 yard run play, that you give up 50 yard catches and 80 yard touchdown passes.

The Pats may not be able to pick Tebow off if he plays like he did today and his first few games, but you CAN prevent them from scoring 7 and unlike the Steelers, Pat's pass defense can freeze Tebow long enough for the pass rushers to get to him and force a turnover. It's what turned the tide in the first game. Then the offense can continue pressuring them.

Even if they can't do that, what the Pats can do is consistently put up touchdowns while, because of Tebow's and Fox's conservative nature, as well as their receivers dropping passes left and right, they will likely limit themselves to 3 like they did tonight on a lot of occasions.

No matter what Vegas says, if this is a turnover-free game, it will be a close game. One I expect the Pats to win with consistent and great execution. But with Decker getting hurt, one of Denver's worst catchers, and one of the biggest reasons Tebow has a poor completion %, it's clearly allowing other receivers to show people that Tebow does in fact throw very catchable balls.

Won't be as easy as the first time but the Pats better get this one. They just have to. They're a better all around football team with a better, more experienced QB.

 

[Calciumee]

Have Denver O changed much since we played them? BB isn't going to put 9 men in the box, so will at least have enough players to cover the receivers!

Also, Steelers O hasn't been outstanding (like Pats, Packers, Saints) and when they lose Mendenhall, who is a very good player, and have a injured BR, they aren't going to be as good as they have been! If they had a prolific O, Steelers would have won, but they don't, and when D are playing a terrible scheme, it won't help!

I see the Patriots beating them, it may not be a beat down, but I see BB using his brain and the addition of Josh McD will help! He will hopefully bring more information on Tebow!

 

[DarrylS]

the Patriots will win, being on foreign turf may help neutralize the Tebow Frenzy...

What cannot stand is all of the hoopla and superlatives about Tebow, let him prove himself when he is on the big stage...

Elway is pissed though...

 

[patsinthesnow]

Actually have the safeties, ya know, play safety.

Lebeau had both safeties in the box on the first OT play, and on many other plays too, leaving all the CBs on islands.

Yeah, he's a genius.

 

[MaineMan]

Wildcat = College plays

Tebowmania = HS plays


But yeah, I would have thought Tebowmania would have been solved by now.

The Patriots, Bills and KC appear to have done so. Why Lebeau chose to stack the box and allow Tebow to do exactly what Rothlisberger usually does (run around and extend the play to a long pass completion) is totally beyond me. It's almost as if Lebeau hasn't been paying attention to his own team's offense.

PS - Polamalu isn't really all that good in coverage and neither is Ryan Mundy.

 

[goheels22002]

The Patriots, Bills and KC appear to have done so. Why Lebeau chose to stack the box and allow Tebow to do exactly what Rothlisberger usually does (run around and extend the play to a long pass completion) is totally beyond me. It's almost as if Lebeau hasn't been paying attention to his own team's offense.

PS - Polamalu isn't really all that good in coverage and neither is Ryan Mundy.

The Broncos bet the house on the deep ball against the Steelers - and won. Three times in the red zone Denver went backwards and settled for field goals. Bend don't break works against this Denver offense while Brady does that Brady thing he does so well.

 

[Rob0729]

Everyone seems to forget that Tebow is a very young player. Go look at Tom Brady's stats from 2001 and 2002. He was worse than mediocre. His playoff stats from '01 were embarrassing. He averaged 5 yds a completion and threw for 1 TD and 1 pick in 3 playoff games.
The Brady Quinn was taking extra snaps in practice story was bogus. Quinn took his usual amount of snaps in practice. That was mediot attempted muckraking.

Exactly! Tebow is a very young player which is why he is more likely to follow up yesterday's performance with a performance like last week vs. KC than he is to repeat that performance. He had a great game vs. a depleted Steelers' defense. Let's not act like this is the emergence of Tebow the gunslinger.

Brady is an elite QB and it took him nearly four years to truly hit that elite status. Tebow has been a poor passer all season. He isn't going to turn it on and become Brett Favre after one game. More likely he will have a roller coaster career with ups and downs for at least another season like Brady did.

As for the truth about Brady Quinn or not, it is kinda irrelevant. The fact that everyone believed these rumors tells you how Tebow has been playing the last month going into this game. If Tebow was a Qb you were afraid of, no one would taken those rumors seriously.

 

[Rob0729]

The Broncos bet the house on the deep ball against the Steelers - and won. Three times in the red zone Denver went backwards and settled for field goals. Bend don't break works against this Denver offense while Brady does that Brady thing he does so well.

Well, the thing is the Steelers defense is very successful against most offenses, but there are certain offenses that can pick it apart. The Broncos could be that one.

It is more likely the losses of Kiesel,Hampton, and Clark played a bigger role. The Steelers play a zone defense and rely on pressure on the QB to make the QB rush his throws. The problem was last night they barely pressured Tebow and when they did, Tebow was able to scramble away from the pressure pretty easily. With Clark out there were a lot of empty pockets in the secondary and the CBs had poor over the top help. Clark's replacement, Mundy, gave up the game winning TD.

 

[Halifax_Pats_Fan]

..the same thing that may stop our offense, weather...

 

[Rob0729]

The Patriots, Bills and KC appear to have done so. Why Lebeau chose to stack the box and allow Tebow to do exactly what Rothlisberger usually does (run around and extend the play to a long pass completion) is totally beyond me. It's almost as if Lebeau hasn't been paying attention to his own team's offense.

PS - Polamalu isn't really all that good in coverage and neither is Ryan Mundy.

Because LeBeau never changes the Steelers defense for the opponent... Well, except for when they played the Pats this season which is why the Pats were caught off guard.

Teams like the Pats run opponent specific defenses. The Steelers don't change their defense for the opponent. Considering they usually have a top defense, it is hard to argue with the strategy. It is kinda ironic that they were beaten by a QB who employed a strategy the Steelers' own QB uses to beat defenses.

The way you beat it is to keep the QB in the pocket and make him throw quickly. The Pats have usually done a good job against Roethlisberger with that strategy.

 

[FreeTedWilliams]

They way you beat this Denver offense is to stuff the dive, and do not let Tebow roll out to his left. That's pretty much it, they have three pass routes, the deep in, the cross, and the go.

Watching that game I was amazed that Denver didn't break a run of fifty yards. Polomalo was at the line of scrimmage and bolting into the backfield on the snap.

Look at the game winner, Polomalo was running up and then, oops, tried to get back.

The way to beat Denver is to get up on them and take them out of their offense, make Tebow a drop back passer. I think the addition of SPikes will make a huge difference in this game. Lord knows how many times he has seen Tebow play QB. He should have a monster game.

 

[MaineMan]

Denver beat Pittsburgh, which the Patriots were unable to do, and had no problems with the Patriots defense until Fox screwed up a 4th down call and McGahee got injured soon afterwards.

Up until the holding call on that 4th down, the Broncos OL was getting away with flagrant violations on nearly every play. They cut out a lot of that (but not all) after that first flag. Also, the Pats switched up to more of a 2-gapping 30-front and appeared to be controlling the Broncos' ground game much better, even before McGahee got hurt.

I think BB will make sure that there's no overconfidence, and the additions of Spikes and Chung should help against the run.

I don't think the return of these two guys can be overestimated. Chung's presence in wk-17 appeared to significantly shorten runs that got past the LoS, even when he wasn't set up in the box. Spikes' diagnostic and gap-stuffing skills in the middle should enable the edge guys to stay with their containment assignments more consistently. All of which should enable the front seven to constrain Denver's running enough so that, by itself, it won't enable them to put up enough points and should also help limit the effectiveness of Tebow's PA.

When you add in the removal of McCourty from the cornerback position which should upgrade the pass defense, that's 3 positions which should see upgrades.

Player selection for the pass coverage is going to be interesting. Tebow is most effective passing, from what I've seen, when he can escape through the "back door" and out into a wide open space on the "wings", where his long wind-up doesn't matter as much, and launch one of his very receiver-friendly high, soft lobs deep down the sideline or to a post route (when there's single coverage). His accuracy on these particular throws, where the ball is in the air for 25+ yards, is truly stunning - I'd guess among the best in the league and probably better than Brady. On other types of throws, his accuracy/timing isn't nearly as consistent which I believe is where his long wind-up hurts him the most. That's not to say that I haven't seen him zip one to a short-out or a crossing route, but these don't seem to be his strong suit.

So, IMHO, pass defense needs to focus on (A) trying to double-cover deep routes while (B) maintaining some good traffic around shorter outlets (Fells, Royal), maintaining good edges in the backfield and pursuing well when Tebow does escape so that he has significantly less time to set up his lob shots (and I'm not entirely sure that assigning a "spy" worked all THAT well in the NE-DEN first meeting, but then Mayo didn't execute the role all that well).

Hopefully that's enough.

Yup.

Brady should be able to get his points, especially if Dawkins is still out.

From what I'm hearing, Dawkins' injury might be career-ending, so I wouldn't expect him back. OTOH, Bruton and Carter played pretty well against PIT (when, ironically, they weren't being held by Steelers' blockers). If the Pats passpro can keep Brady as clean as they did in the first meeting, AND if Ridley can make the most of his opportunities to contribute, it seems to me that the points should be there in sufficient quantity.

 

[PatsSox363804]

One very important key: Wes Welker CAN NOT go up to the podium mocking Jesus or Tebows faith.

 

[IllegalContact]

the broncos did the one thing against the steeler that the pats won't allow......which is to let the WR get behind the DB's......the broncos used the exact same gameplan against the steelers that they tried to use against the pats, but you will never see the pats DB's crowd the line outside of the occaisional blitz ou tof the nickle package

all the pats have to do is be patient.......7 in the box and 2 deep......

 

[Banjo]

Regular season means nothing. 45-3 meant NOTHING. I expect miracles to happen next week. I'll never root harder against my favorite team than I will next Sunday. Tim Tebow and the Broncos are destined to go to the Super Bowl... it would be right for the world.

and if the Patriots win... well, at least we're not one and done this year

 

[THELAWFIRM226]

Regular season means nothing. 45-3 meant NOTHING. I expect miracles to happen next week. I'll never root harder against my favorite team than I will next Sunday. Tim Tebow and the Broncos are destined to go to the Super Bowl... it would be right for the world.

and if the Patriots win... well, at least we're not one and done this year

God can't help you against the Patriots.

 

[wistahpatsfan]

They way you beat this Denver offense is to stuff the dive, and do not let Tebow roll out to his left. That's pretty much it, they have three pass routes, the deep in, the cross, and the go.

Watching that game I was amazed that Denver didn't break a run of fifty yards. Polomalo was at the line of scrimmage and bolting into the backfield on the snap.

Look at the game winner, Polomalo was running up and then, oops, tried to get back.

The way to beat Denver is to get up on them and take them out of their offense, make Tebow a drop back passer. I think the addition of SPikes will make a huge difference in this game. Lord knows how many times he has seen Tebow play QB. He should have a monster game.

Polomalu did that at least three times yesterday, which was part of the pattern Pitt showed that got them burned way too much. Boy! Did Pitt miss Clark yesterday!

Denver will not be meeting a broken team at home this time. I'm so sick of hearing on the 4-letter station nothing but how Tebow played and nothing about the condition of the Steelers going into the game.

 

[PatsSox363804]

Polomalu did that at least three times yesterday, which was part of the pattern Pitt showed that got them burned way too much. Boy! Did Pitt miss Clark yesterday!

Denver will not be meeting a broken team at home this time. I'm so sick of hearing on the 4-letter station nothing but how Tebow played and nothing about the condition of the Steelers going into the game.

ESPNs job is to create hype, you cant really take their opinions seriously.

 

[Rob0729]

Polomalu did that at least three times yesterday, which was part of the pattern Pitt showed that got them burned way too much. Boy! Did Pitt miss Clark yesterday!

Denver will not be meeting a broken team at home this time. I'm so sick of hearing on the 4-letter station nothing but how Tebow played and nothing about the condition of the Steelers going into the game.

ESPN stands for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. Sometimes they focus too much on the Entertainment part. If they don't overhype Tebow, they aren't entertaining enough.

Why point out the Steelers were decimated by injuries or the Broncos only scored 3 points in the second half when they can feed the Tebowmania machine? After this week, you are going to vomit every time you hear the name Tebow if you watch ESPN more than a half hour a day.

 

[Kid~Brady]

They way you beat this Denver offense is to stuff the dive, and do not let Tebow roll out to his left. That's pretty much it, they have three pass routes, the deep in, the cross, and the go.

Watching that game I was amazed that Denver didn't break a run of fifty yards. Polomalo was at the line of scrimmage and bolting into the backfield on the snap.

Look at the game winner, Polomalo was running up and then, oops, tried to get back.

The way to beat Denver is to get up on them and take them out of their offense, make Tebow a drop back passer. I think the addition of SPikes will make a huge difference in this game. Lord knows how many times he has seen Tebow play QB. He should have a monster game.

Good analysis.