My assessment of yesterday's game

[PATRIOT64]

O.K. lets start out with the most unfortunate thing I have to say - I hate Peyton Manning as much as all of you do here but lets be realistic here for a moment - Peyton is simply the best signal caller in the game today - Yes even better than Brady now - Brady does have all the rings but I think Peyton finally has proven without a shadow of a doubt that after all these years of problems reading good NFL defenses and schemes that he has got it right at this late point in his career - You can't beat Denver and New England back to back especially at their home stadiums without having total control of your offense PLUS a vast knowledge of what the defense has laid out in front of you,I saw something I had never seen before of manning till last night...He was calling audibles and changes at the line of scrimmage adjusting to what the Patriots had laid out in front of him and he made the appropriate changes to destroy the secondary often and all night..It IS a big change from the old Peyton who used to have that dumbfounded look on his face when the Patriots D set up a wacky formation-Now it appears we can't fool him much anymore. - I know Pats homers here say the same that the Indianapolis Colts will CHOKE again in the playoffs and hopefully they will,BUT it won't be because of Manning and the offense,it will be because their opponent is running roughshod over the Colts D-Line - IMO Manning has finally seen the key to success in winnig a Championship-Now the rest of his team needs to follow suit - I for one am hoping they never do.​

Everyone is asking why did the Patriots forgot the run and did mostly passing when Indy had the worst rushing D in the league? - My take on it is that once Rodney went down with an early first quarter injury in the secondary,BB and staff probably said UH-OH our best secondary guy is down and we can't stop them even more so and I think that is why they went to the air when it was apparent Dillon and Maroney were doing damage on the ground,Rodney going down with that injury changed the whole offensive scheme for the Patriots,If you think about it,the Patriots prior to the injury to Rodney were running about 60% of the time until he got hurt,I guess they felt the only way to stay competitive was to throw the ball because they knew now that with Rodney gone that Peyton was going to light up the secondary like a Christmas Tree-Much like last year..And they were right.​

Rodney's injury might have been the final DOOM in this game for the Pats before the 2nd quarter actually began,no matter what turnovers we had,Rodney missing from the game gave the Colts much easier ways to score without a doubt-those Colt receivers had absolutely no fear with any passing patterns down the middle of the field that they executed often and to perfection I must say.​

I would not blame Brady for this loss,In fact I think he played a game good enough to have won this one but you simply cannot plan for tipped ball interceptions,the Colts players were in the right place at the right time and no matter how hard you practice during the week and no matter how hard you play,things like this happen....It just happened to be a major reason why we lost the game but overall I think the offense was moving very well all night,even though the run game would have possibly been the diffrence maker as Madden was saying about 100 times last night that if we had just continued to run we would have had a better chance to keep Manning and Company on the sidelines,hence a much tougher game for the Colts to win.​

I was paying close attention to Tedi Bruschi last night and he just did not seem to be the Tedi of old...I hope age is not catching up with him but those tight ends of Indy were catching critical third down conversions all night,That is usually where Tedi was so special at,years ago those TEs would have been shut down by him but he could not keep up with the speed and patterns of those guys...Lets hope it was just a bad game for him and not a 'getting older' thing.​

I think stupid calls from the officials and Defensive penalties were also a big factor,Those Defensive pass interference penalties were way too often,If our guys can't keep up with speed receivers in the playoffs without causing serious infractions and giving continuous first downs to the opposition then we will be in trouble...We need to keep those to a minimum when playing top offenses when the playoffs begin - When you have 80+ yards in penalties in a game you will LOSE 90% of the time,whether it was a refs blunder or not.​

Finally I think that we will likely be the 3rd or 4th seed in the playoffs and a bye week seems unlikely unless bad things happen to one of the top AFC remaining contending teams like Denver,Baltimore,San Diego and of course Indianapolis - IMO only if 2 of those 4 goes into a big losing streak can we rise to the first or second seed ....But remember Brady is UNDEFEATED in domes in his career,so is playing in Indianapolis sometime in January really so bad then not having the game in New England?​

 

[SoonerPatriot]

I actually think we'll win out, be 14-2 and lose to Denver in the playoffs while making Jake Plummer and Javon Walker look like the second coming of Montana and Rice in the process.

After the loss, the board will erupt into sectarian violence between the "our secondary and LBs are just fine" camp and the "it's time to revamp the entire LB and DB units" camp.

 

[PromisedLand]

My thought was that the defense did OK, not great but OK, considering the offense they were facing and the fact that our offense turned the ball over five times, after the first couple of drives on which the Colts scored 14 points. The main criticism I had of our defense was the number of penalties they committed, five of which gave the Colts a first down, which is almost like another turnover.

The offense, on the other hand, was lacking something. I thought that the return of Bob Sanders gave the Colts defense a real spark. In any case, Brady did not get much time to throw and a lot of the interceptions came with him throwing with someone in his face. I noticed O'Callaghan had been benched in favor of Kascur, but it didn't seem to help.

The playcalling did not seem to take advantage of Sanders' aggressivenesss. He reads the play very quickly and, if it is run, sprints to the LOS, sometimes even before the snap of the ball. I would have liked to have seen a few play actions to draw him and the LBs up and then throw the ball downfield into man coverage to Gabriel or Jackson. Perhaps the coaching staff did not feel we could protect Brady long enough to do this, but I thought we should have at least tried it once or twice. Perhaps we miss Graham's blocking more than we care to admit.