My thoughts on today's game.

[SVN]

After this loss thought i would throw out these for discussion.We have had some of these issues in the past wins but the losses are time these threads get created so here goes...

Iam not a football X/O's expert so here my take being as rational as i can be

First things first...miami defense is good.They were good when miami was 1-6 and they are good now ..so they deserve a lot credit for playing like they did especially when they were 5-7 and not much to play for.
Other things i saw today...

a)Our o line blocking is the most obvious we saw today. Sure light got abused but more worrisome was that things like brady rollout left/right didnt work as well..he couldnt find time even then to throw after running away from the rush.Also on more than 1 occasion we saw that free blitzer right up the middle untouched like in the jets game.So many times brady was surrounded just by white shirts like sharks on a prey..was scary..lets say the biggest +ve today was he walked off on his feet.
b)Our receivers are not great. Sure its an obvious statement but when the pats do pass well against some bad teams in the passing defense we keep thinking , the passing game is coming along but it hasnt...a decent secondary with a good pass rush up front is just a bad bad match for this team since our o line is built for quick releases and throws not for receivers waiting to get open.
Dont know how many saw the late games today but when you see receivers like vicent jackson in SD, marshall in denver,boldin, fitzgerald, all the these saints receivers iam watching now.. to name a few ..you realize no receiver of ours has made any such catch or play or they are few and far in between.

c)Combine the above 2 pts and we are faced to figure out the identity of this offense. First 4 weeks we have 3 tight ends and we just run the ball. Now we run at times and want to maintain balance for some reason and throw the ball.sometimes we need to realize, every team doesnt have the minnesota secondary or pass rush.Obviously when when you maroney(out tday), dillon,evans,pass,faulk..5 players who are active for the game we should running over 100-110 yards almost every game especially like today when it was working..Our team is a game plan team and game plan offense which changes week to week but not sure we are built this yr for that.
d)Protect the football...- no rocket science here but our pass catchers need to realize they are not running 99 yards by breaking 1 tackle...for those extra 2 yards its better to sacrifice the yardage than hang on to the ball loosely.
e)Hard to fault the defense but our pass rush is not good enough...you compare that with the miami pass rush which was relentless...even though the miami o line has been much malingned this season earlier...
and without the pass rush our secondary is quite simple to exploit..2 big plays today by the D ..the first TD to booker came after miami converted a 4th down by pitching the ball back from the line of scrimmage...we shouldve tackled better there...and hawkins on that TD shouldve knocked the ball down instead of going for the INT...If wilfork is out any extended period of time our run D is in deep trouble..bruschi is being handled easily by teams this yr.
f)Special teams- ken walter is our punter...nuff said.Lets hope we dont play too many field position games anymore..we wont win much ...
g)Coaching- Iam surprised BB and the staff didnt handle taylor.Sure he is an awesome player but our staff has been known take out the opposition's best player and we didnt do that today , whether by putting graham to help where he was and however.
Mcdaniels has obviously been talked about a lot so not much to say. I think our team cant play much from behind, so its imperative we come out and start fast. no huddle to start the game or mixed in between series is something to look for. And the trick plays/unpredictable plays we should run them early when the offense has some confidence not when we are all messed up. Like charlie weis used to start the game with the reverse.If the pats practiced this faulk-brady pass play this week iam sure weis wouldve called it earlier in the first quarter.
And we need to run the ball more.

On the whole our team especially offensively needs to know its limitations .We are talking about improvements in the passing game for weeks but it hasnt happened that much.So we should probably become a running team like the steelers and pass up when we get a chance or once we get the o line playing confident and the defenses tired or worn out a bit .Play physical football and get rid of these stupid reverses when you have only troy brown to run it.
Defensively, hope rodney returns and so does wilfork, get rid of those stupid penalties.Dont know if anything else can be done.

On the whole there is only one great team in the league- san diego..rest all the teams have some faults or another but i would put our team as number 5 or 6 right now of all the 6 afc playoff teams..just my take.

thoughts?

 

[CheerforTom]

You pretty much said it all. In all honesty I don't think there was one positive about this game, except maybe for Brady walking off the field like you say, and I'm usually Mr. Optimistic. Every aspect of the game was terrible. Anytime we did something well it was negated by penalties. It's been a decline since the Indy loss, before that we completely destroyed Buffalo and Minnesota.

It either gets better soon or we're 1 and done. Simple as that.

 

[Sean Pa Patriot]

Were not playing good football at the right time and that is what scares me.. We need to take advantage of the situation at hand right now.. Next yr there is no doubt, Buff NYJ and Miami will have caught up with the Pats, and I know people say we all have these draft picks and as long as BB and Brady are with us we are fine.. True to a point, but if we dont get younger at LB, some WR help, and a good corner, our run is done..

 

[Patfandango]

Nice original post. That was about as badly beaten as we've been since 2001 and in all three phases of the game. The OL line play was miserable and they seemed to almost give up out there, but really, no one played well out there. Not having maroney and losing watson and wilfork certainly hurt. I'm hopeful that this game was one of those hiccup games and BB will use this as a motivational tool.

Your concerns on the game planning nature of this team are interesting. I and others have argued before that the morphing nature is this team's speciality and their strong middle class allows them to do that. The flip side of this is that teams that focus on a single strength, can get really good at it. I think we've lost the execution battle the last few weeks, perhaps due to not being able to focus on a single strength.

Big, picture, we haven't played well the last three weeks, which is disconcerting since its after Thanksgiving, a time where we should you what we have. This is certainly different than our three super bowl years where we peaked in December-February. That said, we won 2 out of 3 of those. We will be in the playoffs but won't last long unless we turn it around. On the other hand, my optimism has been shaken and for the first time in a long while, I'm concerned that don't have what it takes this year.