Pats vs. Giants: things to look for tonight

[Patspsycho]

A few things to look for tonight:

1) Secondary: I would expect us to play the same way we played in the game against the Rams. We are probably going to do the same “soft coverage” that has been driving most of you nuts; but I think that’s going to continue until it gets done right. One thing that particularly bothered me from the last game was poor communication, something that was a big problem last season, and which seems to have carried over into this preseason, persistently. The last TD that put the Rams over us, came out of a bunch formation where you had players standing around in zone wondering who’s responsible for who. And unfortunately that’s going to continue now that we have a very young backfield. We may not see it tonight but once regular season starts we are going to see a lot of stack, bunch, and trips looks out of the other team’s offensive formations, and we will see double moves, cross routes, etc. anything to get assignments mixed up. The few times we were in cover 0 or 1 (Mayo in spy), we stopped them, with a sack, interception, and turnover, so we were particularly effective there. However, look for a lot of zone coverage tonight. That is what preseason is about.

2) One other thing I’d like to see is for Butler to stop relying on his athleticism to keep bailing him out of trouble (it is starting to catch up with him). He has to start focusing on proper technique, focus on winning leverage, focus on correct hand technique, and being between his man and the ball, and most importantly, knowing where the ball is at all times. McCourty is going to get a trial by fire again. Last game he got faked out so bad on a fake hitch-and-go by Avery. He is going to get targeted tonight until he proves he can hold his own.

3) Motivation: this is still a relatively young team on D, and when the Rams came to town, we played them like the 1-15 team we thought they were, and once we scored on them 12 seconds in the game, we hit the snooze button. An inevitable challenge for any young defense is to stop this up and down performance trait, to try to create the mental toughness to sustain a consistent performance. Both sides are going to come out firing tonight, but what we want to look for is if they are able to sustain this all game, to sustain it consistently, when key players are rotated out, and the mistakes start piling up. It's hard to keep the momentum going when the mistakes are just pushing you back. We need to see who can break through that.

4) Last chance: I expect Brady to do no more than one drive if he plays at all. The same will be true for key players, so as to give the guys at the bottom a chance to fight for a spot. Areas to look out for are DL, hit by injuries- Brace and Deaderick not expected to play tonight. OL will also probably get rotated big time to see who’s worth keeping and who will hit the wire this Saturday. McKenzie is wearing the green dot tonight so this will be a big game for him to call, to show that he is worthy of a roster spot. Arrington and Wheatley are not expected to play tonight as well, so we will see who gets the alternate reps at the CB spot.

 

[Sicilian]

Agreed on all points. On top of those, I would add the following, since I expect us to play a lot of potential defensive starters to see who shines:

5) Defensive Line - Depending on if the Giants OL starters are in at the beginning or not, this could be the last chance for guys like Brace, Deaderick, Warren, and Lewis to show what they've got. If the Giants play their backup OL early, it will be harder to really gauge anything though.

6) OLB - Will it be TBC and Burgess to start again? Or will we go back to Murrell on one side? If it's Burgess, I want to see some progress, so at least there's hope his subpar play was rust and not insurmountable.

 

[Los]

7) Will special teams (particularly the return game) continue to show the explosiveness that they've displayed so far this preseason?

 

[Sicilian]

7) Will special teams (particularly the return game) continue to show the explosiveness that they've displayed so far this preseason?

That could be huge, but I'm less concerned with our return game since I believe our offense can score with any length of field. I want to see continued solid play on kickoff coverage (I can't remember a return in the preseason that made it past the 30 aside from the one in the first game. Since then they've been great), and more consistency out of the punt coverage, which includes but is not exclusive to the performance of Mesko.

 

[Kontradiction]

I stopped paying huge amounts of attention to the defensive line in the Rams preseason game myself. I'm going to focus on it again. Since I would be surprised if Brace actually played, I'll most likely have my eye on Deaderick. I've been impressed with his technique and aggressiveness so far. Unfortunately, that aggressiveness has had a tendency to come back and bite him on a couple of plays. It's to be expected, though. He's a rookie. I'm most interested in how he does against the run.

If Meriweather plays, another thing I will also be watching is whether or not they move him down to CB and, if they do, which packages they do so in.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Given the amount of injuries we're dealing with, including the unknown nagging ones that have kept many off the practice field this week, coupled with the way the Giants have been playing, I intend to look for nothing tonight. I wouldn't be surprised if both Coughlin and Bill wouldn't prefer to just default and get home and back to practice. I assume Bill's primary goal tonight is to establish his starters are awake and engaged and if they can get a productive series in he will be making massive substitutions from the bottom of the roster to get one last long look at the players competing for the last 3 spots on the roster, the PS and the shadow roster.

The only interesting wildcard tonight will be Maroney, does he start or remain under wraps... I can't imagine this is some stealth motivational crap or that if he wasn't prepared to start him in the backfield he wouldn't have made a move somewhere in the draft or kicked tires at some point between then and now...

I could see Merriweather getting some time at CB simply for emergency cross training purposes, except that he was out part of the week due to injury and he is the most talented and experienced (Sanders lacks the talent) safety on the roster.

 

[West Philly Patriot]

1) I hope deaderick plays tonite as well because he and brace are who i have been watching the most during preseason. I wish we could have atleast seen crable play one preseason game this year but o well.

2) Considering recent developments @ corner im sure we all will be watching the CB play. It's already been said about butler needing to improve technique. I would love for wilhite to beat out mccourty given he has years of service in and should know this defense and where he should be on any given play, but wheatley has looked better than wilhite at times for some unknown reason.

 

[PATSNUTme]

One thing to look for is the 7PM starting time of the game. The other non-network games started at 7:30 but not this baby.

So make sure you note the time or you'll miss things to look for tonight's 1st quarter.

 

[Richard Camembert]

A few things to look for tonight:

1) One thing that particularly bothered me from the last game was poor communication, something that was a big problem last season, and which seems to have carried over into this preseason, persistently. The last TD that put the Rams over us, came out of a bunch formation where you had players standing around in zone wondering who’s responsible for who...

2) One other thing I’d like to see is for Butler to stop relying on his athleticism to keep bailing him out of trouble (it is starting to catch up with him)...McCourty is going to get a trial by fire again. Last game he got faked out so bad on a fake hitch-and-go by Avery. He is going to get targeted tonight until he proves he can hold his own...

3) Motivation: this is still a relatively young team on D, and when the Rams came to town, we played them like the 1-15 team we thought they were, and once we scored on them 12 seconds in the game, we hit the snooze button...

4) Last chance: Areas to look out for are DL, hit by injuries- Brace and Deaderick not expected to play tonight. OL will also probably get rotated big time to see who’s worth keeping and who will hit the wire this Saturday. McKenzie is wearing the green dot tonight so this will be a big game for him to call, to show that he is worthy of a roster spot. Arrington and Wheatley are not expected to play tonight as well, so we will see who gets the alternate reps at the CB spot.

All of this.

It's puerile, but the D needs to make some stops, I am sick of the long drives. And I need to see some energy from them. The Giants have a well-balanced O with some quality WR and RB so this is a good test for the D, and since I think some of the guys still need reps, I would actually anticipate some of the starters, especially some of the younger ones, being in for a quarter or longer. I also wanna see Prior step up.

In re: the O, I agree about Maroney, it's been done to death but whatever BB is doing with him, he has to have some PT, doesn't he? And it'd be reassuring to see Hernandez back on the field.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

You won't see anyone on the field tonight who is expected to make the roster but hasn't been able to practice this week.

The Giants have had a disasterous pre season, I wouldn't expect that to change or anything they do tonight to have much context for either team in the regular season as a result, although I hope our backup QB is better than theirs... Who is theirs now??

 

[Deus Irae]

1.) If Wheatley is active (I don't have expectations of this), will he be the 3rd CB in?

2.) Will Warren start playing the run as if he's got some lead in his ass, or will he keep getting knocked around as he has the past couple of games?

3.) How does McKenzie handle his big game?

4.) Does Burgess look any better, or is he still just a speed bump out there?

5.) OG play

6.) Will Hernandez really be looked at for any kind of blocking?

7.) How does Hoyer handle extended minutes?

 

[JackBauer]

I'll mostly be checking out Brady's hair style du jour.