The Offense-after the preseason & 2 games

[mgteich]

Belichick added Taylor, Baker, Matthews, Galloway, Edelman and Matthews. He chose to not to bring back Gaffney or sign a fullback. Maroney is back healthy. The 2007 line is intact. Vollmer has been added. On paper, this offense is as good as 2007. This is NOT an offense in progress. All the starters are back. If the newcomers aren't quite ready, the rest are last year's offense with a better quarterback and a healthy Maroney.
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Brady hasn't shown that he is close to being ready to lead the team to a Super Bowl win or even the playoffs. He is wearing a brace and has a sore shoulder. Like Peyton last year, Brady will come back. It could be next week. It could take half the season, but he will be back.

In the meantime, we will see how many games are lost. I have no specific analysis other than the obvious. Perhaps I am pushing for the NEM award, but I have never seen a Belichick team so poorly coached and I have never seen poorer play calling. There have been bad games and even blowouts, but I have never seen the coaching so clearly to blame.

And it really is a shame. The talent is here. The coaches should know what Brady can and can't do. The coaches should be able to devise a game plan that works around Brady's current limitations.

Belichick apparently wants to be HC, GM, OC and DC. With due respect for the best coach ever, there aren't enough hours in the day for Belichick to be effective in all those roles.

 

[lobster]

A couple more games of Brady hobbling around with that knee brace and the fans will call for Brian Hoyer to start as the QB.

 

[BritPat]

A couple more games of Brady hobbling around with that knee brace and the fans will call for Brian Hoyer to start as the QB.

Good Lord.

 

[Lazerlike42]

Belichick added Taylor, Baker, Matthews, Galloway, Edelman and Matthews. He chose to not to bring back Gaffney or sign a fullback. Maroney is back healthy. The 2007 line is intact. Vollmer has been added. On paper, this offense is as good as 2007. This is NOT an offense in progress. All the starters are back. If the newcomers aren't quite ready, the rest are last year's offense with a better quarterback and a healthy Maroney.
============================================

Brady hasn't shown that he is close to being ready to lead the team to a Super Bowl win or even the playoffs. He is wearing a brace and has a sore shoulder. Like Peyton last year, Brady will come back. It could be next week. It could take half the season, but he will be back.

In the meantime, we will see how many games are lost. I have no specific analysis other than the obvious. Perhaps I am pushing for the NEM award, but I have never seen a Belichick team so poorly coached and I have never seen poorer play calling. There have been bad games and even blowouts, but I have never seen the coaching so clearly to blame.

And it really is a shame. The talent is here. The coaches should know what Brady can and can't do. The coaches should be able to devise a game plan that works around Brady's current limitations.

Belichick apparently wants to be HC, GM, OC and DC. With due respect for the best coach ever, there aren't enough hours in the day for Belichick to be effective in all those roles.

I think that there's a misunderstanding here. Brady's problems aren't physical, and the knee brace has very little to do with anything. It's not as if there are some things he can do and some he can't.

The problem is, as has been said by every expert on returning from this kind of injury that's spoken on it, mental. Brady isn't comfortable playing football with live action going on around him. He's tentative in his movements and does not step into his throws. In that Jets game Sunday the vast majority of his throws, both under pressure and out of it, were made off of his back foot or backpedaling. Other throws were made far too early and without touch for fear of "phantom pressure." In other words, if you watch the game again you'll see Brady standing in a good pocket without much pressure yet making throws with the motion someone does when he's got a guy in his face.

So honestly, there isn't much that the coaching staff can do here. There wasn't much Tom Mohr could do for Peyton Manning, either. It's just a matter of time, and it's going to take patience.

In fact, I personally believe that is part of the reason for Belichick's interesting "look" at the post-game conference. It wasn't his normal "we just lost a big game" look, nor was it his usual "sore loser" look that we see sometimes when he loses to Mangini or some other game he really had an emotional investment in. It was - at least the way I saw it - more a look of understanding resignation. In other words, he looked to me like a man who knew this was going to be the way it was for the time being, but that there was not much alternative.