The Official "Pats Have a Second Half Problem" Thread

[aluminum seats]

I think that the problem is in assuming there is one answer.
First, I think you have to limit second half 'losses' to actual games that are lost. Its irrelevant that the Bengals scored more points than the Pats last week when the primary job was to preserve the win, not add to the lead. A strategy that protects the lead, even if allowing more 2nd half points than it scores, is still sound.
Also what happened last year and what happened, will happen or is happening this year are not the same thing.

Yes, the Patriots have all too often had games that were close at the half, that they lost with poor play in the 2nd half. 5 times since last year.

The biggest mistake that could be made would be to assume there is one answer for all of those games spread so far apart, with different players, different dynamics, and different opponents.

I am sure that there were times that the other team did a better job adjusting their game plan than we did.
Logically, you would expect that to happen half the time. Since we are ignoring the games that we had no second half problems, I dont know that
I could call losing the 'adjustment battle' 5 times in 18 games bad coaching, if in fact that were the sole cause.
I mean the standard cannot be that our coaching staff outcoaches every team, every game, every half, or we are being foolish.

I am sure that an analysis would show that some of those games inviolved poor decision making by the coaching staff, others would sbow poor execution of good decisions, and some would show both.

IMO, if the discussion is about this weeks game, you can certainly find ingenius ideas in hindsight that got missed and you can certainly find poor exection.
I think in this case though it is clear that plays were there to be made that werent. and the larger issue was execution.

Look at it this way, from the offensive side.
If before the game we said that we would come out and attack the Jets D successfully enough that they will abandon theiir blitzing identity, flood the middle of the field, sit back in coverage and need to leave Moss in single coverage with no help, and no Revis, and all we have to do is execute the plays that will exploit that D, anyone who says that would be a bad plan is lying.
That is what happened, we got those plays, we didnt make them. Not only didnt we make the plays that exploited that D we turned them into turnovers. That aint scheme, adjustment or play call, thats failing to make the play we wanted to have them give us.

Well, I absolutely agree that there's not just one answer, but a combination of factors.

But I think one of the benefits of going back 19 games is that the particulars of any given game don't matter so much. That's a fairly sizeable sample to draw from.

 

[aluminum seats]

Alright, let's start with the most recent game and work backwards to see when games were "won" and "lost".

• Jets 28, Pats 14: NYJ outscores Pats 18-0 after halftime, so game was 'lost' in 2nd half
• Pats 38, Bengals 24: Pats didn't have a chance to 'win' this game in the 2nd half because of the 24-3 halftime lead. The fact Cincy outscored the Pats in the second half is irrelevant.
  
  
• Ravens 33, Pats 14: Game was lost in the first quarter; 2nd half score is irrelevant.
• Texans 34, Pats 27: Meaningless game; 2nd half score is irrelevant.
• Pats 35, Jags 7: With a 28-0 halftime lead, 2nd half score is irrelevant.
• Pats 17, Bills 10: Though Buffalo outscored the Pats by 4 in the 2nd half, the Pats did what they needed to do in that 2nd half to win.
• Pats 20, Panthers 10: Score tied at halftime; Pats win in 2nd half.
• Dolphins 22, Pats 21: Pats outscored by 5 in 2nd half to lose.
• Saints 38, Pats 17: Game is 'lost' in 2nd quarter; 2nd half score is irrelevant.
• Pats 31, Jets 14: Pats did what they needed to do in 2nd half to win; 2nd half score is irrelevant.
• Colts 35, Pats 34: Game is 'lost' in 4th quarter (not a half-time adjustment)
• Pats 35, Bucs 7: Pats did what they needed to do in 2nd half to win.
• Pats 59, Titans 0: Pats did what they needed to do at start of 2nd half to remove any possibility of comeback.
• Broncos 20, Pats 17: Game is 'lost' in 2nd half/OT.
• Pats 27, Ravens 21: Pats did what they needed to do in 2nd half to win.
• Pats 26, Falcons 10: Pats break open close game to win in 2nd half.
• Jets 16, Pats 9: Pats go from up by 6 at halftime to lose by 7, so game was 'lost' in 2nd half.
• Pats 25, Bills 24: Pats score three times in 4th quarter for come from behind 2nd half win.

Do the Pats need to be more effective and productive in the second half?

Yes.


Are the "second half problems" overstated, maybe due to an over-simplified statistical analysis?

Probably.

Disagree with the repeated idea that so many second halves are 'irrelevent." Any given game you can say, well, it looked like it was in hand, or out of reach, or whatever, but when's it's such a consistent trend (1 out of the past 11) those arguments lose traction. The game is still being played. To have your opponent consistently score more points than you in the second half may be straightforward, but it's not over-simplified. It is what it is.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

There is already a million threads talking about this, why did you have to make this one? Wasn't aware that you had the power to make something official either, I think you mean unofficial.

The way to kill threads is to ignore them. If you post in them, it just bumps them. I think this is a fair, if over-discussed, topic to present as it is on the minds of a lot of people. If you don't like it, ignore it.

 

[jmt57]

Disagree with the repeated idea that so many second halves are 'irrelevent." Any given game you can say, well, it looked like it was in hand, or out of reach, or whatever, but when's it's such a consistent trend (1 out of the past 11) those arguments lose traction. The game is still being played. To have your opponent consistently score more points than you in the second half may be straightforward, but it's not over-simplified. It is what it is.

Point I'm trying to make is that you're only looking at total points scored in the second half, and not considering the circumstances. In doing so, you are implying the team performed poorly in the wins against the Bengals, Jaguars, Bills, and Jets during that stretch. And you're also giving the game against the Texans equal importance to any of the other games, when it had no bearing on the standings to the Pats (though not to Houston) and many reserves were playing. That's five out of eleven games, nearly half of your sample size. In addition, by making the cutoff at that point rather than for example the start of last season, several wins which would run counter to that analysis are omitted.


Again, I'm not saying there is no problem. I completely agree that the team needs to be more productive and effective in the second half. I'm simply suggesting that if you're going to use those numbers and statistics, then they need to be looked at a little bit more closely before reaching a conclusion.





(Also, to BradyFTW, you are correct, a 14-point halftime lead does not mean the game is over, I should have omitted that remark. Point I was trying to make for this discussion was what part of the game had the biggest point differential, for the purpose of labeling when a game was 'won' or 'lost'.)

 

[aluminum seats]

Point I'm trying to make is that you're only looking at total points scored in the second half, and not considering the circumstances. In doing so, you are implying the team performed poorly in the wins against the Bengals, Jaguars, Bills, and Jets during that stretch. And you're also giving the game against the Texans equal importance to any of the other games, when it had no bearing on the standings to the Pats (though not to Houston) and many reserves were playing. That's five out of eleven games, nearly half of your sample size. In addition, by making the cutoff at that point rather than for example the start of last season, several wins which would run counter to that analysis are omitted.


Again, I'm not saying there is no problem. I completely agree that the team needs to be more productive and effective in the second half. I'm simply suggesting that if you're going to use those numbers and statistics, then they need to be looked at a little bit more closely before reaching a conclusion.

Fair enough. I should point out that I did go to the beginning of last season (19 games), I just mentioned that the trend is even worse in the last 11. And the point in doing that was to say that independent of the particulars of any given game, this is an ongoing, consistent phenomenom.

Football seasons being so short (in terms of the number of games) it's harder than in say, baseball, to draw conclusions. What's more, teams change so much year to year that you can't go much beyond the past season (I was tempted to just for the heck of it, but using games w/Cassel as the QB in the analysis seemed like a non-starter.)