The Official Who's Up & Who's Down Thread

[PATSYLICIOUS]

Up:

Fred Taylor
Aaron Hernandez
Alge Crumpler
Dan Connolly
Gronk

Down:

Ted Larsen
McKenzie
Taylor Price

Add Morris, Zoltan (5 I20's in 2 games, 0 TB's), McCourty, Chung to the UPS.

Larsen and BJGE would be my downs. Wilhite dancing like a buffoon over a preseason pick when had he dropped the pick it would've benefitted us more anyways.

 

[Ring 6]

Wright. They constantly ran wherever he was lined up.
.

You dont really think they gameplanned a preseason game with a matchup they were trying to exploit do you?
If they did run at Wright, why is that bad, the run D was OK.

 

[Deus Irae]

Up

Hernandez - Nice adjustment on the TD catch.

Taylor - Some strong runs from the old man

Faulk - Well, it's Faulk

Brady - Missed the bomb, but was solid otherwise

Welker - Played and took some hits. Now, off to the ice bath for the little big man

McCourty - Might have gotten away with P.I. on one pass, but looked very comfortable out there and made an excellent read on an early run play

Brace - Welcome back to the ranks of the playing, Mr. Brace, and nice FF.


Down

Larsen - Can't hold the line and can't keep still

Neal - Let's hope that his only stinker this year

Vollmer - Gotta do better than that

McGowan - Terrible work out there

Price - Gotta sack it up on those catch attempts

DEs - If that's what we're going to see all season, there are going to be some very problematic games

BJGE - 7 carries for 12 yards, with a long of 4, following up last week is not the way to nail down a spot on the 53.


General observations/Opinions

Wilfork is carrying too much weight.

Wilhite picking off a ball on 4th down and then dancing about it when the team would have been better served with an incompletion is probably not the sort of thing that will win him a lot of points with this particular coaching staff.

I thought McKenzie had another uneven game. He's not flowing instinctively, he's not as powerful as Spikes, and he's still getting lost in the wash, but the FumRec and a few other nice plays kept him near even with last week in my book.

Connolly had a couple of decent/nice plays, but he missed on a few out there, too. I couldn't really put him in the up or down category, because I think he was the same way last week, but the inconsistency of his game is a very, very bad thing.

The LBs are struggling in pass coverage. That's got to change, in a hurry. Guyton can't play every LB spot on passing downs, so others will need to step up.

 

[Deus Irae]

Wright. They constantly ran wherever he was lined up.

You might want to look at the film again. Wright is the white guy on the line.

 

[tombonneau]

I agree with this list.

I was happy when Taylor Price was drafted; but I was also happy when Hangin' Chad Jackson was drafted. I really hope that Price overcomes his Alligator Arms disease.

McGowan was absolutely awful tonight. When considering his 2nd-half performance last year (incl. his laugh-fest after the loss in Miami) and his performance tonight, I really hope that he doesn't make the team.

And to think that some people considered Mike Wright a legit backup NT; he can barely hold the fort as a DE.

Pierre Woods continues to do what he's been doing at OLB for the last 4 years: nothing.

Not only did Ninko not set the edge on a number of running plays to his side, but he also blew some assignments on passing plays, too. Very disappointing.

Hoping Price overcomes his rookie jitters and becomes a player. If they keep Aiken for ST I could see him as the #5 with Price inactive early in the season.

I'll be especially bummed if Price doesn't work out as I really wanted Shipley with that pick. Thought he'd be perfect in this offense and word out of Cincy is he's playing Antonio Bryant off the team.

All that said, I think Price will come around. Were spoiled if a guy like Edelman immediately catching on, but lots of rookie WRs take awhile to learn the ropes.

 

[Patjew]

You might want to look at the film again. Wright is the white guy on the line.

Wright Power!

 

[Coog548]

Spikes and Devin really looked good out there. Solid spots when playing with the starters. Spikes looked a bit out of place when he was with the second team LBS. Devin was solid in coverage.

 

[pencilneckgeek]

I loved these guys
Fred Taylor - Quick reads, fast through the hole, and powerful running.
McCourty - Solid in all aspects, run defense, tight coverage, sure tackling.
Chung - Fast, controlled, solid hits.
Hernandez - Great hands, great route running. Would like to see his blocking improve.

I liked some things I saw
Murrell looked comfortable in coverage. He looks like he belongs opposite TBC. No standout plays, however.
Ninkovich had a beautiful bullrush sack and nice opening kickoff tackle. He might have a job.
Brace - Had some push and was stout at the point of attack. He did looked gassed on one play and after nicely holding his ground and getting off his block just wandered around, while McKenzie and Wilhite struggled to bring down the runner. Brace could have gotten the D off the field by simply falling on the pile.
Wheatley and Wilhite - Wheatley didn't get thrown toward much. He seemed to be in position on the TD, but a solid block by McGowan took him out. Wilhite stayed under control and made solid tackles. Just did his job.

Mixed Bag
Butler and McGowan make some quick tackles after the catch, but they always me feel like they're one juke away from giving up a big play. McGowan proved my concern valid last night.
Backup offensive line - some decent running plays, a few drives where Hoyer looked like he might survive, but mistakes everywhere. When OBurger came in and Connolly moved to the backfiled, OB bounced off his man and only strong work from Connolly and the runner made the 1-yard gain successful. He did look like a strong point at RG later on.

 

[vyrago]

LOL This is my least favorite media exercise, made worse when attempted by fans on a message board.

Given the diversity of opinion on this thread, the posters much be watching different games or some DVRed the game and re-watched it and took notes while some used the old dart board method.
That goes, to a great extent, for the paid pundits too.

One assumes that the Patriots coaches are a little more specific and refer to actual plays and situations when they grade the players since jobs depend on their assessments.

 

[QB12]

Well let's shut down this message board, eliminate fan opinion, and pore over PR releases from the team. And pull the plug on the Internet also.

Satisfied?

 

[vyrago]

Well let's shut down this message board, eliminate fan opinion, and pore over PR releases from the team. And pull the plug on the Internet also.

Satisfied?

Point taken.

 

[patsfaninpittsburgh]

Well let's shut down this message board, eliminate fan opinion, and pore over PR releases from the team. And pull the plug on the Internet also.

Satisfied?

Testy this morning.

 

[upstater1]

People are giving Wilhite too much guff for that 4th down interception. I want my CB always making that INT in that situation. The probability of a return is much higher than the probability of scoring a TD on the next series. If it's a downfield throw, then I agree, you don't intercept it. But if you're 10-15 yards off the line of scrimmage, there are only about 5 guys out there who are in position to tackle you, and most of them are slow.

As it was, Wilhite had some open space to run but he was busy juking. Blame him for his indecisive return but not for the INT itself.

 

[borg]

To me the big up is McCourty. With his play vs. a big physical elite wr in White I think he cemented a starting spot.

That brought a smile to my face

 

[shmessy]

Up:

With People

Down:

Goes Frazier

 

[ausbacker]

Wright Power!

This post needs more credit .

 

[Rob0729]

Wright Power!

Gee Patjew, never pictured you to be a Wright Supremecist.

 

[JackBauer]

I thought by and large the young defensive players looked promising, particularly Chung. This should be a unit that gets better and better as the season goes on and they start developing some chemistry.

This defense is probably still going to be of the "bend but don't break" variety, but one promising thing I've seen thus far is that they've been able to make key stops on third down when they've needed to, and they haven't yet shown a propensity to completely fall apart in the red zone, like last year.

Another promising thing I noticed was that both Brace and Deaderick showed some nice things. Not amazing by any stretch, but for those who have concerns about this defensive line holding up against the run all season long, and for those, like I, who are skeptical of Wright's ability as a full-time DE, I'd say that has to be a big plus. At minimum, I'd hope to see one or both of those two step up and play the "big fat guy run clogger" role this year.

 

[SanAngeloState]

I saw McGowan making a lot of tackles out there. How is he "down"?

Ninkovich, I don't know, it's hard for me to see every player on the play unless you slomo it...I thought he had some pass pressure. I thought he was up, WAY UP.

 

[condon84]

I thought by and large the young defensive players looked promising, particularly Chung. This should be a unit that gets better and better as the season goes on and they start developing some chemistry.

This defense is probably still going to be of the "bend but don't break" variety, but one promising thing I've seen thus far is that they've been able to make key stops on third down when they've needed to, and they haven't yet shown a propensity to completely fall apart in the red zone, like last year.

Another promising thing I noticed was that both Brace and Deaderick showed some nice things. Not amazing by any stretch, but for those who have concerns about this defensive line holding up against the run all season long, and for those, like I, who are skeptical of Wright's ability as a full-time DE, I'd say that has to be a big plus. At minimum, I'd hope to see one or both of those two step up and play the "big fat guy run clogger" role this year.

One thing I noticed on 3rd and long is that we had our CBs playing off and allowed the catch underneath and on some occasions, the Falcons got enough for the first down. I think our CBs are talented enough to pressure WRs from the line and force QBs to make hard throws instead of giving them the easy underneath pass and hoping that the WR gets tackled before getting the first down. On 3rd and short, I applauded the fact that McCourty was up on Roddy's face and got physical and broke up the easy completion. I think our DBs are athletic enough now that we can play a bit more aggressive, even if we are playing zone. Overall though, I love the effort shown by our guys.