We haven't done anything but get worse

[VOODOOZF]

This team has gotten better. Offense doesn't win championships, D does! Guess what, our d is friggen better! The offense will be huge like it always is. This team will be closer to a 14-2 record than 12-4.

How did the defense get "better"? Surely you don't mean by signing an over the hill safety who had to come off the field for third downs last season for the Cardinals. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make the opening day roster.

 

[JackBauer]

How did the defense get "better"? Surely you don't mean by signing an over the hill safety who had to come off the field for third downs last season for the Cardinals. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make the opening day roster.

Armstead was a promising sign, Jones, Hightower, Dennard and Wilson should take steps forward in their sophomore campaigns. A. Wilson should still be able to contribute at a decent level. They still need a DT/DE but no reason to expect they won't get one or both in FA/the draft.

 

[Bruins29]

A full season of a healthy Talib can't hurt.

 

[JJDChE]

This is cute, and the internet tough guy act really does wonders for your credibility.

I've yet to see you post anything of value or provide any sort of substantial retort beyond "I'm right, you're wrong and now I'm going to plug my ears".

Advice for ya, courtesy of our 16th president...

'It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.'

 

[ThatllMoveTheChains!!!]

Last year it's arguably a different tune if gronk, talib, and chandler are healthy. However every team deals with injuries, including the sb champs ravens who were without their best corner, starting ss had broken ribs, former dpoy was a shell of himself, star dt was barely function and so on. They still smoked us in our own house and I'm pretty sure the niners, packers, falcons and Seahawks all would have beaten us as well.

So what have we done to improve? Our offense has gotten worse, which is okay assuming it gets worse because we invest in improving the defense... Which we have barely done anything besides barely maintain the status quo.

The only way you could possibly believe we will better this season is if you believe MULTIPLE of the following will happen.

1. We get two impact starters with our late first and second round picks
2. A few of Chandler, Wilson, dowling, Ridley, vereen, Hightower, bequette will have a significantly better season.
3. Gronkowski and Hernandez will both be healthy the entire season.
4. Brady will have a 50-1 td-int ratio.
5. Amendola turns into 2007 moss.
6. We manage to trade for a big time star player
7. We hit a couple Danny Woodhead calibre home runs in udfa and fa scrap heap
8. Wilson turns into 2004 Rodney Harrison
9. Talib stays healthy the entire season

For me there are WAY too many "if he stays healthy for the first time in his entire career" and "if we get extremely lucky and hit massive home runs" for my taste. Right now we are a worse team and a lot of things have to go right o just break even, let alone be better.

We have gaping holes on the dl, serious corner depth issues, questionable safety play behind McCourty and are still incapable of covering good pass catching tight ends and running backs. On top of that, our offense which won us most of our games in large part thanks to welker is praying amendola can stay healthy (doubtful) and can even come close to the production welker gave. AND we currently have no other real wideouts on the roster that we need to save cap space for and address somehow.

Im not saying we are going to be bad, but right now I don't see much beyond a first or second round loss in disappointing fashion. Our defense getting lit up in the secondary, no pass rush, and our team unable to run to win when it counts. Sorry it's not being a pessimist to think we can't solve these issues with two top 60 picks and limited cap space and free agents available.

Just for some perspective the Pats scored 21 rushing TDs last year excluding Woodhead, so if these two things occur you'd have a baseline of 497 points scored by the offense alone before our running backs get "significantly better". If you add in a TD or two due to significant improvement from the RBs, ~80 points from FGs (about Ghost's avg), a TD or two from the D, and a TD or two from STs you're rapidly approaching/breaking 600 pts, which would eclipse the current record for points scored. According to you more than this would have to occur for the Pats to be better despite the fact that the D is likely to be better than last season since it's young and hasn't lost any true contributors.

C/N: Your stance isn't reasonable.

 

[ThatllMoveTheChains!!!]

How did the defense get "better"? Surely you don't mean by signing an over the hill safety who had to come off the field for third downs last season for the Cardinals. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make the opening day roster.

Because it was better the second half of last season, it's young, and most/all of the significant contributors are back?

 

[Bruins29]

C/N: Your stance isn't reasonable.

Neither is his existence

 

[ralmat55]

The OP reminds me that last week, after I made a post, it came to my attention that if anyone was paying attention to my posts they might think I suffered from manic depression. This is why I hate the team building stage of the offseason: none of us know what the final product is going to look like, so we experience, at times, the same anxiety level we feel watching our team's pass defense try to protect a lead over the last few seasons.

I've decided to keep a little perspective for sanity sake. The Pats have managed to keep 2 of their 3 most important free agents replacing the 3rd with a highly-sought after player who some NFL scouts say will actually be an upgrade. They have many young players such as Ridley, Vereen, Solder, Cannon, Jones, Hightower, Wilson and Dennard who have shown promise and should continue to improve. The Pats still have about $12 million of cap space and plenty of solid veterans remain on the market, and the draft has quality depth at positions where they may be lacking.

 

[SVN]

Coach Mike Tomlin has an answer for those who think the Steelers are trending down.

"That's March talk," Tomlin told Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Gerry Dulac on Tuesday at the NFL Annual Meeting in Phoenix. "I'll see you at stadiums in the fall."

...........

 

[Bruins29]

replacing the 3rd with a highly-sought after player who some NFL scouts say will actually be an upgrade.

There is no way that NFL scouts could know more than the posters here. Its insulting to even infer that. I mean some of the armchair GMs on this forum would run circles around these guys, in the draft, in the meeting rooms, on the sidelines. When had DA ever put up WW numbers? The guy can't even stay healthy. WW is not even replaceable? These NFL scouts must have either been blind, stupid, or have drunk so much DA kool aid that they piss red.

Seriously?

 

[supafly]

Don't know if they're worse or but they're not much better than they were last year especially on defense and that's disappointing given the cap space they had to work with.
Disappointing off-season so far. Hope it gets better with the draft.

How did the defense get "better"? Surely you don't mean by signing an over the hill safety who had to come off the field for third downs last season for the Cardinals. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make the opening day roster.

How haven't they gotten better so far on defense even before the draft? What positions were the 2012 NEP defense better at as opposed to the defense that we already have now with 5+ months remaining before an actual game?

There isn't one single position of the 4 defensive groupings where you could say that the 2012 or 2011 Patriots were better, and we still have 85% of free agency and the entire draft ahead of us.

Differences from last season:

DL--Armstead, Pryor, (healthy Love), we're also expecting a higher round draft pick, at least a handful of vets will be added for competition, we've already brought a bigger name in Abraham in, (healthy Jones + expected 2nd yr leap)

LB--Fletcher as ILB depth and a much better coverage LB than Carpenter/White etc, Hightower expected 2nd yr leap, even Spikes is in a contract year and showed improvements last year in consistency

CB--BOTH starters are projected to be here for the entire season and will offer a continuation of the improvement we saw down the stretch last season. All 3 of our FA corners of Talib, Arrington, and Cole were re-signed. Arrington is projected for full-time slot duty and won't have to play outside, Dowling will once again try and contribute and should be healthy again. We also have McCourty as depth if our other options are not better, and we've seen him switch back and forth in the same game before, so we could potentially see that if/when needed

S--Addition of Adrian Wilson, progression of T.Wilson and expected 2nd year leap, Gregory shouldn't have to start anymore but can act as a rotational player, Chung is removed from the equation altogether, and McCourty is a full-time starter

 

[mgcolby]

Cole being terrible doesn't change the fact Talib is overrated. Stupid logic is incredibly stupid.

Talib is a solid corner who does an okay job but isn't nearly as special as people like to believe. The Patriots turnaround in the secondary was because McCourty solidified the safety position more than anything. The secondary thing was because Arrington was moved inside with the emergence of Dennard and was great in the slot as opposed to dreadful outside. LASTLY was because Talib played not horribly.

If a solid/decent player gets injured and is replaced by a terrible player and that terrible player gets destroyed, that doesn't suddenly mean that solid/decent player is really an elite player and indispensable to the team. That is just incredibly stupid logic.

Who is overrating Talib? I'm not sure where that comes from? I don't recall any one running around here trying to make him out to be Revis. Talib is what he is a top 10 CB talent wise, who has a couple of screws loose that show up off the field and is a liability on the field because of those issues, with the threat of a suspension lingering around every corner.

Cole is an average NFL CB or in your words "mediocre" if he wasn't I don't think two of the best defensive minds in the game would both keep him around for multiple seasons each....

Stupid logic? I was simply applying your logic to the situation.

Honest question: Do you think you are the smartest person you know?

EDIT:
On top of that, the reason the Ravens offense took off is just as much about their adjustments as it is about the chain effect losing Talib had. Instead of moronically pounding the ball right into Wilfork they spread the offense out and let Flacco loft bombs to his players downfield.

Really? You think they made half time adjustments....get out of here....

And the highlighted statement wasn't an adjustment that was their entire passing game/gameplan for the entire playoffs and most of Joe Flacco's career except for the half of football we are talking about. Ironically the two adjustments that you said they made really wasn't the case.

1. Their game plan in the 2nd half was to beat us over the middle:
1st half passing over the middle: 1 of 1 for 17 yards
2nd Half passing over the middle: 7 of 7 for 69 yards and TD

Deep they attempted 3 passes in the 1st half (1/3 25yds) and 6 in the second (3/6 65yds) longest completion went for 26 yards along with 23 and 16. They beat us with the short to intermediate passing game in the flat and over the middle.

2. They most certainly continued to run the ball up the middle (inside the tackles):
1st half numbers: inside 7 carries 27 yards / outside 7 carries 26 yards
2nd half numbers: inside 13 carries 41 yards / outside 4 carries 9 yards

Even if you take away the run plays from the Ravens clock killing drive in the 4th the numbers are: inside 8 carries 23 yards / outside 1 carry 0 yards

 

[Reckedtrek]

After this thread, I am convinced of one of the following: TO3690 is
a- a ny jets fan/troll
b- leads a miserable life
c- both.

I'm going with C.

 

[supafly]

1. Their game plan in the 2nd half was to beat us over the middle:
1st half passing over the middle: 1 of 1 for 17 yards
2nd Half passing over the middle: 7 of 7 for 69 yards and TD

Deep they attempted 3 passes in the 1st half (1/3 25yds) and 6 in the second (3/6 65yds) longest completion went for 26 yards along with 23 and 16. They beat us with the short to intermediate passing game in the flat and over the middle.

That's a great point, unfortunately. We saw our team struggle for awhile now with defending passes in the middle part of the field, and Baltimore picked up on that tendency and ran with it. It's no coincidence that they attacked us for a 7/7 ratio in the second half with middle passes.

I'm hoping that we'll be better prepared for that this season with a better coverage LB in Fletcher, the continued progression of T.Wilson in dime situations, and even A.Wilson playing the coverage hybrid role a bit. Having better CBs will also help as Arrington can stay in the star position where he doesn't have to cover as much ground--as will a hopefully improved pass rush.

Having a lack of a pass rush and a horrible lack of middle pass coverage made it way too easy last year for the Ravens to take advantage, and that isn't even bringing the obvious injuries up to Jones, Love, and Talib--not to mention the poor depth in the secondary altogether.