Kontradiction
On my retirement tour.
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vations).
I rarely do these after wins but feel compelled to do them after losses for some reason. I did it after the Jets game and I did it after the Bills game (even though we won). The following are my thoughts on the Pats and the game without having read a single piece of information on what others think in this forum. This is just what I see when I look at this team after the Denver game...
1. Defense: Gotta start out here. Over the past few weeks against Atlanta and Baltimore, I've raved at times at how physical and attacking our secondary has been and I'm not going to shy away from that today. Our secondary still attacked and it was still physical, often times delivering jarring hits to the Denver receivers. However, the thing that killed us today and the thing that will kill us all season long when we face a good O-Line, is the utter lack of pass rush. And I'm not talking about blitzes and blitz packages, just pass rush as a whole. In the first three quarters, I didn't see a whole lot of blitzing from our defense. I didn't understand why at all because it didn't seem that the three and four man fronts that we were bringing at Orton and the Broncos were creating any pressure whatsoever. Then, late in the game, I saw that we did start finally bringing the heat with the blitz and they just did not get to Orton in time. I'll give the Broncos all the credit in the world: they are an outstanding O-Line. However, outstanding O-Lines are going to have a field day with us this season simply because we don't have a pass rusher that instills fear in the fat boys on the other side of the ball. And for those that bring up AD, I'm sorry, but he is simply not that. He's a solid OLB for us, but he isn't the kind of pass rusher that opposing O-Lines are going to have to dedicate extra attention to and, simultaneously, open some holes up for another LB/DB to come in and sack Orton. This complete lack of rush burned us as Orton proceeded to have a career day against our defense. We were good enough against the run once again, but the pass rush and protection was what sent us to 3-2 on this day.
2. O-Line: In all did a solid job against the Denver defense. They allowed the blitzes of the Denver D in the backfield a couple of times, but nothing that would have killed the game for us. The offense as a whole left 7-14 points out on the field this game and that can't be attributed to the O-Line. On that note, I want to wish Matt Light a speedy recovery although, unfortunately, I think we may have lost him for the year. So, for those that wanted Seabass in, you got your wish.
3. WRs/TEs: Can't complain about this group either. Overall, I think both the WR corps and the TEs did a pretty good job in blocking and getting open today. Moss had a sure fire TD in the first half that probably would have won the game for us if the pass had connected and Welker was again all over the field. The loss of Watson hurt a lot as the Patriots didn't have a vertical threat afterward that the Denver defense needed to respect, but he was having a good game before he left against the very good secondary that Denver possesses.
4. RBs: Another thing I cannot complain about here. I would have liked to see Maroney a bit more but Morris did okay based on what he was handed. All in all, our RBs total 22 carries for 97 yards against that Denver defense, which isn't bad at all. However, with the TOP we had, I felt like we could have ran the ball a bit more. One thing that helped Brady regain some bit of poise that he didn't show in Week 2 was the willingness to pound the ball up the middle time and time again. Against the Falcons and the Ravens, we did something we hadn't done in a long time: used the run to set up the pass. We got away from that today and instead tried to use the pass to set up the run. The Denver defense keyed in on that and it wasn't successful. However, that has more to do with playcalling which I will get into in a little bit.
5. QB: Brady looked so/so at times, and bad at other times. Never like the dominating QB he used to be at any minute in this game, though. He went 19/33 which isn't bad in retrospect. However, more than a few of the passes that he missed were passes that he could have hit two years ago to extend the drive. Two come immediately to mind. The first being the WIDE OPEN Randy Moss streaking toward the end zone in the first half that he could have hit for a TD. Instead he overthrew him once again and during the replay, you could see that his mechanics were once again off on the pass. The second was a big third down in the second half when Welker clearly had his man beat and could have at least taken a zinger right in his hands and ran for 20-35+ yards after the catch. Instead, the pass fluttered down at his feet and the drive was over. There were other passes that Brady missed today. He still looks skittish to me, but he may be coming out of it. It's just a shame that he had to play two of the top defenses in the league in his first five outings. I still believe he'll get better at the end of the season, but he's pretty clearly still a work in progress.
6. Coaching/Play Calling: Pretty piss poor today. Along with the defense, this is the second biggest reason we lost this game. On the defensive side of the ball, I would think it's pretty obvious. The one thing that I admired in the Baltimore game was the amount of pressure packages we seemed to be willing to use. And they worked for the most part. Today? Not so much. Maybe someone who can go over the game again and record the play stats (like Box O Rocks) can come in here and tell us how many times the Pats sent more than a four man rush from the 1st-3rd quarters. But, according to my eyes, it wasn't much if at all. The four man rush simply wasn't working against that stout O-Line. Now, I know some of you are going to come in here and remind me that blitz packages didn't entirely work either, but the fact of the matter is that it worked when we needed it the most: in the 4th quarter. Orton was sacked and the Broncos were out of field goal range. You'd think we'd keep that up in overtime right? Wrong. We looked just like we did in the first half and Hall of Famer Kyle Orton proceeded to make us pay. On the offensive side of the ball, I felt we could have pounded it more on first and second down to set up the pass. We did have 22 attempts, which was good, but we were still throwing it way too much on first and second downs which is a bad thing when you're going against a defense as good as Denver's.
7. Other thoughts: Two really short ones, actually. The first is that I wish Daniel Graham didn't want to leave New England so badly. Watching him out there against us made me miss him badly. The second is that watching Clady shut down our defensive line made me wish we drafted a mauler in the O-Line. I don't mean to beat it to death, but I have to say it: Michael Oher. Clady completely SHUT DOWN the right side of our defense. On top of that, I have to eat crow. Before the game I said that I didn't believe that Kyle Orton was going to be good enough to beat us. Well, I was obviously wrong on that as well and now have to go over to the Broncos message boards to eat crow there as well.
I rarely do these after wins but feel compelled to do them after losses for some reason. I did it after the Jets game and I did it after the Bills game (even though we won). The following are my thoughts on the Pats and the game without having read a single piece of information on what others think in this forum. This is just what I see when I look at this team after the Denver game...
1. Defense: Gotta start out here. Over the past few weeks against Atlanta and Baltimore, I've raved at times at how physical and attacking our secondary has been and I'm not going to shy away from that today. Our secondary still attacked and it was still physical, often times delivering jarring hits to the Denver receivers. However, the thing that killed us today and the thing that will kill us all season long when we face a good O-Line, is the utter lack of pass rush. And I'm not talking about blitzes and blitz packages, just pass rush as a whole. In the first three quarters, I didn't see a whole lot of blitzing from our defense. I didn't understand why at all because it didn't seem that the three and four man fronts that we were bringing at Orton and the Broncos were creating any pressure whatsoever. Then, late in the game, I saw that we did start finally bringing the heat with the blitz and they just did not get to Orton in time. I'll give the Broncos all the credit in the world: they are an outstanding O-Line. However, outstanding O-Lines are going to have a field day with us this season simply because we don't have a pass rusher that instills fear in the fat boys on the other side of the ball. And for those that bring up AD, I'm sorry, but he is simply not that. He's a solid OLB for us, but he isn't the kind of pass rusher that opposing O-Lines are going to have to dedicate extra attention to and, simultaneously, open some holes up for another LB/DB to come in and sack Orton. This complete lack of rush burned us as Orton proceeded to have a career day against our defense. We were good enough against the run once again, but the pass rush and protection was what sent us to 3-2 on this day.
2. O-Line: In all did a solid job against the Denver defense. They allowed the blitzes of the Denver D in the backfield a couple of times, but nothing that would have killed the game for us. The offense as a whole left 7-14 points out on the field this game and that can't be attributed to the O-Line. On that note, I want to wish Matt Light a speedy recovery although, unfortunately, I think we may have lost him for the year. So, for those that wanted Seabass in, you got your wish.
3. WRs/TEs: Can't complain about this group either. Overall, I think both the WR corps and the TEs did a pretty good job in blocking and getting open today. Moss had a sure fire TD in the first half that probably would have won the game for us if the pass had connected and Welker was again all over the field. The loss of Watson hurt a lot as the Patriots didn't have a vertical threat afterward that the Denver defense needed to respect, but he was having a good game before he left against the very good secondary that Denver possesses.
4. RBs: Another thing I cannot complain about here. I would have liked to see Maroney a bit more but Morris did okay based on what he was handed. All in all, our RBs total 22 carries for 97 yards against that Denver defense, which isn't bad at all. However, with the TOP we had, I felt like we could have ran the ball a bit more. One thing that helped Brady regain some bit of poise that he didn't show in Week 2 was the willingness to pound the ball up the middle time and time again. Against the Falcons and the Ravens, we did something we hadn't done in a long time: used the run to set up the pass. We got away from that today and instead tried to use the pass to set up the run. The Denver defense keyed in on that and it wasn't successful. However, that has more to do with playcalling which I will get into in a little bit.
5. QB: Brady looked so/so at times, and bad at other times. Never like the dominating QB he used to be at any minute in this game, though. He went 19/33 which isn't bad in retrospect. However, more than a few of the passes that he missed were passes that he could have hit two years ago to extend the drive. Two come immediately to mind. The first being the WIDE OPEN Randy Moss streaking toward the end zone in the first half that he could have hit for a TD. Instead he overthrew him once again and during the replay, you could see that his mechanics were once again off on the pass. The second was a big third down in the second half when Welker clearly had his man beat and could have at least taken a zinger right in his hands and ran for 20-35+ yards after the catch. Instead, the pass fluttered down at his feet and the drive was over. There were other passes that Brady missed today. He still looks skittish to me, but he may be coming out of it. It's just a shame that he had to play two of the top defenses in the league in his first five outings. I still believe he'll get better at the end of the season, but he's pretty clearly still a work in progress.
6. Coaching/Play Calling: Pretty piss poor today. Along with the defense, this is the second biggest reason we lost this game. On the defensive side of the ball, I would think it's pretty obvious. The one thing that I admired in the Baltimore game was the amount of pressure packages we seemed to be willing to use. And they worked for the most part. Today? Not so much. Maybe someone who can go over the game again and record the play stats (like Box O Rocks) can come in here and tell us how many times the Pats sent more than a four man rush from the 1st-3rd quarters. But, according to my eyes, it wasn't much if at all. The four man rush simply wasn't working against that stout O-Line. Now, I know some of you are going to come in here and remind me that blitz packages didn't entirely work either, but the fact of the matter is that it worked when we needed it the most: in the 4th quarter. Orton was sacked and the Broncos were out of field goal range. You'd think we'd keep that up in overtime right? Wrong. We looked just like we did in the first half and Hall of Famer Kyle Orton proceeded to make us pay. On the offensive side of the ball, I felt we could have pounded it more on first and second down to set up the pass. We did have 22 attempts, which was good, but we were still throwing it way too much on first and second downs which is a bad thing when you're going against a defense as good as Denver's.
7. Other thoughts: Two really short ones, actually. The first is that I wish Daniel Graham didn't want to leave New England so badly. Watching him out there against us made me miss him badly. The second is that watching Clady shut down our defensive line made me wish we drafted a mauler in the O-Line. I don't mean to beat it to death, but I have to say it: Michael Oher. Clady completely SHUT DOWN the right side of our defense. On top of that, I have to eat crow. Before the game I said that I didn't believe that Kyle Orton was going to be good enough to beat us. Well, I was obviously wrong on that as well and now have to go over to the Broncos message boards to eat crow there as well.
