****** Official Unofficial Patriots/Rams Postgame Observations Thread ******

[Deus Irae]

Let'em rip...............

 

[Sciz]

I'll post mine after the replay. I look forward to taking notes throughout this game.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I think I might take a mini-vacation from this board in anticipation of the chicken little frenzy.

In short: McCourty looked terrible on at least 3 plays that jump immediately to mind, Butler needs to work on his tackling, BJGE and Morris didn't do much to help themselves tonight, and Spikes was pretty weak in space. But OTOH Tate, Gronkowski, and Brace all stepped up in a big way. All in all, as long as Meriweather and Brace are fine, I'll just be happy that the Pats made it out of there in good health, and leave it at that. Losing Avery screws the Rams.

 

[Joker]

secondary playing the zone like it's an alien concept..

D line has no dominating force other than the Fork

Mayo played well at LB

Brady looked fine...all that worrying about overthrowing/underthrowing Moss is obviously bull

but I'm NOW a huge Gronk fan...even though it's just a preseason game, the Gronk is for real

 

[Coach42]

Don't get too high when you win, don't get too low when you lose.

 

[pork3]

 

[Deus Irae]

I think I might take a mini-vacation from this board in anticipation of the chicken little frenzy that's coming up this week.

Don't do that. After the over-the-top lovefest we've had the past two weeks, it's time for the Chicken Littles to have their turn.

 

[Kontradiction]

Just having watched this once and not being able to watch it in depth, here we go...

1. Not sure about the lull for the offense at the beginning of the game, but when Brady got into his groove he looked really good. Should have completed two long bombs but one of them should have been whistled PI. He looks really good.

2. O-Line looked decent tonight. Not sure how much of it was on them and how much of it was going up against a sub-par D-Line.

3. Gronk is going to be a threat in the seam and in the red zone. Can't wait until he and Hernandez are on the field together in the regular season. Our air attack should be hard to stop.

4. Liking the looks of Tate as our kick returner.

5. Would like to see us pound the ball a little more than we did tonight. I liked our offense in the first two preseason games.

6. Defense, as a whole, needs A LOT of work. Everywhere. D-Line, LB's, CB's, Safeties. Everywhere. To allow that drive to the Rams' second string offense was inexcusable.

7. Punt coverage teams need some work.

8. Liking the way Brace looked as RDE tonight. Hopefully he can get starting reps in the next preseason game and improve on that. I thought he looked like an improvement over Warren.

That's about it, for now.

 

[Deus Irae]

Let me help.......

 

[Kontradiction]

Oh, and...

9. Wilhite, as usual, look terrible. A couple of blown coverages. Darius Butler continued his underwhelming preseason. Some bad tackling by him. McCourty hurt his case to be an opening day starter tonight.

 

[Coach42]

Don't do that. After the over-the-top lovefest we've had the past two weeks, it's time for the Chicken Littles to have their turn.

Fact. I have a feeling there will be quite a few ups and downs with this young team this year. Overall, I think the kids probably needed a bit of a reality check, a taste of the darker side of the NFL (losing).

 

[Joker]

right Kontra...I forgot the special teams kick coverage...uh...horrible...pick an adjective

 

[Kontradiction]

Belichick didn't look all that happy tonight. I have a feeling that there's going to be a lot of gassers run this week as well as some berating in film study.

 

[The_Riddler]

Mayo played well? Where ? I haven't seen anything truly noteworthy since his rookie season, I'm not sure what's going on with him, I see Spikes making many more noticeable plays than Mayo. Been going on for a while with Mayo, lost in coverage and getting turned constantly inside on traps by guards, it needs to improve.

Darius Butler, where are you and why haven't you improved, still getting consistently beat even by 3rd string Ram WRs, really shaky, to be honest, I would put Wheatley in the slot right now and put Darius in the dime, I think Wheats had outplayed Darius the whole preseason for the snaps each has gotten.

Bodden had a tough night, but it was his first game back, a mulligan it is tonight for Leigh.

Gronk was tremendous, dominant, I really wish we could have seen Hernandez tonight, I had no idea he was hurt, damn I wish he was out there.

And what's the deal with Cunningham? Are we ever going to see him or is this a Shawn Crabel situation all over again?

 

[SanAngeloState]

Yes they were a little sluggish, but the important thing is they rallied back and almost won against a very tough Rams team. I think the Rams are much improved. Obviously to play that well they must be.

Anyway, this gives BB a chance to make them run, run, run...really punish them. Fear is a good motivator, I believe, so they will be afraid of having a performance like this again.

 

[RussFrancis]

This would have been a completely different game if Maroney had started. No way would our D have played that poorly.

 

[Deus Irae]

Here's one.......


Neither Wright nor Warren can hold the point against the run. That's going to force the ILBs to hedge up against the run, and it's going to result in quarterbacks killing this team with play action. So....


Here's to Brace continuing to improve. He was the best DE against the run tonight, and Mr. Warren may find himself battling Mr. Wright for 1st down snaps on the line.

 

[Urgent]

28 yards rushing?
Well, how could you expect much more against the St Louis defense.
The Pats did manage to control the ball for 16 minutes.
And the defense registered triple digits in tackles! That's tremendous! How often do you see 100 tackles? Our defense rocks!
If they play like this against a team with more than one win last season, they could see 120 tackles, maybe 125! It was the offense with all the records a couple seasons ago. Move over - this defense could eclipse those yardage totals.

 

[Sciz]

Zolak on the Rams' first TD: "soft zone coverage"
That's pretty much how you define the defense this game.

 

[mloyko]

The defense on a whole was awful. The only thing to take away from this is that we played a vanilla defense, with no scheming, so I wouldnt take much out of it.

-Butler has regressed more than any player from the end of last year to right now.