Idle thoughts - not too high- not too low

[patfanken]

....This win should give a whole bunch of people a clue and a lesson about NFL football, especially the reporters and so called experts in the media. But it should also be a lesson for Pats fans of all stripes, both the homers and complainers.

1. The NFL is not a league where comparison scoring has any real meaning. The Bills put up a lot of points on the Pats, while the Jets pretty much shut them down. Does that prove the Jets have a much better D, or the Pats have a horrible one? If you can make that conclusion what do you make of this one. The Jets gave up many more points than the Pats in their games with the Dolphins, so that must mean the Jets have a horrible defense and the Pats have a great one....and we know that NEITHER of those statements are true.

What is true is what I've been preaching all along. That the Defense isn't as bad as it seemed, and not as good as we'd like.....but it might be....even this season.

However if anyone expects to suddenly see this defense have 4 picks every game, or become a "shut down D", will be severely disappointed. This team, because of its offense, can bet a legit contender for the crown......IF the defense gets better each week....and that's not a given...just a possibility that we hope will be true

2. You could see that baby steps are being made. It wasn't just the picks, but there were several plays where you could see how routes were being read correctly and FINALLY players were in position to jump them.

3. There was clearly some great defensive preparation for this game, great coaching....and its starting to show. The Pats completely neutered the "Wildcat" and because of it, essentially took Ronny Brown out of the game. The Pats had the complete answer EVERY time the Dolphins trotted out the Wildcat. As to the rest of the Dolphin offense....not so much

4. All the special teams plays were DESIGNED and perfectly executed. This wasn't just Patrick Chung making a big play. 10 other guys and his coach teed it up, and Pat was just the guy who could hit it out of the park. I was glad Chung made it a point to rightly credit his teammates after the game

5. Ninkovich looked very prime time Vrabel-like wouldn't you say. He also had a couple of hurries and hits on the QB, and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't get more than 5 tackles. Clearly it was the game of his career.....and here's hoping it wasn't a one shot deal

6. Cunningham too had a few flashes I remember both in setting the edge and rushing. He had a least 2 QB hits I can remember. Not great, nothing special, but better than last week.

7. I am really confident is saying that Devin McCourty will eventually be the next great Patriot CB (Mike Haynes and Ty Law being the other 2) He is the complete package. He covers well, he tackles well, he has a nose for the ball. About the only thing he doesn't do well right now is have ball skills. It was a negative on him coming out of college, and I haven't seen much to debunk it now. Here's hoping that, like Assante, he gets better at it as his career develops

8 Let me state first, that I like Cameron Wake. He is very explosive, and has a great motor. I'd love him on my team.....HOWEVER you would have thought he had 7 sacks the way the announcers were constantly talking about him, instead of about 3 QB hits. The only sack he had came when he wasn't even blocked (Volmer misread) I had to laugh when they lauded him on a play that Volmer stoned him on, and the only reason he affected the play was because Brady held on to the ball for so long. Credit to his great motor, but REALLY guys. I expect more from Jaws and Gruden.

9. Looks like the way people are going to try and play Brady and the spread is to max protect and not give Brady an easy first read, and a wide open guy. Instead they want to force him to find the 3rd and 4th reads, and make him throw into tight windows even then. The Jets did it well (at least the first time) Miami had some success with it, especially early in the game, so I'm sure Brady will see it more as the season goes on....and get better at it because of it.

10. The Pats ran the ball well again last night. IIRC BJGE averaged close to 5 ypc, and Woodhead was averaging over 5 until his last carry. It was really great to see the Pats run the ball at the end of the game and get 2 first downs to seal the game against a team who knew they were running the ball.

11. It is still hard to get my head around the fact that we've gone from Moroney, Taylor, and Morris, to BJGE and Danny Woodhead......and it seems to be working.

12. Big loser in this game.....Logan Mankins.....again.

13. I was very unhappy with the play of the D on the first Dolphin TD. Gruden did a nice job showing how the Pats had bracketed both Bess and Marshall. The coverage on Marshall was great. The coverage on Bess (by Chung and Sanders) sucked. Chung looked like he guessed and got in wrong, and Sanders was just way too soft.

Usually on coverages like that, 2 guys take their man, inside/outside. Chung went for the inside fake, with Sanders having the inside position. So when Bess broke it outside, Chung was late, and Sanders not even in the picture. Not good

The second TD was just an example of what can happen when a team executes the perfect play against the "perfect defense" Great job by the Phins, and bad timing for the Pats. Just another example of the reality we fans so often forget.....that they pay the other guys too.

14. Now the bad things
a. Wither Ron Brace - he went from being a real contributor the last 2 weeks to a virtual no show last night....and no one knows why
b. I haven't seen any of the explosive first steps from Cunningham like we saw from Wake
c. Its still frustrating that play great D on the first 2 downs only to see someone break wide open on 3rd down....far too often. Its my hope that over the course of the season, this will improve. It HAS to if we are going to have any real success
d. Zoltan has been really inconsistent. Much too inconsistent to be considered a solid pick at this point. Still very early, and we've seen some flashes, but while you can feel encouraged by seeing just "flashes" in some of your rookies.....but not your punter.
e. Gerard Warren isn't exactly making me forget Ty Warren....or even Jarvis Green for that matter.
f. TBC has had his moments, just not as many as we'd like to see. It could be him, or it could be that teams are targeting him for special treatment since he's "supposedly" our only serious pass rush threat.

15. Miscellaneous:
a. if you needed any further proof that Josh McDaniels is a passing genius, Kyle freakn Orton is leading the league in Passing Yardage......without Brandon Marshall.
b. All the blocks, and KRs killed the 2 teams I had Brady as the QB. He really only had one real shot the entire 2nd half. And to add insult to injury, I just this week dropped the Giants D
c. The Steelers are gong to be much better than I thought this season.
d.A lot of teams seem to be jockeying for position right now, with the Jets Steelers and Ravens looking like the cream of the conference RIGHT now, but it still will come down to the the last 4 weeks, and I doubt anything will be decided before Christmas.

Very Interesting....so far.

Enjoy

 

[smg93]

...
d. Zoltan has been really inconsistent. Much too inconsistent to be considered a solid pick at this point. Still very early, and we've seen some flashes, but while you can feel encouraged by seeing just "flashes" in some of your rookies.....but not your punter.

I know you're talking about his punting, but Z man has been excellent at being the holder. Ingram for 4 games now has been consistently off the mark, almost always snapping high and right.

 

[BradyFTW!]

The second TD was just an example of what can happen when a team executes the perfect play against the "perfect defense" Great job by the Phins, and bad timing for the Pats. Just another example of the reality we fans so often forget.....that they pay the other guys too.

Great post, and I definitely agree with the quoted part. I know some people will use Henne's 2 passing TDs in a vacuum against the D, but I really don't see what the guys on the field could have done differently to prevent that second TD. I have no problem with the Pats calling the blitz there; if it had worked, it would have been genius. Because they had the perfect play to counter it, they got a TD. It wasn't anyone failing to do their job or anything like that.

 

[Patjew]

I know you're talking about his punting, but Z man has been excellent at being the holder. Ingram for 4 games now has been consistently off the mark, almost always snapping high and right.

I'm worried that that's going to come back to haunt the Pats when it counts.

 

[patriotscpfc]

Through bleary eyes here in the UK, so proud to be a Patriots fan last night.

So proud.

 

[resdubwhite]

Through bleary eyes here in the UK, so proud to be a Patriots fan last night.

So proud.

meet your cousin.
Said I'd stay up for the first half.

Stayed up for the whole thing. Got into the office at 9:30 after getting to sleep at 5.
Cattle trucked.

 

[Nonentity]

9. Looks like the way people are going to try and play Brady and the spread is to max protect and not give Brady an easy first read, and a wide open guy. Instead they want to force him to find the 3rd and 4th reads, and make him throw into tight windows even then. The Jets did it well (at least the first time) Miami had some success with it, especially early in the game, so I'm sure Brady will see it more as the season goes on....and get better at it because of it.

This is the key point for me. Brady's been blitzed for the last three years by every team who watched the 2007 Super Bowl. Brady loves being blitzed so now teams are dropping back into coverage and taking away his first reads. Which is what makes the development of non-Moss/Welker receiving options so important. Aaron Hernandez really is turning into the go-to-guy for Brady right now, still can't believe we got him for a 4th round pick.

Through bleary eyes here in the UK, so proud to be a Patriots fan last night.

So proud.

Managed to stay up for the first half, couldn't stay up past half-time - we were losing 7-6 at that point. Checked the score at 7am this morning....GO PATS!!!!

 

[DarrylS]

My take on last night is that the D took a few "toddler steps" to being decent, there are so many interchangeable parts here it will always be dynamic, and in last nights case they were ok... still mucho room for improvement, but they showed a glimpse.. particularly the ball hawking...

Many of our picks stepped up last night, McCourty(who looks like the real deal), Chung, Ninkovich(not a pick), Tate..it is also apparent the BJGE can meet our RB need and Morehead is a nice complimentary back.

These comments I agree with and pretty much what I took away from last nights game.. there were three rookies who "started" the game.. that is fairly improbable in the NFL for an upper echelon team..

2

. You could see that baby steps are being made. It wasn't just the picks, but there were several plays where you could see how routes were being read correctly and FINALLY players were in position to jump them.

3. There was clearly some great defensive preparation for this game, great coaching....and its starting to show. The Pats completely neutered the "Wildcat" and because of it, essentially took Ronny Brown out of the game. The Pats had the complete answer EVERY time the Dolphins trotted out the Wildcat. As to the rest of the Dolphin offense....not so much

4. All the special teams plays were DESIGNED and perfectly executed. This wasn't just Patrick Chung making a big play. 10 other guys and his coach teed it up, and Pat was just the guy who could hit it out of the park. I was glad Chung made it a point to rightly credit his teammates after the game

 

[resdubwhite]

Its been commented already
For the first time in forever it looked like there were adjustments made

a. To stop wake in the pass rush.
b. To stop Henne in the medium passing game (this led to Nink's 2 picks and the shredding of Henne's confidence)

if we are big enough to burn the coaching staff when they get it wrong we should be big enough to say well coached.

 

[convertedpatsfan]

I hope we'll be able to look back on this game as a major turning point for our young defense.

Brace didn't start and had his playing time reduced because of Wilfork playing end. I was a bit surprised that Wright was the NT over Brace though. It makes me think BB has Brace as an end only for now, despite being drafted as Wilfork insurance.

And I was actually quite impressed with Cunningham. He didn't get a sack, but he got solid pressure several times. He wasn't explosive like Wake, but he showed a wide variety of moves. Most kids coming out of college rely on their athleticism like they could in college, but he looked very technical and tried a wide variety of things.

Mesko is a bit inconsistent, but it wasn't really that bad of a night. 60 yards on his first punt, 39 on the next, and the final punt he downed inside the 20. Plus he also got down at least one high snap from Ingram that I saw.

Arrington seemed to be giving huge cushions at times, and I'm surprised the Dolphins didn't go after that more.

 

[zoostation]

Here's my idle thought. Black Cleats. Patrick Chung wore black cleats (and several of the players had a black/pink combo cleat for breast cancer awareness.

I propose the Patriots switch to black cleats when they are in their white uni's.

The black cleats make what I consider the best football uni (road whites) look even better. Black cleats = old school/tough.

Just my idle thought.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

I hope we'll be able to look back on this game as a major turning point for our young defense.

Very similar sentiment here. Two ways this can go:

1) meaningless flukey glitch; all the stars aligned many ways, and the Pats spotted some very beatable weaknesses on the Miami ST; Henne (not a world-beater to start with,) got rattled easily; the whole Miami team got a "welcome to the big leagues" moment... all happy with their first half and a kick in the crotch with the Tate return TD... then after the second TD of the second half they couldn't cope. It's their first season since the Wilcat wrinkle that they sort of got some respect out of the gate... and they reacted like the team they are, unable to deal w/dramatic adversity and bad bounces.

"What if...?" pessimistic analysis: It's a one-off. The defense is making steps. The ST are improved, I don't think you can argue that, especially w/Tate's emergence. But nothing like we saw last night - for the most part the improvements are incremental, and some dominoes fell for us this one time.

2) Upside read: Things are gelling. We'll continue to have games where the guy you didn't expect to shine does. Ninko starts showing up every week, and now and then has a standout game (for example.) Chung, whose season has already showed flashes of his full potential, takes that next step and becomes part of the "scary" class of NFL safeties. And when they're quiet, someone else is making noise. Defense/special teams become Pats' units that other teams are scared of.

Also part of the upside: the lackluster offensive performance (especially first half) gets fixed, and the Pats become a complete team; the road stinkage spell is broken.


3) The truth is it's somewhere in the middle. Great work in two out of the three phases of the game, and the offense did enough to win. We know they have done more in the past and almost certainly will again in the future... but they're not out there alone, and making those strides on D and ST are really good signs. But don't expect them to show up like that every week; they'll work on other teams' weaknesses and go from there.


Still, it's a great note to go to the bye week on. I'm psyched to see the next three quarters of the season unfold. I'd really love this team to have instantly made the big jump into the elite among defenses, and I think they're there on ST (a weakness the last few seasons, so that's a nice side-note.)

Now, having talked about the 3 possibilities, please excuse me while I wax irrational and embrace possibility (1) as the explanation for this game in my heart of hearts. It's a tantalizing thought, that all that youth, energy, and talent is going to be sparked by this game and take it up a notch.

 

[borg]

Beyond the obvious:
1) Brady saw no target down field...he throws it out of bounds. This made me very happy. In my mind, I was wondering what the difference was between Brady's play in the 1st half of the decade to the last half. 2001-2006: Dink and dunk, find the open guy, don't force it into coverage....having a solid running game allowed this style, combined with a strong D. From 2007, with upgraded weapons and supreme confidence, Brady has forced into coverage at times while focusing on too few targets. Without a strong D, he has been saddled with an enormous burden.
2) The Pats D has yet to figure out who has responsibility covering the RB that releases out of the backfield as a pass catcher. Inexperience, lack of speed, coaching? They need to figure this out.
3) Henne was awful. He was definitely confused....pat on the backs to coaches and players... but Hennes brain couldn't distinguish between white and teal.
4) Watching the 4 Dolphins try to grab Tate down the sideline of his kick return TD, thought the Dolphins were using Beer League softball players. Least athletic foursome I've ever seen in the NFL.
5) Finally....the pass rush. This summer I caught a bass, brought the fish up on the dock, and it just flopped around without accomplishing anything. Last year, Adalius Thomas perfected the "look busy" technique. Last night, our boys were paying tribute to AD. What I don't understand, on an obvious passing down, the 4 Pats rushers square up against their O line counterparts and rarely shoot gaps. It's as if they fear the QB moving out of the pocket more than having too much time to pass. Puzzling.
All in all, fun game to watch. Think about what we have seen from this team in 4 games. Three special team TDs and two INT TDs....just in 4 games. We have some PLAYMAKERS.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

....This win should give a whole bunch of people a clue and a lesson about NFL football, especially the reporters and so called experts in the media. But it should also be a lesson for Pats fans of all stripes, both the homers and complainers....

Thanks for taking the time to write that.

As someone who didn't jump off a bridge after last week's game and who isn't booking tickets to Dallas after this week's game, I agree with most of what you say, especially about the gradual development of the D.

Disagree on Mankins and the O-line though. Yes, they did a better job run blocking, but they let guys get at Brady for hits too easily, especially Light and Vollmer. The holding call on the first big Hernandez play would have been looming large in our discussion this morning if things hadn't gone the way they did in the second half. I'd like to see Mankins back and the sooner the better and hopefully not just to finish out this season.

On Zoltan. Yeah, too inconsistent, but, my my count, he saved the day on at least two and maybe three bad snaps from center. So, a Gentleman's B and let's wait and see.

Otherwise, too much to comment on and I have to go to work. Thanks again.

 

[PATRIOTSFANINPA]

Good post as usual but I think you forgot one of the bad things...


A possible key injury to meriweather,this is going to make me a little nervous anticipating his status.....we can't afford to lose him since McGowan is gone

I like the little I saw of page but page,sanders and chung as the only safeties worries me

 

[aluminum seats]

Good post.

--On the wildcat, how often did Miami run it? I only remember it like once. Seems like that fad might be over.

--If defenses look to force Brady to look for 3rd/4th reads, I'm a little surprised we haven't seen Gronkowski more involved--think he had one catch last night. Just seems like he'd be a mismatch out there. Is he blocking more? Not sure how many snaps he was in on.

--Play action? How many times did the Pats run it. I know they had that big gain called back on a play action, but not sure how many times they used it after that. I like play action...

--I'm confused by punters. They punt punt punt. It's not like making the leap from college to the pros should really change anything (wait, maybe it should. The balls are the same size, right? Now I feel ******ed. I think they're the same.) Anyway, nothing against the new guy, I'm sure he'll be fine. Just seems weird it's not easier to predict punters.

Fun game.

 

[aluminum seats]

Here's my idle thought. Black Cleats. Patrick Chung wore black cleats (and several of the players had a black/pink combo cleat for breast cancer awareness.

I propose the Patriots switch to black cleats when they are in their white uni's.

The black cleats make what I consider the best football uni (road whites) look even better. Black cleats = old school/tough.

Just my idle thought.

I think that was really the key to the game.

 

[Uncle Rico]

I think Zoltan will be fine. I'm betting he's getting a lot more pressure to do directional punting than he ever did in college.

When told to just let it rip - -like I'm sure he was the first punt -- he booms it. But when he has to think about something he's always done naturally (punting, but with a specific target in mind) he obviously still needs work. He'll get there.

 

[JackBauer]

Brandon Marshall: 5 catches, 50 yards.

That's pretty much the key right there, considering most if not all of his receptions were in the 2nd half once the Pats were playing to protect their lead.

Especially gratifying since I had to listen to Boomer go on and on during the pregame show about how the Pats had no one who could cover Marshall

 

[patchick]

Piggybacking with a couple of idle thoughts of my own...

- This is the team we all expected to see. No, not the team that kicked the Dolphins' butts all over the field in the second half. the team that has played wildly inconsistently but managed to come away with 3 wins in 4 games.

The most common refrain before the start of the season was that this team had a lot of talent but was super young and inexperienced, and would be inconsistent enough to give us heart attacks in the early going. But hopefully they'd pull together enough wins to be positioned for a strong playoff run as they start to mature and gel later in the season.

So far so good, eh?

- A statistical curiosity: The Patriots lead the league in scoring despite not having a player ranked in the top 17 in the league in passing yards, receiving yards or rushing yards.