Raiders Linebacker, Rolando McClain: "This (Patriots) is just a finesse team..."

[Ron Sellers]

My apologies for implying that you were a Jets troll.


Thank you for coming out of the closet and making it obvious with your last few comments that you are a Steelers troll.

 

[captain insano]

Full quote by Raiders Linebacker, Rolando McClain, talking about the Patriots:

"This is just a finesse team. Brady's a smart guy, has many weapons."

BOB, please take note.

Thank you.

hes right the pats are a finesse team.

 

[BillBelichickFan79]

Well let's see:

They are still a shotgun heavy team, even with the use of TE's.

They are a pass heavy team.

They do not really attempt to run the ball consistently.

They cannot run the ball consistently.

Their defense gets gashed for big gains in the running game.

Their CB's cannot effectively jam WR's at the line in press man coverage.

Their defense does not intimidate or impose its will on anybody.

Their offensive line is more of an athletic/finesse group that runs a zone blocking scheme and doesn't blow people off the ball in the running game.



Seems like he's pretty accurate.

 

[patsfan55]

Pretty much it's towards the defense

I believe he is saying the Pats have Brady and his weapons at WR and that's about it...there is no Ray Lewis type players on this defense

I think that's what this defense is missing,a guy in the mold of a Ray Lewis or shall I dare say Terrell Suggs who speaks big but usually plays hard.

This defense lacks a killer instinct and emotion to get together as one unit with the will to dominate

I am not sure 3 more months of football will get this team back on track...the players need to want more than a paycheck from Kraft.

Dude I'm right there with you. This defense is just not even close to a championship caliber defense.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Lamar Woodley, we get Brandon Meriweather cuz Woodley is two flippin inches too short.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Carols Dunlap, we get Jermaine Cunningham cuz Dunlap doesn't fit the defense.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Muhammad Wilkerson, we trade back yet again and sign his predescesor Shaun Ellis.

I'm getting SO SICK AND TIRED of not drafting front seven guys early because for whatever reason they don't fit EXACTLY what we're looking for. Then they go on to have great careers. And I know a bunch of you are gonna say oh yeah well they didn't fit the defense blah blah blah I'm gulping the koolaid blah blah blah. It's all bull, and you all know it deep down.

Seriously, if the Pats don't acquire a front seven guy in free agency or EARLY in the draft (and no Jermaine Cunningcrap and Brandon Spucks don't suffice) next year I probably won't even accept the season tickets I'm supposedly being presented for the first time.

 

[nashvillepatsfan]

He's right. I'd love to see the Pats play some smashmouth football on BOTH sides of the ball.

 

[PATRIOTSFANINPA]

Dude I'm right there with you. This defense is just not even close to a championship caliber defense.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Lamar Woodley, we get Brandon Meriweather cuz Woodley is two flippin inches too short.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Carols Dunlap, we get Jermaine Cunningham cuz Dunlap doesn't fit the defense.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Muhammad Wilkerson, we trade back yet again and sign his predescesor Shaun Ellis.

I'm getting SO SICK AND TIRED of not drafting front seven guys early because for whatever reason they don't fit EXACTLY what we're looking for. Then they go on to have great careers. And I know a bunch of you are gonna say oh yeah well they didn't fit the defense blah blah blah I'm gulping the koolaid blah blah blah. It's all bull, and you all know it deep down.

Seriously, if the Pats don't acquire a front seven guy in free agency or EARLY in the draft (and no Jermaine Cunningcrap and Brandon Spucks don't suffice) next year I probably won't even accept the season tickets I'm supposedly being presented for the first time.

We also need to stop looking to stockpile on draft picks and go for that one player who looks like a certain star which means NOT moving down in the draft and staying where we are at or maybe using a few lower picks to move up to higher graded talent.

I wouldn't be saying that if we connected on FAs on defense that worked here...bottom line is nearly all defensive players we took in FA failed or disappointed one time or another.

If we would get a few FA vets that would really shore up the D then moving around the draft to grab extra guys to compliment the vets in place would be fine,but that's not the case so while we stockpile picks year after year Brady gets one year older and the 2nd round defensive players we draft instead of higher graded player simply don't pan out.

And all this adds up to a defense capable of being pretty bad all season as much as they are capable of improving,it really can't get any worse.

 

[aurakilla]

maybe I`m just dumb but the full quote doesn't really look like a "dig" at the pats? :bricks:

 

[condon84]

Who cares? We are a finese team. And as far as bulletin board material goes, the Jets and Rex gave us plenty in the biggest game of the year last year and our guys didn't rise up to the challenge. We'll do what our offense do and outscore them.

 

[Sciz]

One could be lead to the conclusion that Logan Mankins is the only aggressive mauler on this current Patriots team. Nothing McClain has said can be construed other than what it is.

The current Patriots team strike me as that exceptionally talented church going kid who lives life by the rules, does pretty well in all aspects he pursues but doesn't have the audacity to break the rules and kick some **** up to get what he really wants from life.

Waters would definitely apply. Guys like Vollmer and Gronkowski still do the mauling even if it isn't with the same feistiness of Mankins and Waters. It's more maulers than the Jets had when they played the Raiders this weekend.

 

[supafly]

Dude I'm right there with you. This defense is just not even close to a championship caliber defense.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Lamar Woodley, we get Brandon Meriweather cuz Woodley is two flippin inches too short.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Carols Dunlap, we get Jermaine Cunningham cuz Dunlap doesn't fit the defense.

When a lot of ppl on here wanted Muhammad Wilkerson, we trade back yet again and sign his predescesor Shaun Ellis.

I'm getting SO SICK AND TIRED of not drafting front seven guys early because for whatever reason they don't fit EXACTLY what we're looking for. Then they go on to have great careers. And I know a bunch of you are gonna say oh yeah well they didn't fit the defense blah blah blah I'm gulping the koolaid blah blah blah. It's all bull, and you all know it deep down.

Seriously, if the Pats don't acquire a front seven guy in free agency or EARLY in the draft (and no Jermaine Cunningcrap and Brandon Spucks don't suffice) next year I probably won't even accept the season tickets I'm supposedly being presented for the first time.

I wouldn't go that far to turn your season tickets down, that would seem awfully extreme in my opinion. Give it time. I'm right there with you, as far as being frustrated with the defense of the past few yrs, but we're still a very capable team. Some people have the capacity to have more patience, while others tend to get antsy easier and quicker...I don't think it means anything about being a 'true' fan or not, I just think that some have more patience. Just my opinion of course.

Obviously, as long as we continue to have the potential to score a lot of points and continue the legacies of Belichick and Brady, we will be blessed to enjoy good, competitive football.

Some of us are indeed getting tired of hearing the same things/excuses while sitting back and watching the exact same poor defense yr after yr--I can certainly appreciate that, and while I am not on the same level of frustration as you, I definitely am there in some aspects.

But don't even think of not getting those season tickets, you will regret it for years to come..

We may have to accept the fact that there won't be much defense, but we'll still be able to compete and have a playoff bound team, even if it's a wild card slot. That's a lot better than some teams out there.

 

[Patriot to the Core]

If the Raiders want to set up against a "Finesse" team let them. Hopefully we can wrong foot them and run more with the ball!

 

[Jlaff]

I wouldn't call Gronk lowering his shoulder and dragging defenders 15 yards finesse.

 

[Ghost of Ben Dreith]

He is 100% correct in his assessment.....in fact he was nice about it....he could have said we played football like a bunch of pu##ies....how is this brand of offense going to look come December?

Quit bashing BOB....this style comes right from the top....BB.....if he was unhappy with the playcalling, he would have done something about it...we have been running this same "finesse" offense the last 4 years....and the playoff record shows the value in it....

We spent 2 significant draft picks this year on RB.....who looked pretty good when on the field....when would be an appropriate time to actually use them to the tune of 30 carries total a game?

 

[PatriotsInGA]

Gronk laughs at the word finesse.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Okay a couple things:

- It doesn't make your team a power team if one guy can lower his shoulder.

- If we're talking about being a pass-first team, the Pats are a finesse team and have been for their whole history

- If we mean the Pats are a team with a defense that doesn't scare anybody, again, how scary can you claim to be when you make Ryan Fitzpatrick and Chad Henne look like world-beaters?

-- sub-point: um except Fitzpatrick, from the looks of things, might actually BE good.

-- sub-sub-point: um except the O just runs their routes, and it's the D that really misses the snaps in training camp more. So there may be a more extended offensive mirage out there right now.

- Attention draftniks - I'm sick and tired of "I'm so sick and tired of BB drafting guys that weren't my draft-day binkie." For every guy you were screaming at your TV about drafting, and who succeeded, there are probably a half-dozen busts too. Running selective memory through the filter of "toughness vs. finesse" is just another selective memory exercise.

Put another way, to all draftnik woulda-coulda-shoulda guys: There is a reason that you can't even be on the personnel department in Tennessee or somewhere, never mind in Foxboro.

Hey, nobody wants to be the finesse team. It's such a put-down in a tough game. But they did legalize the forward pass, and they've been making passing the point of the game more and more ever since. If you're saying "they have no running game because they do it by committee, there's not that one guy to be afraid of," once again, the whole league is moving more toward rbbc than feature back for a while now. If you mean the D... welp, that's valid and it needs fixing. It's not like you say to yourself "Oh crap it's third and one against the Pats... what do I do now???" or "How, oh how can we get on the scoreboard against that ferocious Pats D???"

But then again, a year ago, every other thread was about "when will we abandon that 3-4 defense???" Naturally, as with all other threads, there was no recognition that the big bold moves we "had to make" might come with any downside, right?

I'm not saying they don't need to try things to get the D fixed, but they can't possibly evaluate the "fixed" version of the D without at least 3 games in hand to review. They're not performing, I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying you might want to examine what's working and what's not... especially since everybody was so whiny about how inevitable it was that we had to get more pressure get more pressure blah blah blah.

Looks to me like the real problem is the other side also gets paid and you don't get to lead the league in every category on both sides of the ball (though I do agree that right now the Pats' D doesn't scare anybody.) Where I disagree is that the dum dums here have a better idea of how to fix it than the guys in foxboro.

 

[zoostation]

why is that quote so shocking? He's right.

 

[aabtec]

Well Rolando IS correct until the Pats can prove otherwise... but you don't want to give bulletin board material either

Could it be that the Raiders have looked at Film and see that the Pats are a finesse team. The Raiders are looking better and better.

This may not be an easy game for the Pats. The Pats better put 2 OL on Seymour.

 

[PatsBoy12]

McClain didn't say anything wrong, IMO. He said exactly what we've seen from this team for the past few years. There seems to be no killer instinct, no physicality, no will to run the ball down anyone's throat on offense (even with a huge lead), the defense is pitiful, etc.

With that said, this team needs to decide to just start ramming the ball with the running game. Ridley showed that he has potential to be one of the later steals in the draft. On the other side of the ball, the defense needs to start getting after somebody. They do play too soft. Get Guyton's sorry arse off the field, as he seems to be the softest one. Honestly, Spikes seems to be the only one who plays with a bit of an edge on defense. Even Mayo, as good as he's been, seems too laid back to me. We need a little James Harrison or Terrell Suggs on this team defensively. Will Mac was that enforcer type. So was Rodney (of course). Ty Law had a bit of nastiness to him too.

The funny thing is that Welker is the toughest player we have offensively. He is the only one that brings that swagger and his A-game no matter the situation. Even in SB42, I remember seeing him a few times trying to fire everyone else up. The smallest guy has the biggest heart and the most swagger.

 

[ensoul]

What would you do if they went on to lose 3 in a row with the 3rd loss to the Jets?

LOL. Truth be told 3 losses is not out of the realm of possibility if this D continues to be this poor. Raiders are no joke so far.

Also Rolando is 100% correct. This D is soft as puppy **** and could not stop a HS team from scoring on them.

 

[everlong]

"OK so I want to show you a video of what the Raiders are thinking. They put this up on their website for everybody to see so watch this........The Patriots are a finesse team. I want you all to think about that tonight before you go to bed. The Patriots are a soft finesse team."

Excerpt from a coaches life part III best of the bulletin board material.