Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision making

[Sean Pa Patriot]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

bottom line this is the worst pass defense in the nfl, and its not going to get corrected by the end of the year

 

[nashvillepatsfan]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

As much as I'd like to agree with you, Nash, let's not forget that was also a very formidable defense which ended up in the top 3-5 of most categories. That's like the Steelers winning/going to the SB with Willaim Gay, or the Ravens winning with Moreland right now. The comparison is not very appropriate anymore, with all due respect.

In a defense where you know you have serious deficiencies in some areas like this one, you've got to be strong somewhere, and I'm not understanding where that strength is going to come from.

oh lordy. Im tired, and apparantly my post wasnt very clear. I was simply saying that we all seem to have issues with the secondary. There's been times, like with Moreland, that BB has had less than stellar names, and still won. I wasnt trying to compare this years defense with that of 2004.....that would be silly. I was only commenting on the secondary. Im going to drink a little more koolaid, and see how this defense is doing in wk 16.

 

[NJPatsfan26]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

bottom line this is the worst pass defense in the nfl, and its not going to get corrected by the end of the year

Seeing how we cannot deny this, what can be done to help our team win games?

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Agreed.

Posters on here need to remember that BB won a SB with a guy named Earthwind Moreland. Wait who?? Exactly. As bad as the defense looks, there's still alot of football left for BB to get the secondarys sh*t together.
However, my koolaid has a funny taste lately.

Bodden wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference the way he'd been playing. The bigger problem for Bill this season is he has amassed a lot of veteran talent that looked good on paper but hasn't shown much on the field or apparently contributed much in the way of leadership (Bill apparently told the TV crew they were not tackling well in practice all week and he was really concerned about coming off the bye lackluster). We have a lot of depth on DL but we can't quite generate enough pressure to impact games or justify keeping the secondary in zone. We have a lot of receiving weapons for Brady to utilize but none of them can get seperation against physical man coverage (and we can't get calls either so maybe we should just start mauling opponents in man too...). We now have 5 RB on the 53 but we won't run the ball. Yesterday the OL struggled in pass protection even with help. I love Kevin Faulk but over reliance on him because you cannot trust your pass blocking is counterproductive. Vollmer was a turnstyle but I guess that didn't matter since he was finally active after weeks on the shelf...

We're becoming the anthesis of the Colts. Too much depth or redundancy, not enough impact talent. Unfortunately 8 weeks into a season there isn't much you can do to mitigate that beyond grind it out and hope your more talented opponents get beat up and can't compensate down the stretch.

Bill has to come to terms with the sad fact that most of the mid level talent he is drawn to these days doesn't have the focus or drive or determination born of sheer intestinal fortitude many of his earlier players or those Annapolis cadets in the 60's had to be coached up. Time to start moving up for three down players rather than maneuvering down for versatility or value in the draft and FA.

 

[RhodyPatriot]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Interesting comment from Mike Reiss tonight on Sports Final:

"I think you ask the question, could Leigh Bodden have helped this secondary? And that takes me one step further and I ask the question, is Bill Belichick's schemes and the decision making he's making personnel-wise, do we need to revisit this a little bit? I know you don't want to look too much into one game when you ask big picture questions like that, but this just didn't even look competitive to me in that aspect of the game."

That's a direct quote - just to end the speculation of me paraphrasing and misquoting him.

Pretty bold statement by Mike. Obviously a loss just exacerbates things, but I thought the fact he mentioned it was pretty interesting.

Agreed with Reis' overall statement even though I think the timing of Bodden's release suggests something happened late in the week that triggered it, i.e. a confrontation, refusal to practice etc.
However once again it was BB's decision to bring Bodden and his attitude here for good money to begin with.
But James Sanders couldn't hep this group??

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

As much as I'd like to agree with you, Nash, let's not forget that was also a very formidable defense which ended up in the top 3-5 of most categories. That's like the Steelers winning/going to the SB with Willaim Gay, or the Ravens winning with Moreland right now. The comparison is not very appropriate anymore, with all due respect.

In a defense where you know you have serious deficiencies in some areas like this one, you've got to be strong somewhere, and I'm not understanding where that strength is going to come from.

Bingo. It was supposed to come from the 28 man DL rotation and all the weapons Brady had on offense (who unfortunately can't all play at the same time or all block well enough to play behind this OL vs. physical opponents).

 

[nashvillepatsfan]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Time to start moving up for three down players rather than maneuvering down for versatility or value in the draft and FA.

couldnt agree more.

I still think BB is a great coach, but his decisions lately have me scratching my head. Im concerned that by the end of the year, I may be drowning in koolaid, and nothing to show for it. :bricks:

 

[cavtroop]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Bill has to come to terms with the sad fact that most of the mid level talent he is drawn to these days doesn't have the focus or drive or determination born of sheer intestinal fortitude many of his earlier players or those Annapolis cadets in the 60's had to be coached up.

This is a really interesting point that I heard in passing a few weeks ago, but haven't given any thought too.

Are the kids today that BB is relying on, just not 'coachable' or driven enough to make it work in this system?

Does this mean the system needs to be changed, or that Bill needs to do a better job finding that mid-level talent that has the drive, determination and intestinal fortitude to take that mid-level talent and play to a higher level both physically and mentally (Vrabel, Bruschi, etc etc)

 

[dhamz]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

When you have a team that has such a lack of talent on the defensive side of the ball, it clearly calls into question the personnel decisions made in that area. I forget if it was Bedard or Breer who said someone on the Steelers had pointed out to him before the game that the Patriots had a secondary where everyone but Chung and McCourty was an UDFA. That is stunning when you consider how many picks have been used on the seondary in recent years.

The issue on defense is talent. You have an above average run stopper at NT in Wilfork. A healthy Mayo is an above average ILB. That is really it for this defense. The rest of the it is made up of role players who can do certain things well but also have significant weaknesses that can be exploited (Spikes, Carter, McCourty, Chung) or below average guys who are out there because there really is no one else (Guyton, Ninkovich, Adams, Ihedigbo, etc).

The offense has elite talent. They are going to need to carry this team and they are good enough to probably carry it to the division title.

 

[NJPatsfan26]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

This is a really interesting point that I heard in passing a few weeks ago, but haven't given any thought too.

Are the kids today that BB is relying on, just not 'coachable' or driven enough to make it work in this system?

Does this mean the system needs to be changed, or that Bill needs to do a better job finding that mid-level talent that has the drive, determination and intestinal fortitude to take that mid-level talent and play to a higher level both physically and mentally (Vrabel, Bruschi, etc etc)

I would imagine being in Belichick's position, being in the NFL for a long time now, he would prefer players that can be driven and coached. Not sure if that exists any more but can see that being his preference.

 

[Sean Pa Patriot]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Seeing how we cannot deny this, what can be done to help our team win games?

hope tom brady and the offense out scores people,but if we cant find open recievers its not going to matter much... teams have started to figure out the pats offense.... we find out the next month what type of team this is ...

 

[FalconHeavy]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Don't get me wrong but isn't he supposed to be a defensive guru ? I'm not even sure what to say anymore. Next week are we going to see the release of chung or spikes ??? WTF is going on..

 

[cavtroop]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

I would imagine being in Belichick's position, being in the NFL for a long time now, he would prefer players that can be driven and coached. Not sure if that exists any more but can see that being his preference.

I completely agree with you. The question is, do these players exist, in enough quantities, for BB to identify them and get them? I'm beginning to think not.

If not, do we start talking about changing the system? Other teams have much better defenses than we do with the available talent pool, that's a given. So, given that talent pool, should BB change his system to fit that existing pool of available personnel or keep trying for players that fit his system, which apparently are becoming very hard to come by?

 

[NJPatsfan26]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

hope tom brady and the offense out scores people,but if we cant find open recievers its not going to matter much... teams have started to figure out the pats offense.... we find out the next month what type of team this is ...

Yeah sure going to be a long week in preparation for the Giants.


I am sure BB was critical of the team after the loss yesterday and hopefully works them hard this week.

 

[NJPatsfan26]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

I completely agree with you. The question is, do these players exist, in enough quantities, for BB to identify them and get them? I'm beginning to think not.

If not, do we start talking about changing the system? Other teams have much better defenses than we do with the available talent pool, that's a given. So, given that talent pool, should BB change his system to fit that existing pool of available personnel or keep trying for players that fit his system, which apparently are becoming very hard to come by?

One would have wonder about this with the available talent from the draft, and from free agents. If the ideal coachable player does not exist any more, BB will need to do something new and work even harder with what he has.

 

[randomk1]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Indeed...hard to believe that Bill has managed to put together an even ****tier defense than last year.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Reiss expanded his Sports Final comments into an ESPNBoston column:

It's time to start questioning New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick - ESPN Boston

 

[NJPatsfan26]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

Reiss expanded his Sports Final comments into an ESPNBoston column:

It's time to start questioning New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick - ESPN Boston

"It starts at the top. It starts with Belichick."

I wouldnt want any other coach then Belichick. that's all i have to say.

 

[RhodyPatriot]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

I completely agree with you. The question is, do these players exist, in enough quantities, for BB to identify them and get them? I'm beginning to think not.

If not, do we start talking about changing the system? Other teams have much better defenses than we do with the available talent pool, that's a given. So, given that talent pool, should BB change his system to fit that existing pool of available personnel or keep trying for players that fit his system, which apparently are becoming very hard to come by?

They exist. The problem is BB cannot identify them and then draft them. Jermaine Cunningham??
And his FA signing record has him in Theo Epstein's inept class.
The brilliance of Tom Brady has papered over lots of poor decisions by BB.
The real historical shame is that Tom Brady's prime will come and go without a SB championship because of it.

 

[Mack Herron]

Re: Mike Reiss on Belichick: Maybe it's time to 'revisit' his personnel decision maki

What we saw yesterday was essentially all the changes from last year failed. All the new DL personnel still cannot generate a rush, without Mayo the LBs are ordinary, and now that McCourty has taken a step backwards, we have only one player in the secondary (Chung). The personnel are below average and that is their performance. On offense we have great TEs, 1 great WR in Welker, but Branch is mediocre and the rest aspire to be mediocre. Chad is a disaster he seems to have married. BJGE needs help and even though we drafted 2 RBs in 2-3 and we got essentially nothing from them yesterday. Two offensive players with potential explosiveness in Price and Vereen have been injured and/or disappointing. Woodhead returned kicks although he lacks both speed and strength, showing the lack of depth when Edleman is out. Gostkowksi is not he kicker he was before the injury.

Given the existing personnel, they were fortunate to be competitive on the scoreboard yesterday. But my sense was that they were less competitive on the field. I think this is mostly due to inferior talent. But they are not too different from other teams at the top, who are also flawed.