- Joined
- Jul 11, 2005
- Messages
- 16,918
- Reaction score
- 31,534
This time I watched the entire game…..even Tebow time.. Here are my takes on what we saw.
1. It’s hard for me to say, but to a certain extent we have been spoiled by Tom Brady. It really doesn’t matter who they put out there, Tom Brady doesn’t skip a beat. Awesome is the word that comes to mind, simply awesome.
2. Does anyone still question that as good as Wes Welker has been, Danny Amendola is going to fill that role without missing beat…..IF he stays healthy. Let me put it this way. The Pats paid less for a Wes Welker, circa 2007, and the Broncos paid more for the 2013 version.
In fact - let me go one step further (and really piss off Ivan ) and say that Amendola will be more valuable because he can run certain routes that Welker couldn’t, The only question now is not a matter of skill, but a matter of health.
That being said, if the Pats run the ball more and spread the ball around more, Amendola's stats probably won't match Welker's production, and that will be a good thing. Remember we DON'T want to be in a situation where if you shut down our slot guy you can limit this offense like we've seen in the playoffs the last few years. In other words given the same number of targets I think Amendola can equal Welker's production or even better it slightly, but I don't think that would be a good thing in the great scheme of things.
3. I liked what I saw from Ryan Mallet tonight. I saw him look off receivers. I saw him go to second options. I saw him throw it away when nothing was there. As far as decision making was concerned, I thought it was his best night as a pro. Even when his passes were off, they were to the right guy. It was an fairly significant improvement over his first game. Still a ways to go, but very few QB’s look good when you are being compared to the “exemplar”
But here is what I like best. He made his improvement behind an OL which was manned by 5 players who are VERY unlikely nto make the final roster. Maybe one of those guys will make it. BTW- I thought these :”scrubs” protected Mallet fairly well, but they couldn’t generate much push in the run game. So if you thought Ryan Mallet is starting to look like an NFL QB think of what he would look like behind that elite OL, and a top 10 running game. Think about it this way. Mallet is looks a LOT better at this point of the preseason, than Matt Castle did in 2008
4. Speaking of the OL, the first group stuffed a pretty good TB front 7 to night. It was virually flawless in protecting Brady, and opened up some decent holes for the Rbs in that first quarter. The OL seems to be developing into something special. Names like Tompkins, Dobson, Ridley, Vareen, etc are all the rave, but make no mistake about it. After Tom Brady, the biggest element in the success of this offense is going to be the OL.
5. Kudos to Will Svitek, Signed to be a back up swing tackle and forced to play an unfamiliar position due to injuries, he has filled in seamlessly. Dante has done it again. This was a very quiet but very good FA acquisition. Both Cannon and Connolly are likely to be coming back to practice this week, so it will be interesting to see how that RG position ends up
6. Nothing Lagarrette Blount did in his brief appearance tonight tarnished what he did in his first game. No doubting his talent, but I still have some questions about his ability to fill the role of 250lb SY/GL push the pile power back.
The Devlin kid did that well tonight, but on the only 3rd and short chance Blount got, even though he made the first down, once he was hit, he didn’t fall forward.
I wonder if the Pats wouldn’t have been better off with Peyton Hillis as the “power back”. While he also showed some “wiggle” tonight, I think Hillis knows what his is. Too often Blount thinks he’s Barry Sanders when we need him to be Mike Allstat, I hope I’m wrong. Because those thrilling highlight reel runs won’t mean much if on 3rd and short we are walking off the field because Blount was looking for the big play rather than first down.
7. Dobson, Boyce, and Thompkins looked like the rookies they are tonight and took a small step back from the frantic pace of the first 3 weeks of camp. But Zack Sudfeld certainly DIDN’T. The kid looked Jimmy Graham good. With Fells out Sudfeld took full advantage of his opportunity. Both is scoring plays were TOUGH contested catches. This kid might end up contributing more than any of the rookie WR’s early this season.
8. Now on to the D.
a. My first impression was that we are going to see a MUCH more aggressive and creative D this season. Its been driving me nuts for the last 3 years to keep seeing vanilla fronts with the same alignments over and over again. It didn’t matter if it were a 3 man front or a 4 man front, you could almost count on seeing the DL line up the same places all the time.
We saw NONE of that last night from the first group. On many occasions we saw 9 men on the LOS, and while only 4 or 5 actually rushed, it often looked like more
b. That being said 3 of the 4 sacks were accomplished only because of the excellent coverage by the secondary and Lbs
c. Tommy Kelly is a beast. Brandon Spikes might have gotten credit for the sack, but Tommy Kelly caused it with a great inside rush (against a probowl LG if I‘m not mistaken)
d. The Kelly/Wilfolk combination s going to be a good one, however when they were out of the line up, the Pats middle was as soft as soft serve ice cream.
e. Chandler Jones really does look like he’s ready to take a step up this season. Here’s hoping he stays healthy
f. Dowling dressing, though not participating in the last few practices, give me hope that he will be coming back to practice this coming week. It could be the most important week of his short NFL career. No one has been more supportive of this kid than me, but even my patience has been stretched to the limit. I still thing the kid can play, but ability doesn’t do you any good if you can’t get on the field to show it.
g. Getting Dowling and Dennard back this week will really boost the secondary depth, just like getting Connolly and Cannon will help the OL depth. (one offensive note. If Connolly doesn’t get bank soon, given Svitek’s success and Cannon returning, Connolly has too big a contract for a back up who can’t get on the field.
h. I know this won’t be popular, but I thought Tavon Wilson played much better this week. He made a few good plays on the outside and was in tight coverage on a few passes that were cut. Even his penalty on the GL was a a coverage the refs don’t call 7 out of 10 times IMO
9. Our overall Defense looks much improved over the first week, and our front seven looks both aggressive and creative. We clearly need more depth at DT. Armstead is another guy who should finally hit the field this week. I am VERY anxious to see how he fairs.
10. Special teams is going to have to repair some things and Julian Edelman looked anything but elite on punt returns tonight. He stil make a lot of people miss, but that doesn’t do you any good if you aren’t moving forward.
I’m disappointed I didn’t get a chance to see Leon Washington on a KR.
11. Now a couple of questions for the members
a. anyone know how Brandon Deadrick and Kyle Love are doing in Jacksonville. The talent gap in the DT depth made me think of them tonight
b. Who flashed for you among the 2nd half participants. I thought Buchanan had a few good rushes than it was interesting that he got the nod for the initial back up to Ninko, and saw action in the first half.
1. It’s hard for me to say, but to a certain extent we have been spoiled by Tom Brady. It really doesn’t matter who they put out there, Tom Brady doesn’t skip a beat. Awesome is the word that comes to mind, simply awesome.
2. Does anyone still question that as good as Wes Welker has been, Danny Amendola is going to fill that role without missing beat…..IF he stays healthy. Let me put it this way. The Pats paid less for a Wes Welker, circa 2007, and the Broncos paid more for the 2013 version.
In fact - let me go one step further (and really piss off Ivan ) and say that Amendola will be more valuable because he can run certain routes that Welker couldn’t, The only question now is not a matter of skill, but a matter of health.
That being said, if the Pats run the ball more and spread the ball around more, Amendola's stats probably won't match Welker's production, and that will be a good thing. Remember we DON'T want to be in a situation where if you shut down our slot guy you can limit this offense like we've seen in the playoffs the last few years. In other words given the same number of targets I think Amendola can equal Welker's production or even better it slightly, but I don't think that would be a good thing in the great scheme of things.
3. I liked what I saw from Ryan Mallet tonight. I saw him look off receivers. I saw him go to second options. I saw him throw it away when nothing was there. As far as decision making was concerned, I thought it was his best night as a pro. Even when his passes were off, they were to the right guy. It was an fairly significant improvement over his first game. Still a ways to go, but very few QB’s look good when you are being compared to the “exemplar”
But here is what I like best. He made his improvement behind an OL which was manned by 5 players who are VERY unlikely nto make the final roster. Maybe one of those guys will make it. BTW- I thought these :”scrubs” protected Mallet fairly well, but they couldn’t generate much push in the run game. So if you thought Ryan Mallet is starting to look like an NFL QB think of what he would look like behind that elite OL, and a top 10 running game. Think about it this way. Mallet is looks a LOT better at this point of the preseason, than Matt Castle did in 2008
4. Speaking of the OL, the first group stuffed a pretty good TB front 7 to night. It was virually flawless in protecting Brady, and opened up some decent holes for the Rbs in that first quarter. The OL seems to be developing into something special. Names like Tompkins, Dobson, Ridley, Vareen, etc are all the rave, but make no mistake about it. After Tom Brady, the biggest element in the success of this offense is going to be the OL.
5. Kudos to Will Svitek, Signed to be a back up swing tackle and forced to play an unfamiliar position due to injuries, he has filled in seamlessly. Dante has done it again. This was a very quiet but very good FA acquisition. Both Cannon and Connolly are likely to be coming back to practice this week, so it will be interesting to see how that RG position ends up
6. Nothing Lagarrette Blount did in his brief appearance tonight tarnished what he did in his first game. No doubting his talent, but I still have some questions about his ability to fill the role of 250lb SY/GL push the pile power back.
The Devlin kid did that well tonight, but on the only 3rd and short chance Blount got, even though he made the first down, once he was hit, he didn’t fall forward.
I wonder if the Pats wouldn’t have been better off with Peyton Hillis as the “power back”. While he also showed some “wiggle” tonight, I think Hillis knows what his is. Too often Blount thinks he’s Barry Sanders when we need him to be Mike Allstat, I hope I’m wrong. Because those thrilling highlight reel runs won’t mean much if on 3rd and short we are walking off the field because Blount was looking for the big play rather than first down.
7. Dobson, Boyce, and Thompkins looked like the rookies they are tonight and took a small step back from the frantic pace of the first 3 weeks of camp. But Zack Sudfeld certainly DIDN’T. The kid looked Jimmy Graham good. With Fells out Sudfeld took full advantage of his opportunity. Both is scoring plays were TOUGH contested catches. This kid might end up contributing more than any of the rookie WR’s early this season.
8. Now on to the D.
a. My first impression was that we are going to see a MUCH more aggressive and creative D this season. Its been driving me nuts for the last 3 years to keep seeing vanilla fronts with the same alignments over and over again. It didn’t matter if it were a 3 man front or a 4 man front, you could almost count on seeing the DL line up the same places all the time.
We saw NONE of that last night from the first group. On many occasions we saw 9 men on the LOS, and while only 4 or 5 actually rushed, it often looked like more
b. That being said 3 of the 4 sacks were accomplished only because of the excellent coverage by the secondary and Lbs
c. Tommy Kelly is a beast. Brandon Spikes might have gotten credit for the sack, but Tommy Kelly caused it with a great inside rush (against a probowl LG if I‘m not mistaken)
d. The Kelly/Wilfolk combination s going to be a good one, however when they were out of the line up, the Pats middle was as soft as soft serve ice cream.
e. Chandler Jones really does look like he’s ready to take a step up this season. Here’s hoping he stays healthy
f. Dowling dressing, though not participating in the last few practices, give me hope that he will be coming back to practice this coming week. It could be the most important week of his short NFL career. No one has been more supportive of this kid than me, but even my patience has been stretched to the limit. I still thing the kid can play, but ability doesn’t do you any good if you can’t get on the field to show it.
g. Getting Dowling and Dennard back this week will really boost the secondary depth, just like getting Connolly and Cannon will help the OL depth. (one offensive note. If Connolly doesn’t get bank soon, given Svitek’s success and Cannon returning, Connolly has too big a contract for a back up who can’t get on the field.
h. I know this won’t be popular, but I thought Tavon Wilson played much better this week. He made a few good plays on the outside and was in tight coverage on a few passes that were cut. Even his penalty on the GL was a a coverage the refs don’t call 7 out of 10 times IMO
9. Our overall Defense looks much improved over the first week, and our front seven looks both aggressive and creative. We clearly need more depth at DT. Armstead is another guy who should finally hit the field this week. I am VERY anxious to see how he fairs.
10. Special teams is going to have to repair some things and Julian Edelman looked anything but elite on punt returns tonight. He stil make a lot of people miss, but that doesn’t do you any good if you aren’t moving forward.
I’m disappointed I didn’t get a chance to see Leon Washington on a KR.
11. Now a couple of questions for the members
a. anyone know how Brandon Deadrick and Kyle Love are doing in Jacksonville. The talent gap in the DT depth made me think of them tonight
b. Who flashed for you among the 2nd half participants. I thought Buchanan had a few good rushes than it was interesting that he got the nod for the initial back up to Ninko, and saw action in the first half.
