MMQB: How to Slow the Patriots' Offense

[Oswlek]

4. Remember that they're creatures of habit. “You can talk about being game-plan specific, but there are certain core things you’re going to do every week,” Thurman counters. “You have to look at the human side of it, that coaches are people, and people are creatures of habit. They are going to do certain things at a certain time from a certain position on the field, and your ability to anticipate those, and to study those as part of your preparation, becomes as big as anything.”

To this end, I want to see two plays this week.

1) After a turnover or chunk play gives NE a first down at midfield, send Tyms or Slater deep..... only to go to whoever is wide open due to the triple team 40 yards down the field.

2) When set up with a second or third and short, run up to the LOS as fast as you can.... and then do a hard count to draw a defender offside.

 

[doesntmatter1]

To this end, I want to see two plays this week.

1) After a turnover or chunk play gives NE a first down at midfield, send Tyms or Slater deep..... only to go to whoever is wide open due to the triple team 40 yards down the field.

2) When set up with a second or third and short, run up to the LOS as fast as you can.... and then do a hard count to draw a defender offside.

Awesome. To add on to this, qb sneaks on first down. Brady gets yards even when teams see it coming. Just imagine how many yards he can get with it out of the blue.

 

[RayClay]

The pats simply need to move the ball with quick plays starting out. Moving the chains opens up either the hurry up, or the running game, but we can't get bogged down where Brady is holding on to the ball.

Of course, like any team,the Pats have some favorite plays no matter the game plan, but cheesus, with two weeks you'd think they come up with some sort of package of picks and quick screens, run like clock work, to get the ravens on their heels a bit.

Execute, put the ravens on the defensive, then open up whatever becomes available.

Awesome. To add on to this, qb sneaks on first down. Brady gets yards even when teams see it coming. Just imagine how many yards he can get with it out of the blue.

Seriously?

 

[Triumph]

The Pats cannot give up o the run or we know what will happen.

Thurman says " make Brady think" The same can be said for the Ravens defense by mixing up the run and pass and making a serious effort to establish a ground game to base play action on. The Pats have a capable group of RBs. Use them McDaniels.

 

[jays52]

I think to stop the Pats offense you first have to hit on the general principals of defense and add specific wrinkles on top of that.

1) Win on 1st down and prevent NE from being in 2nd and 4, 3rd and 2, etc. First, NE's offense is an incremental offense. To score they need to sustain drives. As an opposing coach, I don't respect their ability to consistently hit field flipping plays outside of the hashes. If I force them to run 10 yards to the sticks and Brady to take long drops I get them off the field. Further, 2nd/3rd and long situations enable my defensive linemen to pin their ears back and get upfield. I trust my defensive tackles to collapse the pocket and my ends to force stepping up into my interior rush. Even if my inferior secondary is beaten, I don't trust the ability of the QB to hit a deep strike without the ability to step into his throws.

2) Going with this, I put emphasis on stopping the run to create these longer down and distance situations. Through film study, I have learned that this year's offense had tremendous success on a new wrinkle they added to their blocking schemes. They have moved to a mug protection in passing and their interior linemen are firing out regardless of it's pass or run. Doing this makes it far more difficult for my players to get their keys and into position quickly against the fast developing plays they love to run. When they execute this blocking scheme their offense is extremely potent. When they do not they are below average. If I don't have to worry about my players being forced into thinking I don't have to worry as much about defending the seams on play action and I can limit 87 simply by dictating the situations.

3) Know your opponent and take away what they do best. New England is built from the inside out. They have always invested money in slot receivers and high draft picks on tight ends. Take away one of those positions and limit the other. Easier said than done, I know, but I will gamble that if LaFell goes over 10 catches I hold them under 4 scores. If this is chess, 87 is their queen. Lol, pretty sure that's only time you'll hear Gronk refered to as a queen on this board. I am willing to trade my bishop for their queen. The cliche about tight ends is they are too athletic for linebackers and too big for safeties. To an extent this is true, but 87 is also too big for my linebackers. He is built like a defensive end and if I'm going to press him I need to dedicate an end to doing it. I recognize the fact that outside pass rush is less effective against NE than interior rush and accordingly trade the responsibilities of an end and a linebacker. My biggest and most athletic end has one job; stop 87 from getting a clean release. My rush will be leveled out by disguising and bringing linebackers, usually the one away from the side 11 is on. If they motion 11, I check out and bring my nickel corner over with him. I run the man zones NE likes to run to make the windows tighter as I think 11 is too good at identifying and sitting into the holes in my zones. I know if I try to man up, his YAC's will be too high and will need more than one defender in the area when he gets the ball. I don't mind 11 having a lot of catches, provided he is tackled as soon as he gets the ball. Fundamental defense, I know, but NE is heavily reliant on YAC to move their offense.

4) Know that somewhere in the first 15 plays there is a strike installed. It will be off a personell they have not showed a strike out of yet. It will be out of a personell that's tendencies will put me in a position to defend something that will make me vulnerable to a strike. I will show them the coverage they want to see to prevent checking out, or to get them to check into the strike play, then drop into a cover-2. If they don't run that field flipper or easy six drawup I will know that I won that battle.

 

[Oswlek]

1) Win on 1st down

Hey! I wrote this last week in the "why is the offense struggling?" thread!

First down. Here is a sampling of NE's gains on first down during their blackout period of each game. Red plays are penalties, with the subsequent number being what NE did on 1st and 15.

GB - first quarter
12, 6, 0, 3

SD - third quarter during four straight 3-and-outs
0, 0, -5, -6, -2

Miami after the opening drive through halftime
2, 1, -5, 2, 5, 0, -1, 0

NY first half ignoring TD drive
6, 4, 0, 13, 11, -8..... 0, -7

Twenty four plays, only six earning five or more yards with the average gain being 1.3 yards. Yes, these drives are cherry picked, but they are cherry picked because they are precisely when NE struggled the most. With the exception of GB, when NE was able to drive for a TD with the following first down results (0, 0, 5, 5, -5, 0) there was an almost exact correlation between scoring and first down yardage. For instance, the lone TD drive in the first half against NY was (5, 12, 7, 3) with the 3 being a three yard TD.

Get first down squared away, and this offense is back to being a 35 ppg unit again.

 

[jays52]

Hey! I wrote this last week in the "why is the offense struggling?" thread!

Hahaha my man!

 

[IllegalContact]

The pats need to get back to what teams give them.....the problem in the pats losses was not enough options so they were easy to disrupt.....there are many more poisons to choose from now.....if the Ravens give up the outside, the pats will destroy them with that.

What the Ravens could have trouble with is the extra OL running game......Williams and ngata are stout, but Daryl smith and Mosley are small Gray and Blount are bigger.

I'm counting on the pats to be aggressive on offense.....

 

[mosi]

That was basically the denver plan last year, no? Stop the run and make Brady beat you. Without Gronk, that is a much easier thing to do. The Pats with Gronk, with Edleman, with Vereen, with Lafell and with, yes, I think he is going to have a big game, Amendola! will be much tougher to defend.


By big game, I mean 1-3 potentially big time plays, not 14-183 yards!

Amendola baby!