Game Day Thread 2018 Preseason G2: PHI @ NE

[RobertWeathers]

Ryan Lewis?

I dunno know. I know the team likes him but I'm not seeing it

 

[luuked]

Based on the penalty called when Richards tried to tackle the TE, Gronk may have an all time receiving/yardage season. A small safety can't stand him up and tackle him and a LB can't stay with him

Oh sweet summer child.. let me tell you a story about how the NFL officiates Gronk..

(story implied in my tone because it is known)

 

[maineman209]

I dunno know. I know the team likes him but I'm not seeing it

IDK yet, either way. Not quite ready to kick him off the island, though. I thought his coverage was pretty good in week-1. I'm hoping he can practice this week and play next Friday so that we can have another look.

 

[PP2]

I deleted my original response and will try to take a different approach. I will ask questions so I can truly understand your point of view.

WHO is playing closer to the line of scrimmage? Are you talking about corners? LBs or safeties who ARE blitzing, or NOT blitzing?

Who do you believe determines the philosophy and level of aggressive or conservative nature of the scheme? Belichick or Flores?

How are Flores “pressure schemes” FASTER? Do you think we ran delayed blitzes before?

Do you think that Flores is allowed to change where players align and what their responsibilities are or do you think he runs Belichicks defense?

Let me put it this way. If Flores is not allowed to do any of those things, then what is the point of having a defensive coordinator?

Is he allowed to defy the "bend but not break" philosophy? Obviously no, because that's a tried and true method that's worked more often than not.

However, is he allowed to add a few tweaks here and there? From what I saw the other night, yes.

I don't have the means to rewatch the game and give concrete examples, but one of the few things I can remember are that the backers were typically closer to the line than in the past, and aggressively creep if they sense a run coming. Flores must have given them the latitude to do that, to scrape fast or shoot the gap at the snap.

It also seems to me that the DL is firing off the line faster and more aggressively, more confidently. They aren't shaded outside so much- feels like they're shaded tighter to the outside of the tackles. I do understand that could easily be the result of the talent we have now, but I can also envision that it's also a difference in the coaching.

 

[maineman209]

I do understand that could easily be the result of the talent we have now, but I can also envision that it's also a difference in the coaching.

Little bit of both would be my guess. There are always so many moving parts and situational considerations that it's rarely just the one thing or the other.

 

[PP2]

Little bit of both would be my guess. There are always so many moving parts and situational considerations that it's rarely just the one thing or the other.

That's exactly why I don't believe in a right/wrong sort of debate that I keep getting suckered into. It's fun and interesting to dissect the myraid of intricate details that only NFL football offers, to speculate, to deduce, or just analyze.

 

[Ring 6]

Let me put it this way. If Flores is not allowed to do any of those things, then what is the point of having a defensive coordinator?

Is he allowed to defy the "bend but not break" philosophy? Obviously no, because that's a tried and true method that's worked more often than not.

However, is he allowed to add a few tweaks here and there? From what I saw the other night, yes.

I don't have the means to rewatch the game and give concrete examples, but one of the few things I can remember are that the backers were typically closer to the line than in the past, and aggressively creep if they sense a run coming. Flores must have given them the latitude to do that, to scrape fast or shoot the gap at the snap.

It also seems to me that the DL is firing off the line faster and more aggressively, more confidently. They aren't shaded outside so much- feels like they're shaded tighter to the outside of the tackles. I do understand that could easily be the result of the talent we have now, but I can also envision that it's also a difference in the coaching.

He is defensive coordinator to be Belichicks lieutenant not to throw out what Belichick has installed over 18 years and try things he hadn’t been coaching for the 15 years he has been on the staff. You are suggesting that the defensive staff has been teaching things and coaching and scheming one way for the 15 years Flores has been here and now that he is pseudo-coordinator (and actually we do not have a defensive coordinator right now) he is rewriting the books, and changing schemes, techniques and philosophy. I just don’t buy that. That’s not how I see Belichicks relationship with an assistant nor do I see Flores as wanting to go rogue.

I rewatched and saw nothing I haven’t seen before. I disagree that there are alignment differences. Everything we did is in the arsenal and has been.
I think what you saw was we used a piece of the Arsenal, the blitz package way way more frequently. We have seen this in other pre season games and we know that the team installs packages throughout the preseason.
Rather than showing the world there is a new philosophy, we used this game to practice the blitz packages and evaluate pkayers in that part of the scheme. We will see those things during the season but nowhere near as heavily.


Finally bend but don’t break isn’t a philosophy,it’s a result. The philosophy is
1) don’t give up big plays.
This leads to less blitzing because that’s how you give up big plays. It leads to things such as corners playing outside leverage more heavily that most teams, which makes it easier to complete a pass but harder to make a big play.
It leads to good red zone defense because the field is compacted so there is less to cover and taking away completions is less risky.
It leads to taxing the front 6 in the running game by playing nickel base. Which leads to run d issues (but not points on the board) when the front 6 is mediocre.

2) stop the opponent on every play
This is 2 because not giving up the big play is more important than selling out to get the stop. Unlike the Rex Ryan scheme where you boast about yardage ranking, give up big plays and end up allowing more points, this is a win the war not the battle concept. I don’t lose if you convert a 3rd down, I lose when you score touchdowns.

3) aggressiveness depends upon personnel.
Blitzing when you have weak pass rushers and/or DBs who struggle with jams and tight man coverage without help is just stupid. If you have weak pass rushers and a shaky secondary you may well get picked apart if you don’t blitz. But you will get torched if you send 6 and they get picked up.
If you watch it from the patriots offensive perspective, how many pass plays do we run where there is no chance of a rush getting there because the ball is out so quick? Passing offenses now are designed to often get a receiver open and the ball out in 2 seconds. Imagine if the opponent wasted defenders by blitzing then when they have no chance of impacting the play The runs after the catch with everyone in man with no help would light up the scoreboard.

I’m drifting away from the point, but we have the greatest defensive mind of generations running the show, and his linebacker coach was taught everything he knows by Belichick.. Flores was hired here right out of college. It’s his only coaching job ever. To suggest he will take everything he has been coached by Belichick, Patricia, etc and abandon it to create the “Flores philosophy” just isn’t something I can believe.

 

[PP2]

He is defensive coordinator to be Belichicks lieutenant not to throw out what Belichick has installed over 18 years and try things he hadn’t been coaching for the 15 years he has been on the staff. You are suggesting that the defensive staff has been teaching things and coaching and scheming one way for the 15 years Flores has been here and now that he is pseudo-coordinator (and actually we do not have a defensive coordinator right now) he is rewriting the books, and changing schemes, techniques and philosophy. I just don’t buy that. That’s not how I see Belichicks relationship with an assistant nor do I see Flores as wanting to go rogue.

I rewatched and saw nothing I haven’t seen before. I disagree that there are alignment differences. Everything we did is in the arsenal and has been.
I think what you saw was we used a piece of the Arsenal, the blitz package way way more frequently. We have seen this in other pre season games and we know that the team installs packages throughout the preseason.
Rather than showing the world there is a new philosophy, we used this game to practice the blitz packages and evaluate pkayers in that part of the scheme. We will see those things during the season but nowhere near as heavily.


Finally bend but don’t break isn’t a philosophy,it’s a result. The philosophy is
1) don’t give up big plays.
This leads to less blitzing because that’s how you give up big plays. It leads to things such as corners playing outside leverage more heavily that most teams, which makes it easier to complete a pass but harder to make a big play.
It leads to good red zone defense because the field is compacted so there is less to cover and taking away completions is less risky.
It leads to taxing the front 6 in the running game by playing nickel base. Which leads to run d issues (but not points on the board) when the front 6 is mediocre.

2) stop the opponent on every play
This is 2 because not giving up the big play is more important than selling out to get the stop. Unlike the Rex Ryan scheme where you boast about yardage ranking, give up big plays and end up allowing more points, this is a win the war not the battle concept. I don’t lose if you convert a 3rd down, I lose when you score touchdowns.

3) aggressiveness depends upon personnel.
Blitzing when you have weak pass rushers and/or DBs who struggle with jams and tight man coverage without help is just stupid. If you have weak pass rushers and a shaky secondary you may well get picked apart if you don’t blitz. But you will get torched if you send 6 and they get picked up.
If you watch it from the patriots offensive perspective, how many pass plays do we run where there is no chance of a rush getting there because the ball is out so quick? Passing offenses now are designed to often get a receiver open and the ball out in 2 seconds. Imagine if the opponent wasted defenders by blitzing then when they have no chance of impacting the play The runs after the catch with everyone in man with no help would light up the scoreboard.

I’m drifting away from the point, but we have the greatest defensive mind of generations running the show, and his linebacker coach was taught everything he knows by Belichick.. Flores was hired here right out of college. It’s his only coaching job ever. To suggest he will take everything he has been coached by Belichick, Patricia, etc and abandon it to create the “Flores philosophy” just isn’t something I can believe.

You saw what you saw, I saw what I saw. We will have to agree to disagree.

I'm going to stand behind my assertion that we're going to see a different, more aggressive style of defense from Flores than we did from Patricia.

Even Hightower himself has said as such.

Dont'a Hightower sees a more aggressive Pats D under Brian Flores

 

[Ring 6]

You saw what you saw, I saw what I saw. We will have to agree to disagree.

I'm going to stand behind my assertion that we're going to see a different, more aggressive style of defense from Flores than we did from Patricia.

Even Hightower himself has said as such.

Dont'a Hightower sees a more aggressive Pats D under Brian Flores

Oh brother That was June 7th.
Time to move on from this discussion.

 

[PP2]

Of
Oh brother That was June 7th.
Time to move on from this discussion.

That's precisely what I meant- you only debate to "win" in your mind. For me, there's no win/lose, only an attempt to learn something new.

You're rejecting the fact that Donta Hightower sees essentially the same thing I'm arguing about, solely on the basis that this interview was done on June 7th? As if some change has suddenly come about, between now and then?

 

[SHOWTIME15]

That's precisely what I meant- you only debate to "win" in your mind. For me, there's no win/lose, only an attempt to learn something new.

You're rejecting the fact that Donta Hightower sees essentially the same thing I'm arguing about, solely on the basis that this interview was done on June 7th? As if some change has suddenly come about, between now and then?

I agree the D will be more aggressive, but it’s inportant to realize that Flores has the pieces this year to be aggressive while Patricia did not last year.

 

[Ring 6]

That's precisely what I meant- you only debate to "win" in your mind. For me, there's no win/lose, only an attempt to learn something new.

Wrong. I discuss the facts. You are the one who argues to win by pulling in articles that don’t show what you think they do as some misguided appeal to authority. You have to be joking with “attempt to learn”. You dig your heels in the sand and keep saying the same thing over and over. When I review the film you say you didn’t but are right because you remember it differently. You have backtracked from almost all of your arguments yet continue to inexplicably trumpet your conclusion, now saying comments from an OTA practice are relevant to a scheme change. It’s bizarre.

You're rejecting the fact that Donta Hightower sees essentially the same thing I'm arguing about, solely on the basis that this interview was done on June 7th? As if some change has suddenly come about, between now and then?

Hightower said “the schemes he is calling” in an OTA.
I think you either don’t understand or don’t want to understand the difference between what you work in an individual practice and what you do in a game.

The defense always has and always will have aggressive play calls in its repertoire.
To cite what they worked on in an OTA as indication of what will happen on the field is simply obtuse.

 

[Ring 6]

I agree the D will be more aggressive, but it’s inportant to realize that Flores has the pieces this year to be aggressive while Patricia did not last year.

It may be, but that will be based upon personnel, not Flores changing the system and telling Belichick to get lost and let him do it his way.

 

[PP2]

I agree the D will be more aggressive, but it’s inportant to realize that Flores has the pieces this year to be aggressive while Patricia did not last year.

As mentioned, it's probably a bit of everything. Looks like we have all the right ingredients to be more aggressive.

 

[PP2]

Wrong. I discuss the facts. You are the one who argues to win by pulling in articles that don’t show what you think they do as some misguided appeal to authority. You have to be joking with “attempt to learn”. You dig your heels in the sand and keep saying the same thing over and over. When I review the film you say you didn’t but are right because you remember it differently. You have backtracked from almost all of your arguments yet continue to inexplicably trumpet your conclusion, now saying comments from an OTA practice are relevant to a scheme change. It’s bizarre.


Hightower said “the schemes he is calling” in an OTA.
I think you either don’t understand or don’t want to understand the difference between what you work in an individual practice and what you do in a game.

The defense always has and always will have aggressive play calls in its repertoire.
To cite what they worked on in an OTA as indication of what will happen on the field is simply obtuse.

Very simple.

Hightower said this:

"I definitely feel like we're going to be more aggressive"

How on Earth does this mean anything else than HT seeing us having a more aggressive defense with Flores in charge? Do you think he's mistaken and that Flores will suddenly change his tune during the regular season and play very conservatively? Seriously.

 

[Ring 6]

Very simple.

Hightower said this:

"I definitely feel like we're going to be more aggressive"

How on Earth does this mean anything else than HT seeing us having a more aggressive defense with Flores in charge? Do you think he's mistaken and that Flores will suddenly change his tune during the regular season and play very conservatively? Seriously.

Did you even read your own article which had this quote:

With the playcalling we've gotten so far, I definitely feel like we're going to be more aggressive,

He said that BASED UPON PLAY CALLING in an OTA on 6/7.

Players always want to be more aggressive. “I think we are going to be more aggressive” comments are a dime a dozen and you can probably find many of them on every team with a new coordinator.

You just are trying to be right so you lose all intellectual integrity by fudging the truth and thinking a barely relevant comment is the Bible.
But then you think we gameplsnned for preseason game 2 so I’m not surprised.

 

[Uptown]

 

[SHOWTIME15]

It may be, but that will be based upon personnel, not Flores changing the system and telling Belichick to get lost and let him do it his way.

Flores won’t change the system by himself, but BB can. We don’t know if the system has changed until we see some meaningful games. We don’t know what goes on in the coaches’ meetings.

 

[PP2]

Did you even read your own article which had this quote:


He said that BASED UPON PLAY CALLING in an OTA on 6/7.

Players always want to be more aggressive. “I think we are going to be more aggressive” comments are a dime a dozen and you can probably find many of them on every team with a new coordinator.

You just are trying to be right so you lose all intellectual integrity by fudging the truth and thinking a barely relevant comment is the Bible.
But then you think we gameplsnned for preseason game 2 so I’m not surprised.

Here's the headline of that article for you to peruse very carefully, in case the point went over your head:




One of two things are going to happen: One, the defense suddenly reverts to being very conservative in which case I will be back in here to apologize.

Two, Flores calls an aggressive defense this season, whether a result of his style and personality, or the talent he has on hand, or a combination of both, in which case my prediction will turn out to be correct.

Will you then come in here to man up? My bet is you'll just launch into the semantics of what defines an "aggressive defense."

 

[Ring 6]

Here's the headline of that article for you to peruse very carefully, in case the point went over your head:

View attachment 21013


One of two things are going to happen: One, the defense suddenly reverts to being very conservative in which case I will be back in here to apologize.

Two, Flores calls an aggressive defense this season, whether a result of his style and personality, or the talent he has on hand, or a combination of both, in which case my prediction will turn out to be correct.

Will you then come in here to man up? My bet is you'll just launch into the semantics of what defines an "aggressive defense."

I gave you his quote. His words. You think the headline contradicts it. Wow.

Why would I apologize?
I’m not saying we will or won’t be more aggressive.
I’m saying your reasoning is horrific.
If we become more aggressive it won’t be because of what happened in a June OTA or the second preseason game.
It MAY be because like every preseason we worked on the blitz package and it looked real good so we think we have personnel that fit it.

Why would you apologize? Then at least. You would have made a wrong prediction. Everyone does.
I’m not talking about the prediction I’m talking about the facts that would allow us to make a prediction.

If I analyze weather reports and say it will rain tomorrow and you say my shirt is blue and abc was a new weatherman so it won’t, your logic is flawed and a discussion about the topic would center on that. If it doesn’t rain that doesn’t mean your analysis was correct, it means it’s a coincidence.