Idle thoughts - baby steps

[ChessToCheckers]

Nice commentary as usual, Ken!

If we are looking at Catches Per Target, look no further than Phillip Dorsett.

IMO, his 3rd and 17, was the best play of that drive, and probably of the game.

I think he is the best WR 3/4 of Brady's career and the epitome of middle class depth.

Go Pats!

 

[tasmlab]

Not sure if it was tongue-in-cheek, but are you really wondering why they took a wide receiver in the first round? This is a group that has a really high ceiling, but it’s also a group that could be essentially gone within a year. Absolutely the right idea to feed the wide receiver pipeline.

It would be interesting to use the 4th quarter of these blow outs to put the rookie WRs on the field to practice for next year. But can't do that with Harry and Myers watching from home on TV.

 

[BlueThunder]

With this OL...Dante will need to work miracles against teams with a good DL..

Get well soon to Pats injured OLmen !!

When that happens, the Offense will be unstoppable...

 

[patfanken]

Lots of great material here, but I'll just chime in on a couple topics
Did anyone feel, coming into this game and probably the next, that we'd be facing serious NFL competition? I'm ok with Brady working some live reps with AB and never hurts to add Gordon to the mix.

And it never bothers me to keep hearing how Brady thought the Offense was in trouble because they couldn't get separation while practicing against our D.


Dorsett, this year, has been absolutely amazing. I know they kept him on when it seemed like he was WR 4/5, but his understanding and/or Brady's comfort with him has "grown 3 sizes" this year. If this is what we will see from Dorsett this year, how do you stop the WRs?

And, is this first time, perhaps in the Brady era, where we had a 4 WR set and you felt ALL the WRs were pretty high quality (within or without the system)?


Final thought, Why does Dan Fouts have a job? How can anyone with such a prime time gig be so offal (not a misspelling, but you get the idea) at his job? There has to be people with better insight, knowledge of the game - and rules, who could offer insightful commentary. If you dubbed over his voice with the wha-wha sound of a charlie brown teacher, the commentary would be improved. His only saving grace is, he's matched up with a guy who can't even pronounce his first name right and it's a 3 letter name .

I'm starting to think that Dorsett's contributions is the best story line that has been wiped out by all the AB mess. If there was a key play in a 43-0 thrashing, it was that 18 yd beauty on 3rd and 17. It was the Highlight catch of the week that will never see a Highlight reel. Glad to see he is finally getting his due.

 

[patfanken]

First thread I look for after every game, excellent synopsis of what we saw yesterday..



IMO football should be played on Sunday and the late game should start no later than 7:00 PM....



They were playing a crappy team with a crappy defense, imagine this line against a powerhouse.. Wynn went down with a foot injury, lets see how that develops.. but this area of the team is very concerning right now.. yesterday the pats played without Andrews, Cannon and for the most part Wynn.. that his a huge loss..



This all has to do with the excellent draft class, remember the brouhaha when they traded Duke Dawson to Denver?? That second round draft pick was squeezed out by the Pats talent. Then the predictable whining and gnashing of teeth about how BB does not know how to draft and the rest of the BS.. this team is that good where they have to creatively find ways to hide players on their roster. With the O line woes, what will that mean now?? Cunningham and Newsome were hardly impressive against Miami, so what do they do?? Bring in a couple of more O lineman?? I suppose it is better to work this stuff out early rather than late..

One thing for sure they cannot allow #12 to take a beating like he did yesterday ..

Dawson get a bad rap as being a bad player and a bad pick. I think time will show that Dawson is an NFL quality DB. It was just unfortunate that he was in a situation where the Pats found 2 UDFA's (Jackson/Jones) that were simply better than him.

And again, there wasn't a better DB this preseason than Williams in the league. His coverage was almost perfect and he was a beast against the run, and yet he can't crack the 45 man roster for the first 2 games of the season. It has nothing to do with him being sub par in ANY way, its just that there is no room for him because of the quality of the guys in front of him. Hell, he'd be starting for half the teams in the league. Its really a good situation. Injuries will eventually hit the secondary and the Pats will have a good answer when it happens.

 

[patfanken]

IMO football should be played on Sunday and the late game should start no later than 7:00 PM....

And the Thursday Night game should go as well. The solution is very easy, btw. Just change the game to a 2nd Monday night game. The networks can stay the same and the revenue stream will continue, though a bit less. Way too much of an advantage to the home team on such a short week.

 

[BlueThunder]

Playing the Thursday game on the NFL network sux...I don't/won't subscribe !

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

Playing the Thursday game on the NFL network sux...I don't/won't subscribe !

No worries you can catch it on repl...oops nevermind

 

[luuked]

And the Thursday Night game should go as well. The solution is very easy, btw. Just change the game to a 2nd Monday night game. The networks can stay the same and the revenue stream will continue, though a bit less. Way too much of an advantage to the home team on such a short week.

Or just add a second BYE week that is guaranteed before TNF. Players and teams get more rest, the owners and league get one additional weekend of regular season football for free which raises revenue (and in turn also the piece of the pie going to the players gets bigger).

Everyone wins.

 

[mgteich]

To the patriots, a top WR may be worth what we are paying AB, probably not much more. So, yeah, he would be much more valuable to someone else.

I've said in another post that I would like to extend Gordon at the bye or later, expecting that cost would be around $10 a year.

The thing is that he is not wrong with the bigger point about elite WR being overrated relative to their cap hits.

We have AB on a 5M cap charge for this year (with another 4M dead cap next year). Imagine if this was actually a market deal (i.e. 15-17M) and then take the difference and start subtracting starters and depth pieces from the defense, offense and ST to make up for it.

Then ask yourself is what AB gives the offense really worth what we would lose in other places to afford the contract ? There are valid views to both sides of this and it is a conversation worth having.

Don't let others bait you with this "prima donna", "diva" ******** because that is just a biased, pointless waste of time for everyone involved.

 

[mgteich]

While this is true, Brady needed to spend the time with Brown and Gordon.

It would be interesting to use the 4th quarter of these blow outs to put the rookie WRs on the field to practice for next year. But can't do that with Harry and Myers watching from home on TV.

 

[luuked]

To the patriots, a top WR may be worth what we are paying AB, probably not much more. So, yeah, he would be much more valuable to someone else.

I've said in another post that I would like to extend Gordon at the bye or later, expecting that cost would be around $10 a year.

I would welcome extensions to Dorsett and Gordon.

I think both have their place in the final 2 years of Brady's career. But I am not sure how likely either of the two are to forego FA while it is similarly unclear to me whether the Pats would not rather hang on and let Gordon finally finish a full season before talking real money.

Also I think they are fine with letting Dorsett hit FA and then either pick him up cheap if his market doesn't materialise or just move onto e.g. Meyers.

It always requires two to dance.

 

[mgteich]

No worries you can catch it on repl...oops nevermind

are all the games available on replay?

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

are all the games available on replay?

I think most if not all games are replayed on the NFLN - starting Tuesday.

 

[Patstopia]

With Brees down, Rapelessburger out, and the OL falling apart. Every down Brady plays scares me. BB the GM needs to get another decent tackle in before something very bad happens. The run game is going to suffer also so maybe split the load with Sony and Harris. Pound the ball until help arrives.

 

[captain stone]

And the Thursday Night game should go as well. The solution is very easy, btw. Just change the game to a 2nd Monday night game. The networks can stay the same and the revenue stream will continue, though a bit less. Way too much of an advantage to the home team on such a short week.

Or just add a second BYE week that is guaranteed before TNF. Players and teams get more rest, the owners and league get one additional weekend of regular season football for free which raises revenue (and in turn also the piece of the pie going to the players gets bigger)...

Another bye week? Only if the one before the SB is removed.