To Everyone Blaming Brady

[Oswlek]

McDaniels has done a horrific job with red zone scheming this season. The personnel doesn’t work, the routes are predictable, and there’s been almost no “easy money” TDs where the coordinator is responsible for outsmarting the defense.

I'm not sure I'd use "horrific" but this closely mirrors my thoughts. The offensive approach has been confusing to say the least. They spent half the season running into brick walls with Sony out of tight sets.... only to immediately abandon it when it finally seems to be working. I also feel like there hasn't been much in the way of scheming guys open the way we used to see. Given how much attention Edelman and White are getting, there should be some favorable matchups or tendencies to exploit, but I'm not getting the sense that this is happening.

Then again, Chatham showed two players where route combinations got Lacosse and Meyers wide open, so maybe it's a lack of success and Brady's hyper-focus on Edelman that is making me think this is the case.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Which is precisely why we can say with confidence that NE had concerns about Gordon off the field.

Not necessarily...Bill may have done it to make room for Sanu and didn't want to cut another player. If Bill thought Gordon off the field was a major concern, he would have released him long before acquiring Sanu.

 

[TN patriot fan]

Even if Harry is a complete washout and several of the TEs selected go on to be HOFers, this draft class is still trending very much in a positive direction.

Perspective seems to oddly disappear whenever drafting is discussed.

Winovich was a good pick; none of the rest, apart from the punter, have done anything, and most haven't played five minutes. How is that anything but disastrous for a single draft?

 

[TN patriot fan]

???

As of now, if Harry's a washout, we're talking about Winovich and a punter.

I just posted the same thing and then read yours.

 

[TN patriot fan]

That “wide open” pass to Dorsett is a BS take. There were defenders guarding that passing lane and it would have been a near impossible pass. More likely it would have been another end zone interception where everyone is like “WHAT was he thinking on that one??? How didn’t he see that defender!?”

Brady played far from perfect, but McDaniels has done a horrific job with red zone scheming this season. The personnel doesn’t work, the routes are predictable, and there’s been almost no “easy money” TDs where the coordinator is responsible for outsmarting the defense.

McDaniels has been less than stellar not just in the red zone but every other play as well. If he had called plays like this two years ago he wouldn't have had to worry about HC offers.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

McDaniels has been less than stellar not just in the red zone but every other play as well. If he had called plays like this two years ago he wouldn't have had to worry about HC offers.

Well, not having Gronk is going to do that...

 

[TN patriot fan]

Well, not having Gronk is going to do that...

I get that he has less to work with; it just seems like he has thrown up his hands and is just going through the motions, not even trying to figure out what might work with the personnel he has. There has to be something that Dorsett and Meyers and Harry can do better than what they've been asked to do lately; it certainly couldn't get any worse. Brady could have four guys from a Boston College intramural squad and get what he's getting half the time right now, i.e. a bunch of guys running around not getting separation, not fighting for the ball, dropping the ball, etc.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

McDaniels has been less than stellar not just in the red zone but every other play as well. If he had called plays like this two years ago he wouldn't have had to worry about HC offers.

Look at the disastrous stints in Denver and St. Louis. It isn’t that difficult to call plays with an offense that has great blocking consisting of Gronkowski, Edelman, Amendola, White, and of course Brady orchestrating the attack. Last year I’d say he did his best work with what he had to work with. But this guy isn’t an offensive genius of the Kyle Shanahan mold. We’ve seen plenty of supposed offensive geniuses like Bill O’Brien, Charlie Weis, and defensive geniuses like Matt Patricia, Romeo Crennell, Dean Pees, Eric Mancini, and Brian Flores. The one thing they have in common is none of them have won anything or been successful without Belichick/Brady. I’d say Crennell has been the most successful of them all but hasn’t established himself as a major difference maker.

When the offense doesn’t have major mismatches to exploit - especially a certain Hall of Fame tight end who might be the best offensive weapon ever - Josh is pretty average. He’s as good as his personnel just like 75% of the OCs out there.

 

[BaconGrundleCandy]

It's tough for me to get mad at McDaniels rn.

Doesn't matter where the talent is Josh will find it & make it work. TE's, Slot, RB's - Moss, Welker, Gronk, Edleman, White - Injuries, players let go/traded/retired, unqiue personnel -Josh makes it work.

He'd have a OC job by morning & HC job somewhere by weeks end despite his past. Certainly not perfect but not the problem imo.

No TE's to focus on, decoy or rely on in any way. Harry just started playing ... It's December. For w/e reason we're not using Sony, Rex in the passing game?

One of the big issues here no one has brought up to my knowledge. Losing O'Shea. I've loved Flores forever, losing him sux but we're not hurting bc of it.
O'Shea was an enormous part of our red zone success. Creative but like any of Bills guys detail orientated to say the least but also won't ignore the obvious. Players coach. Smart as hell but he can f around w the boys. Definitely feeling his departure. Josh had the utmost respect for him & leaned on him in a lot of ways.

So this goes a little deeper than the talent on the field as well.

 

[Deus Irae]

Look at the disastrous stints in Denver and St. Louis. It isn’t that difficult to call plays with an offense that has great blocking consisting of Gronkowski, Edelman, Amendola, White, and of course Brady orchestrating the attack. Last year I’d say he did his best work with what he had to work with. But this guy isn’t an offensive genius of the Kyle Shanahan mold. We’ve seen plenty of supposed offensive geniuses like Bill O’Brien, Charlie Weis, and defensive geniuses like Matt Patricia, Romeo Crennell, Dean Pees, Eric Mancini, and Brian Flores. The one thing they have in common is none of them have won anything or been successful without Belichick/Brady. I’d say Crennell has been the most successful of them all but hasn’t established himself as a major difference maker.

When the offense doesn’t have major mismatches to exploit - especially a certain Hall of Fame tight end who might be the best offensive weapon ever - Josh is pretty average. He’s as good as his personnel just like 75% of the OCs out there.

Eh.... The moment you cite St. Louis, you pretty much concede that context is irrelevant to you, and that you're just here to blindly bash McDaniels.


You're better off just hammering on the Broncos tenure.

 

[Oswlek]

Not necessarily...Bill may have done it to make room for Sanu and didn't want to cut another player. If Bill thought Gordon off the field was a major concern, he would have released him long before acquiring Sanu.

You overlook the obvious possibility that Sanu's arrival was partly motivated by a desire to move on from Gordon.

But to limit things to your choices:

1. Bill somehow didn't forsee that Sanu would need time to ramp up to speed and/or might get hurt.

2. Bill fully understood these things might happen, but had more reasons to move on than just a swap at on field production.

Somehow you look at all the facts - including those that clearly indicate the latter - and conclude that Bill is an idiot. Not just that he made a mistake, but that he didn't possess the forsight any 8 year old fantasy team owner has.

And, yes, there are many facts that dispute your interpretation. You raise them all the time whenever you try to argue it was a mistake. Somehow it eludes you, though, that you are effectively arguing against yourself.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

I'm not sure I'd use "horrific" but this closely mirrors my thoughts. The offensive approach has been confusing to say the least. They spent half the season running into brick walls with Sony out of tight sets.... only to immediately abandon it when it finally seems to be working. I also feel like there hasn't been much in the way of scheming guys open the way we used to see. Given how much attention Edelman and White are getting, there should be some favorable matchups or tendencies to exploit, but I'm not getting the sense that this is happening.

Then again, Chatham showed two players where route combinations got Lacosse and Meyers wide open, so maybe it's a lack of success and Brady's hyper-focus on Edelman that is making me think this is the case.

(This is not aimed at you Oswlek) I honestly don't get either the Brady sucks or the it's everyone else but Brady. Right now this is BB, JM, Steve B, Mayo, TB, receivers, OL etc. When things turn sour like this, every damn! one needs to do better and that does not preclude TB. BB/JM need to make better in game decisions. TB needs to make better on field decisions. Receivers need to run better routes and win one on one battles better. OL needs to work on giving TB another second of pocket time or better hole for Sony, Burk, White. The RBs need to find a way to gain an extra yard
This 'if others would just do better' is ???. There's dozens of plays being run. Too many aren't being productive. So whatever players you have need to do better with what they have and that includes TB. No other QB I would want to build a franchise around, period (or any HC either) but EVERYONE needs to look at their game and do it better. Then you squeeze whatever better production you can out of that. It really is that simple and again it starts with the coach/player lookin at you in the mirror -- not 'boo hoo it's him! no it's him! no it's them!'.

 

[Oswlek]

Winovich was a good pick; none of the rest, apart from the punter, have done anything, and most haven't played five minutes. How is that anything but disastrous for a single draft?

Froholdt, Williams and Harris all flashed in the preseason and would be playing if not for injury/positional depth. One of the picks was a QB that obviously wouldn't be playing, but showed promise. Harry's struggles are directly tied to missing so much time.

But even if none of that were true, two key contributers during their rookie seasons is about average from a draft class. If that's the extent of it in two years, then we can start talking about it as a lousy class.

Even if you want to quibble and call it below average, calling it "disastrous" is, as I said before, a lapse in perspective.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

You overlook the obvious possibility that Sanu's arrival was partly motivated by a desire to move on from Gordon.

But to limit things to your choices:

1. Bill somehow didn't forsee that Sanu would need time to ramp up to speed and/or might get hurt.

2. Bill fully understood these things might happen, but had more reasons to move on than just a swap at on field production.

Somehow you look at all the facts - including those that clearly indicate the latter - and conclude that Bill is an idiot. Not just that he made a mistake, but that he didn't possess the forsight any 8 year old fantasy team owner has.

And, yes, there are many facts that dispute your interpretation. You raise them all the time whenever you try to argue it was a mistake. Somehow it eludes you, though, that you are effectively arguing against yourself.

You seem to forget the fact that Bill wanted Sanu for a long time...it had nothing to do with Gordon's supposed fall from grace. And both players are different WR types...one plays the X, the other the Z. And I never called Bill an idiot.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I'm not sure I'd use "horrific" but this closely mirrors my thoughts. The offensive approach has been confusing to say the least. They spent half the season running into brick walls with Sony out of tight sets.... only to immediately abandon it when it finally seems to be working. I also feel like there hasn't been much in the way of scheming guys open the way we used to see. Given how much attention Edelman and White are getting, there should be some favorable matchups or tendencies to exploit, but I'm not getting the sense that this is happening.

Then again, Chatham showed two players where route combinations got Lacosse and Meyers wide open, so maybe it's a lack of success and Brady's hyper-focus on Edelman that is making me think this is the case.

I don’t know if Chatham was just cherry picking a couple of obvious plays he noticed because every QB in the league will have those every game. I know having Matt LaCosse open a few yards short of a first down is certainly not an obvious gimme in Brady’s mind. LaCosse has to catch the ball pick up the yardage (I assume a defender somewhere in the vicinity there, though the angle was hard to tell.). So yes, Brady missed the open guy, but the open guy is worst pass catcher on the field, too.

Feels like this entire offense is like an entity in itself, like all the players form as one, and they seem to be playing bad football. Open guys dropping passes on first down, putting them into a hole; Brady inaccurate on quick outs; balls just seemingly always six inches away...guys making the wrong read and break...these automatic completions in the past just seem so out of sync. Since this seems like a group effort, it does give me hope that they start clicking at some point. I haven’t seen them get into that “second gear” like in the past, where they get into a rhythm, especially on drives where scoring is critical. It’s just like how the offense is usually better than the sum of its parts. Now they aren’t as good as the sum of their parts.

It does make you appreciate 20 years of excellence a lot more too. Brady doesn’t win by stepping out on the field and making easy plays. Timing, decision making, and pinpoint accuracy has little margin of error, and this just shows how great this offense has been for so long, and there is no magical guiding hand there. Making it “look easy” is why many mistakenly think this is some mythical system, when in fact it’s very, very difficult to do that.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

If Brady goes on the radio and says this, then runs the table against very beatable teams, he’s the MVP. It worked for Rodgers.

Despite never appearing in another Super Bowl.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Despite never appearing in another Super Bowl.

Derp...defense...McCarthy...injuries...running game...McCarthy...GOAT.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Feels like one of three things is going on:

1) the setup for "On to Cincinatti," and are we a bunch of dumbasses, or
2) rut rohhhhh, or
3) Not great but a rebound from flu-riddled, injury-riddled hell, to mentally tough enough to hang despite adversity status... and a decent showing against the next 4

(2) is right now the possibility on everybody's mind. On the other hand... deep breath, just in case (1).

 

[DaBruinz]

The INT was on Harry, and you're trying to flip it to Brady?

That INT was in NO WAY on Harry and it's pure ignorance on your part, Deus, to claim otherwise.

 

[DaBruinz]

What you think of as holiday bootcamp is nothing more than a glorified throwing session without any defenders.

It struck me always more as something to build camaraderie than have an actual impact on how players understand the offense. Especially given that it was mostly Edelman and Dola who were invited.

This started long before Edelman and Amendola were on the team. It started after the disasterous 2006 season. Brady started inviting the WRs who were on the roster to work out with him in Cali. To claim that it was a glorified throwing session is a huge understatement since it was said that they went over how Brady expected routes to be run in certain situations.

After Brady started doing those sessions, we saw a huge uptick in the offenses success with WRs.

It's been at least 2 years, though, since he's done it. Or since it was reported on, anyways.