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Zappe's accuracy & decision making so far are crazy. These numbers are eye-opening:
Completion percentage over expected measures how a quarterback is performing relative to the difficulty of their throws. Zappe's currently first in the NFL in CPOE with +8.9. Joe Burrow led the NFL last year in CPOE with +6.7. His completion percentage is 72.9% with three drops as well.
He's thrown the ball 0 times to the other team on 70 attempts. The INT was on agholor & defenders haven't had the chance to intercept another pass yet.
The pats have to see this through to know what they have in Zappe. It's hard to bench a rookie QB playing at this level IMO.
One thing I noticed this year is Mac seemed to have a lack of confidence. Zappe plays with great confidence. I still think Mac is the better QB, but man, Zappe seems more comfortable and confident in this offense. I still love Mac, but he has a lot to prove when he comes back. If Zappe plays vs Chicago and does well, he’ll probably be 3-1 in his 4 starts. Mac comes back as the starter, but he’ll have a short leash.
There are no easy games after Chicago. Arizona and Vegas probably being the easiest left after Chicago. So 8 of the 11 games left, the teams are .500 or better. Scary schedule.
With the changes to the offense, coaching, second year expectations Mac did seem to be overthinking things this season. As a result he looked less comfortable than he did as a rookie. Maybe the time away to heal his ankle will also allow him to heal his mental injury and allow him to play with confidence. I love what Zappe has done so far. If he takes the job I am concerned that we are destined to have a second year in a row flame out due to the QB hitting the rookie wall when a vanilla approach does not cut it against the best teams.
I think we saw last year that speed was needed all around on this team and we have definitely addressed that issue, not only on offense, but also on the defensive side of the ball.
One issue I feel is still there is red zone. 1st and goal at the 1 early on and we settle for 3. Then have the 1st and goal on the 3 and it took a clutch hook-up between Zappe and Thornton to stop another FG try. Feel we need to be more creative in these positions.
When Mac faced Baltimore they were the worst pass defense in the league by a wide margin. Cleveland pass defense is middle of pack and is better than Baltimore pass defense. Even Detroit pass defense is better than Baltimore pass defense.
A lot of it depends on who is in there. Peters came back against us, while Denzel Ward went out. We have too few samples to judge. This is going to be a long term process. Mac did not look good early this year, but he looked good last year. This means it's too early to judge.
DCs figured out how to get to Mac end of last year. Flood the zones because so many of the routes were short. You see how the Browns went at Zappe's Patriots. 8 in the box. They didn't believe Zappe could throw on them. He proved them wrong.
Teams are not going to make that mistake again. They'll have to be more honest against the run.
This idea, the Mac 50-50 ball offense, and the new simpler, vanilla Zappe offense argumente keep coming up. I honestly don't understand them. So, with Mac, Patricia/BB were running a more complicated offense that resulted in less open receivers with the goal of throwing aggressive 50-50 balls down the field? But with Zappe, they've decided to go with the simple offense that creates wide open receivers?
I'm seriously open to hearing a better explanation of this, but the easier reasoning for a simpleton like myself is, dare I say it.. improved qb play.
Im not getting that either and mentioned that in the other thread. The passing game was our strength yesterday when we didnt excel on the ground as expected. And its not like Bailey is throwing a ton of screens/ dumpoffs or dinking and dunking down the field. He’s making every throw Mac made.
Nice Win. My favorite play by Zappe was where he stepped up into the pocket to avoid the rush and threw a perfect pass. That was nice.
They got extremely lucky on that on-side kick call. I was surprised they overturned the call on the field as I couldn't see the Browns player actually touch that ball but then again, I think the refs & the New York review crew blew it on Zappe's "fumble". His arm was clearly moving forward when the ball came out. I don't know how the New York review crew missed that. The last replay angle showed it clearly.
As for the Browns, I thought Brissette was a better QB than that. I also thought Chubb was a better RB than that.
And speaking of Chubb, why didn't the Browns try running Chubb at the end of the 1st half? They had the ball 2nd & 1 on the 29 with 42 seconds left and two time outs. They called for a pass out of the shotgun on 2nd & 1 and 3rd & 1. Both fell incomplete. I would think that with Barmore out and Chubb back there, you use him to pick up that 1 yard and call a quick timeout. A new set of downs there gives you at least one more shot at the endzone. They ended the half with those 2 timeouts. Poor clock management, especially when you consider they called their 1st timeout to stop the clock at 42 seconds after letting about 12 extra seconds run off as they went to huddle up.
Wise 7 pressures & a sack vs. the browns. He’s currently 14th in pressures & top 10 in sacks (Judon is 5th & tied for 1st). He wasn’t facing a slouch in Wills either.
Wise going from a rotational player to a difference maker on the EDGE may be the story of the season on defense. He was an animal yesterday.
1. Zappe looked really good. Earlier in the season people were saying Zappe didn't have great arm strength (threw some balls that hung in the air a long time against GB ). Zappe really showed his arm strength on slants in this game, several of the balls to Parker were missiles. His pocket presence was really great. The Browns really aggressively run blitzed to try and take Rham out of the game and it's great that the Pats were able to make adjustments with a rookie back up.
2. What was this offense doing to start the year? I agree with the notion that the gameplan for Mac was extremely different from the one Zappe has been in. I don't mention this to denigrate Zappe or prop up Mac (too much of that already going on here). Mac definitely had to make more calls at the line, site adjustments and audibles. When Mac comes back, the offense needs to be as it has been under Zappe or if they stay with Zappe they can't go back to the offense to start the season. There is no reason to put so much on QB if the offense is significantly more successful without the extra weight on the QB shoulders.
3. The offensive line looks great, it seems like they have been using Cannon or Wynn as the sixth lineman a lot and it's really helping. When the offensive line holds up the offensive weapons get to show that they have quality playmakers.
4. Henry seemed like another guy (besides Mac) who didn't seem to excel in the offense as it was to start the year. It is nice to see him get back to his self from last year the last two games. It seemed like Jonnu was cutting into Henry's snaps over the first couple games, so it was great to see Henry continue to produce with Jonnu back.
5. Props to the Pats defense. The defensive backs are a really strong unit. The d line is getting more pressure in the pass rush than I expected to start the year. Maybe the Browns should have run the ball more, with Chubb averaging 4.9 yards per carry, however I give the Pats credit for playing personnel and giving the Browns looks that dissuade the Browns play caller from running.
We found out what Troy Brow said to D Parker before they had a blow-up on the sidelines. And it was about Parker yapping and getting into verbal sparring on the field instead of getting in the huddle.
I did notice Parker losing his mind on the field, and so Troy was right to tell him to get his mind ready for the next play
This idea, the Mac 50-50 ball offense, and the new simpler, vanilla Zappe offense argumente keep coming up. I honestly don't understand them. So, with Mac, Patricia/BB were running a more complicated offense that resulted in less open receivers with the goal of throwing aggressive 50-50 balls down the field? But with Zappe, they've decided to go with the simple offense that creates wide open receivers?
I'm seriously open to hearing a better explanation of this, but the easier reasoning for a simpleton like myself is, dare I say it.. improved qb play.
Zappe has been reigned in to a limited play set, mostly NEP staples, while Mac was given more challenging plays to execute. He was also given the challenging plays with a new OC who had never been an OC before. When Zappe came in they dumbed down the offense. I'm not insulting Zappe, who has done a fine job, but Mac was operating more difficult plays in a more difficult environment.
This idea, the Mac 50-50 ball offense, and the new simpler, vanilla Zappe offense argumente keep coming up. I honestly don't understand them. So, with Mac, Patricia/BB were running a more complicated offense that resulted in less open receivers with the goal of throwing aggressive 50-50 balls down the field? But with Zappe, they've decided to go with the simple offense that creates wide open receivers?
I'm seriously open to hearing a better explanation of this, but the easier reasoning for a simpleton like myself is, dare I say it.. improved qb play.
I would think the goal of the more complex offense would be to create more big play opportunities, but it seems they outsmarted themselves.
I do think we've been blessed with weaker opponents in CLE and DET which in particular has helped the O-line gel, but I also think it would have been time to simplify the offense even if Mac was still in there.
I do think Agholor on the bench is addition by subtraction. He just does not have good enough hands. Davante Parker is a better overall receiver than he is. Agholor was getting a lot of the WR1 snaps. Hopefully Parker has passed him on the depth chart, with plenty of Thornton mixed in too.
I think it matters since we've seen a few balls go off Agholor's hands become INTs and/or drive killers.
What I liked was using the passing game to set up the running game. They finally began to trust Zappe to do this. Everyone expects to start a series of downs with a run, it's the safe thing to do, and if you get decent yards you're all set to do whatever you want on the next down. Yet if you don't get good yardage you've dug yourself a deep hole and you become a bit too desperate. If you start with a pass and can hit even a short gainer, the defenders begin to bias towards pass coverage which opens up holes for the running game. I saw this work a few times yesterday, and hope we continue to do it more and more.
3. The offensive line looks great, it seems like they have been using Cannon or Wynn as the sixth lineman a lot and it's really helping. When the offensive line holds up the offensive weapons get to show that they have quality playmakers.
I find it hard to use the word "great" when Wynn is in the conversation. It's pretty telling that Cannon played more snaps than Wynn yesterday. Wynn was responsible for Garrette's strip sack. He also got called for another false start. This says it all:
Oh and something I forgot in my earlier post - How did these referees miss the very obvious facemask call against the Patriots? It was right there out in the open. If anything, there was clear contact with QB Brissett's head, which is supposed to be a penalty but on replay, the facemask was clear as day. The Patriots (Wise?) got lucky there. I shouldn't complain since it benefited the Pats but still... that was bad refereeing.
