The first few plays against Ariz were great, the team was moving the ball with aggressive play calls. Then penalties and bad line play stopped the drive and ruined the mojo. I adjusted the post accordingly.
"Great" is an overstatement. "Not as terrible as when AVP has to think on his feet" would be my language.
If you have good coaches but bad personnel, you try everything to scheme around your weaknesses and keep the other team off-balance.
This is just what Arizona was doing with its defensive formations, stunts and blitzes.
If you don't have anything to play for, at least imaginative coaching keeps games open and interesting -- and it gets the fans excited. Instead, AVP and Covington are playing pre-season football.
The two of them REALLY MUST go -- along with Wolf, who oversaw the shambles of an off-season, and Stevens, whose linemen can't line up, start on time, snap the ball or not give up holding penalties.
The only really interesting thing is watching Drake Maye improvise his way out of the poor situations he's been put in. The defense is simply abject and humiliating.
Here -- biting his tongue and keeping as loyal as he can on the Patriots' own website -- is Evan Lazar:
Until further notice, New England's best hope of having an explosive offense is to leverage Maye's physical tools as much as possible to put stress on the defense. Instead, the game plan vs. Arizona called for nearly three-fourths of Maye's pass attempts to travel under 10 air yards, with seven screen passes on 29 drop-backs. Maye averaged -0.8 air yards per pass attempt in the first quarter. At the half, it was -0.6 air yards/attempt until they finally opened it up in the second half, where Maye went 9-of-13 for 131 yards on 12.1 air yards per pass attempt.
Most of those second-half passing yards came in garbage time, where the Pats QB1 himself admitted that Arizona began playing basic coverages to keep the top on the defense. Still, the opening script for this game wasn't one for a toolsy dual-threat quarterback, and we haven't even touched on the fact that the Pats once again passed up opportunities to incorporate Maye's mobility into a short-yardage red zone scenario that ended in a turnover on downs at the ARI 4.
"We have quarterback-designed runs, just haven't pulled them out yet, so there's no disagreement. We're all on the same page. Alex and the offensive staff do a good job putting together the game plan. I go in there, I offer my two cents, and we come out of the room as a unit, all on the same page," Coach Mayo told reporters during his Monday morning video conference.
2. A bunch of old veterans who were past their prime and slow, so teams like the Bills sliced through them easily. *Unless the wind sliced them 1st like that 3-pass game.
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Instead, they'll probably extend Brissett and sack Lazar for pointing out the obvious.