Time for some in depth game thoughts.
#1 Most everyone before the game probably thought this team would eventually end its run when the D finally let them down. Not the case at all tonight. I know there is one game left to go, but it is fair to say unless something crazy happens we had the best D performance of the WC round. The talk about this D not potentially being as good as we thought came from Allen being superman against a D without some of its best players. Now many are back, and hopefully we will be healthier next week.
#2 Injuries... We knew there would be some bumps along the way. But as of right now I am confident we dodged anything major. Gonzo seems to have a very mild concussion and usually those can play within 7 days. If not we will see. For now i will assume him and Davis will be good to go.
#3 This game was a story about the D and the rookies. As for the rookies, some came through some did not. Mixed bag. Williams with a huge first on 4th down. Very important 7 yards and Maye willing to go to him on such a moment is of note. Chism had a very nice catch too. In fact he had the 2nd longest catch of any WR that night. (not couting RBs/TEs). Throw in the Westover catch too I guess??? Woodson was fantastic. Henderson was a mixed bag. You saw the difference between him and Stevenson running. Him going up the middle isn't working so well. He needs to bounce out and break one to be effective or the OL just needs to dominate. He will get his time vs less talented fronts possible.
#4 I have said Williams/Henderson will need to make a few huge free plays along the way to win a championship. I stand by that. Tonight we had none and the offense had some rough sailing. Without those huge chunk plays against good Ds it will be hard. Hopefully we will see some going forward. They will be needed at some point.
#5 The left side OL rookies where not good tonight. Yes a tough match up and they are rusty but still... Need to be better. However overall the pass protection has been good this year, and usually when they had some issues they got fixed and bounced back. They also had good games against some good pass rush units this year. So i don't believe this to be a case of just facing better players. More like seeing new things at the highest level, now we have to adapt. No matter who they play i believe they will be better next week. Even against Houston if it comes to it.
#6 Drake Maye with a mixed bag of a start. Some drops... Some fumbles where maybe he should have just gotten ride of it earlier. The tipped ball. He has had more tipped balls this year than I'd like. He also just missed some throws. But he made some big runs and did enough to win. It isn't always pretty in the playoffs. The most frustrating thing no one will talk about probably is after that huge run he had to throw it away twice. The lack of red zone options is frustrating in the passing game.
#7 The Red zone offense is something that needs to be better. Full stop. I know some fans were yelling out that we should just run... but we have seen how our OL does in short yardage or compressed field situations. They don't have the beef or power. Again, we don't have great red zone weapons. Too often we resort to fades in the back of the end zone which are high difficulty and low %. This will not change in this run. So we need Josh to draw up some magic. The play designs were not impressive in that area. We will need to scheme things open. A lot of the next week should be devoted to working on those plays on offense.
#8 The red zone defense? Chefs kiss. Where has this been all year. May god that Marcus Jones stop of Herbert! Sensational. Along with a number of other plays.
#9 Everyone hates Davis. I get it. He is the weak link in our secondary and it is annoying. But he is the weak link in a system where Woodson is playing like... dare i say it... a top 15 Safety. Hawkins right now is too. He ups his contract with every game. Gonzo was lights out tonight and Marcus was arguably a pro bowl snub at the nickel position. I mean... Okay. That is a high standard. And frankly he wasn't that bad. Yes he got his standard PI call, but outside of that he made some very good plays and didn't give up much in the air when he covered 1 on 1. Let's not hate too much. Also he come up with a huge tackle to force a 4th down.
#10 The new defense is this.... Man, single high, blitz. Repeat. Run that stuff 50% of the time. The strength of this D is its secondary. Live or die by it. Send that extra man and count on them to hold it together. Can't do it every play, but i am glad they are doing it more. This should be their bread and butter going forward on most money downs.
#11 I was incredibly disappointing we couldn't take advantage of this bad STs with Marcus Jones. Also how Schooler missed that block I have no idea... Went right under his arm i think. He made the right call there. Just didn't work. Unfortunately of all 5 punts returns... some due to short fields. Some due to Schooler calling his own number. Some due to just really good punts the Pats never had the chance to really take advantage of this weakness. I was looking for a short to do it all game. But that's how it goes sometimes. However by the laws of averages and things evening out (which i know a statistician would lecture me on doesn't exist) I am very confident next game Jones will have multiple chances to make a difference in the return game.
#12 People will talk about the pass D and the red zone D and the Pressure... Those things will get the highlights as they should. But how about that run D? I know Herbert got them a few times.. but the RBs got nothing all game. 12 carries 30 yards. That is closer to what we were doing earlier in the year and I believe it will carry over and only improve as we get Tonga back. Probably not to that level of dominance... but if you take away a teams run game you make things easier.
#13 I didn't mind the officials this game. Yeah there was a bad spot on a sneak that went against us... and an uncalled hit to the head of Herbert that went for us. But more or less they kept themselves out of the game as much as they could. I am happy with that. Frankly while that spot was brutal. I think the Pats got more non-calls go their way today. Which is refreshing as it seems most games this year the calls and non calls went against us.
#14 I said a low point game would massively favor LAC... if you told me only 19 points would be score I would have assumed a loss for sure. Well, playoffs and teams can be weird sometimes.
Final 8. They should have won... they did. Not in the way I expected. Now they should win against whoever they play next week. AFCCG is expected from this unit. No excuse not to make it that far at least.
