Does McDaniels hold this team back?

[JoeSixPat]

2007: #1 scoring offense in history.

Now, you'll argue that is was because the players were so good. Ok....

2006: #7 offense in the NFL.

Now, where's the argument about the talent, given that one of the team's top two receivers at the beginning of the season was cut midseason and the other top receivers were Gaffney and Caldwell?

Bear with me on a hypothetical for a second.

Let's say we had Brady, Moss and no offensive coordinator whatsoever in 2007.

Do you really think Brady and Moss wouldn't be as productive?

Now in 2006 noting Deus's "proof" that Defensive coordinators fear Jabbar Gaffney ( as deep threat WRs.... why then didn't McDaniels use Gaffney as a deep threat?

We had NO ONE going deep that year - McDaniels completely dropped the pretense and gave up any attempts to go deep and it allowed defenses to completely collapse towards the line of scrimmage, putting a ton of pressure on Brady and the running game.

Oh sure tons of short dump passes and passes at or even behind the line of scrimmage can add up in terms of yards after the catch. And again, let's give Brady just a tiny bit of credit (not to mention the offensive line which had a TON of pressure on them in 2006 - more so than in 2007 though they got no credit) for making something from just about nothing.

But giving McDaniels credit for basically coming right out and telling Defensive coordinators that he had no intention of throwing deep in 2006 and inviting them up to the line of scrimmage?

I don't think that was smart at all.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't think the weapons in 2006 were anything near what we had in 2007, so I actually do applaud Brady and the OL and wouldn't withhold some credit for McDaniels for doing SOME good things. But to look at the complete abandonment of any pretense that we'd ever throw deep against teams in 2006 and say that was a stroke of genius?

I don't think so.

Of course, I don't think Gaffney's a deep threat and Deus has "proven" he is so we disagree on that - and of course, Reche Caldwell's deep numbers are nearly as good as Gaffney's so I guess he counts him as a deep threat too. So I know he can't contend that McDaniels had no deep weapons in 2006.

So why didn't McDaniels use Gaffney as a deep threat in 2006 when its been "proven" that Gaffney's a deep threat?

 

[wpdougie2180]

1.) You are clearly trying to "take anything away from Welker"

2.) You were wrong. The facts are conclusive on that. Now you're just trying to move the goalposts.

How am I wrong please explain. And how am I taking something away from Welker. Would you say Welker is a better Deep receiver than Moss. No of course you wouldn't. But you say he is better than Stallworth on this play why because clearly Donte' is bigger, faster, stronger, breaks more tackles, and avg. more yards on that particular play. Let me put it another way if your star running back only avg. 2 yds. on a particular play but his backup avg. 5 who would you call the play for, that doesn't mean he's better it just means he's better at that one play call. Rewatch the games from this past Season and the Super Bowl and you will see what I mean. If the guy got 18 yds. on the play at least call it one more time for him.

 

[richpats]

Another fact to play around with - McDaniels' offense only produced 14 points against a defense that NE produced 38 points 5 weeks earlier. Umm, are we paying attention?

 

[Rob0729]

The offense did work fine but did it work like it did before he got "demoted"? The answer is NO. And he didn't disappear for long stretches Brady just refused to look his way. I saw clear incidents in the Giants, Jets, Dolphins, and Ravens games where he was open and Brady went elsewhere some for completions some not but since the had the best offense ever and went undefeated no one comment on this but he was open on numerous occasions and didn't get the ball.

So how is it neccessarily McDaniels fault if Stallworth was wide open. Maybe it was Brady who didn't want to throw to him. Maybe Brady got too comfortable with Moss and chose to over look in his direction. Maybe Brady didn't have a rhythm with Stallworth and didn't feel comfortable looking in his direction. Maybe while open, Stallworth wasn't where he was supposed to be.

I am sure if we won the Super Bowl, there would still be people biatching about McDaniels.

 

[richpats]

I am sure if we won the Super Bowl, there would still be people biatching about McDaniels.

I love when the "you wouldn't be complaining about losing the SB if we had won the SB" logic comes out.

 

[wpdougie2180]

So how is it neccessarily McDaniels fault if Stallworth was wide open. Maybe it was Brady who didn't want to throw to him. Maybe Brady got too comfortable with Moss and chose to over look in his direction. Maybe Brady didn't have a rhythm with Stallworth and didn't feel comfortable looking in his direction. Maybe while open, Stallworth wasn't where he was supposed to be.

I am sure if we won the Super Bowl, there would still be people biatching about McDaniels.

I agree actually I'm just coming up with the reason why the offense came back to earth in the later part of the season and then bottomed out in the Super Bowl

 

[Rob0729]

Bear with me on a hypothetical for a second.

Let's say we had Brady, Moss and no offensive coordinator whatsoever in 2007.

Do you really think Brady and Moss wouldn't be as productive?

Now in 2006 noting Deus's "proof" that Defensive coordinators fear Jabbar Gaffney ( as deep threat WRs.... why then didn't McDaniels use Gaffney as a deep threat?

We had NO ONE going deep that year - McDaniels completely dropped the pretense and gave up any attempts to go deep and it allowed defenses to completely collapse towards the line of scrimmage, putting a ton of pressure on Brady and the running game.

Oh sure tons of short dump passes and passes at or even behind the line of scrimmage can add up in terms of yards after the catch. And again, let's give Brady just a tiny bit of credit (not to mention the offensive line which had a TON of pressure on them in 2006 - more so than in 2007 though they got no credit) for making something from just about nothing.

But giving McDaniels credit for basically coming right out and telling Defensive coordinators that he had no intention of throwing deep in 2006 and inviting them up to the line of scrimmage?

I don't think that was smart at all.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't think the weapons in 2006 were anything near what we had in 2007, so I actually do applaud Brady and the OL and wouldn't withhold some credit for McDaniels for doing SOME good things. But to look at the complete abandonment of any pretense that we'd ever throw deep against teams in 2006 and say that was a stroke of genius?

I don't think so.

Of course, I don't think Gaffney's a deep threat and Deus has "proven" he is so we disagree on that - and of course, Reche Caldwell's deep numbers are nearly as good as Gaffney's so I guess he counts him as a deep threat too. So I know he can't contend that McDaniels had no deep weapons in 2006.

So why didn't McDaniels use Gaffney as a deep threat in 2006 when its been "proven" that Gaffney's a deep threat?

I don't buy the argument that this offense would have been the same no matter who was at the helm. There have been a lot of teams with a lot of talent that got nowhere close to what the Pats did.

Look at the team that Brady took the TD record from. The 2004 Colts had Manning, Harrison in his prime, Wayne, Edgerrine James, Brandon Stokley, Dallas Clark, Marcus Pollard, and a dominant o-line. From top to bottom that team was as talented or maybe even more talented than the Patriots offense of 2007. But the 2007 Pats scored 106 more point than the 2004 Colts. How do you explain that? Especially when 2004 Colts played 10 games in a dome.

As for 2006, McDaniels had no WRs other than Caldwell and Gaffney in the playoffs and a mediocre RB corp (Dillon was clearly done and Maroney was injured for most of the season). Yet the Pats were 11th in yards and 7th in scoring. Yeah, McDaniels did a horrible job.

 

[Rob0729]

I agree actually I'm just coming up with the reason why the offense came back to earth in the later part of the season and then bottomed out in the Super Bowl

I disagree that the offense really came back down to earth other than two or three game later in the season. I think weather may have played a part in both the Baltimore and Jets game. Brady seems to struggle in strong winds. The Eagles game was the only game that the Pats' offense was grounded in the regular season that the elements had absolutely no role. You can argue the second half of the Dolphins game, but I think if the Pats hadn't locked up the game in the first half I don't think Brady and Moss would have played school yard football in the second half.

 

[Deus Irae]

How am I wrong please explain. And how am I taking something away from Welker. Would you say Welker is a better Deep receiver than Moss. No of course you wouldn't. But you say he is better than Stallworth on this play why because clearly Donte' is bigger, faster, stronger, breaks more tackles, and avg. more yards on that particular play. Let me put it another way if your star running back only avg. 2 yds. on a particular play but his backup avg. 5 who would you call the play for, that doesn't mean he's better it just means he's better at that one play call. Rewatch the games from this past Season and the Super Bowl and you will see what I mean. If the guy got 18 yds. on the play at least call it one more time for him.

What do you mean "How am I wrong?"?

Why are you calling bubble screens to Welker when Stallworth get more yards every time

That was your assertion. It was demonstrably wrong.

 

[JoeSixPat]

I don't buy the argument that this offense would have been the same no matter who was at the helm. There have been a lot of teams with a lot of talent that got nowhere close to what the Pats did.

Look at the team that Brady took the TD record from. The 2004 Colts had Manning, Harrison in his prime, Wayne, Edgerrine James, Brandon Stokley, Dallas Clark, Marcus Pollard, and a dominant o-line. From top to bottom that team was as talented or maybe even more talented than the Patriots offense of 2007. But the 2007 Pats scored 106 more point than the 2004 Colts. How do you explain that? Especially when 2004 Colts played 10 games in a dome.

As for 2006, McDaniels had no WRs other than Caldwell and Gaffney in the playoffs and a mediocre RB corp (Dillon was clearly done and Maroney was injured for most of the season). Yet the Pats were 11th in yards and 7th in scoring. Yeah, McDaniels did a horrible job.

I guess we'll have to disagree on that - I think that Brady in particular - especially combined with Moss - are at another level talent-wise compared to "a lot of other teams".

I'd be shocked if Brady weren't just as productive without an OC than with McDaniels in 2007. Brady was on fire and defenses were able to slow, but not stop Moss no matter how many guys they had covering him (talented 6 foot 4 WRs tend to do that).

My lament is that McDaniels and Brady never fully took advantage of the coverage that Moss was attracting and utilize Stallworth to lessen that coverage on Moss. And that's essentially my point.

Again, as far as 2006 I was critical of McDaniels not at least going through the motions of throwing deep to Caldwell - I'd never even considered that he should have been throwing to Gaffney deep as Deus notes.

Deus can't have it both ways. He's "proven" that with 5 deep passes caught Gaffney is to be feared by DC's as a deep threat.

He points out that Gaffney achieved that high production even with Moss on the team taking the reps. Yet in 2006 we had a desparate need for a deep threat WR (which is why we signed Stallworth and Moss in the first place)

Well Deus - with no Moss on the 2006 team, your deep threat of Gaffney should have had some pretty big deep catch numbers in the games he played. Did he?

 

[richpats]

I disagree that the offense really came back down to earth other than two or three game later in the season. I think weather may have played a part in both the Baltimore and Jets game. Brady seems to struggle in strong winds. The Eagles game was the only game that the Pats' offense was grounded in the regular season that the elements had absolutely no role. You can argue the second half of the Dolphins game, but I think if the Pats hadn't locked up the game in the first half I don't think Brady and Moss would have played school yard football in the second half.

The prowess of the offense is a little overstated. During the last 6 games of the season, SD had a better scoring average and Dallas had an equivalent scoring average in weeks 1-5. The Pats just exploded in games 6-10 and averaged about 46 a game. Over the course of the season the Pats' offense went from great to historic to pretty good to OK (they did average only 22 ppg in the playoffs).

When it was great, NE seemed to have the most balanced offense. When it was historic, it was all-pass all-day. They were still determined to pass once the offense went down a gear or 2, defenses had adjusted. In the first 2 playoff games, NE seemed to find their offensive balance again but all that went out of the window in the Super Bowl when we simply gave up running the ball.

 

[richpats]

Deus can't have it both ways.

No kidding. He tried to use the "#1 offense in history" to argue McDaniels was a good OC and had an excuse for not winning the SB.

 

[Rob0729]

I guess we'll have to disagree on that - I think that Brady in particular - especially combined with Moss - are at another level talent-wise compared to "a lot of other teams".

I'd be shocked if Brady weren't just as productive without an OC than with McDaniels in 2007. Brady was on fire and defenses were able to slow, but not stop Moss no matter how many guys they had covering him (talented 6 foot 4 WRs tend to do that).

My lament is that McDaniels and Brady never fully took advantage of the coverage that Moss was attracting. And that's essentially my point.

Again, as far as 2006 I was critical of McDaniels not at least going through the motions of throwing deep to Caldwell - I'd never even considered that he should have been throwing to Gaffney deep as Deus notes.

Deus can't have it both ways. He's "proven" that with 5 deep passes caught Gaffney is to be feared by DC's as a deep threat.

He points out that Gaffney achieved that high production even with Moss on the team taking the reps. Yet in 2006 we had a desparate need for a deep threat WR (which is why we signed Stallworth and Moss in the first place)

Well Deus - with no Moss on the 2006 team, your deep threat of Gaffney should have had some pretty big deep catch numbers in the games he played. Did he?

Sorry, but I know it is blasmy on this board, but I put Brady and Manning on a fairly equal level. I would give an edge to the Colts WRs since both Harrison (at least the 2004 version of him) and Wayne are elite #1 WRs and would be the primary WR on virtually every team in the league, but the Pats had better depth. I would give a definite edge to the 2004 TE and RB corp. I would give the Pats o-line the edge based on how they protected Brady for most the year. Overall, I would give a slight edge to the 2004 Colts.

I also disagree that the Pats didn't take advantage of the coverage Moss was getting. They did. Just not the way you wanted. Look at what Wes Welker did last season. A large part of that was because Moss left the short and intermediate routes available for Brady to pick apart.

As for the 2006 season, the Pats were trying to go through the motions and trying to go deep, but Caldwell, Jackson, and whoever didn't scare anyone and most defenses would leave them to run on one-on-one match ups deep. All you needed to do with Jackson is wave your hand in front of his face and he would lose the ball. There is no use going through the motions with the deep pass if no one is going to bite and you can't connect even a few times.

Weis did the same thing in 2001 when Brady didn't have the armstrength yet and it didn't hurt us all that much. Even in 2002, they didn't go deep all that much.

 

[Sivy]

Randy Moss is a really good WR

 

[JoeSixPat]

Sorry, but I know it is blasmy on this board, but I put Brady and Manning on a fairly equal level. I would give an edge to the Colts WRs since both Harrison (at least the 2004 version of him) and Wayne are elite #1 WRs and would be the primary WR on virtually every team in the league, but the Pats had better depth. I would give a definite edge to the 2004 TE and RB corp. I would give the Pats o-line the edge based on how they protected Brady for most the year. Overall, I would give a slight edge to the 2004 Colts.

I also disagree that the Pats didn't take advantage of the coverage Moss was getting. They did. Just not the way you wanted. Look at what Wes Welker did last season. A large part of that was because Moss left the short and intermediate routes available for Brady to pick apart.

As for the 2006 season, the Pats were trying to go through the motions and trying to go deep, but Caldwell, Jackson, and whoever didn't scare anyone and most defenses would leave them to run on one-on-one match ups deep. All you needed to do with Jackson is wave your hand in front of his face and he would lose the ball. There is no use going through the motions with the deep pass if no one is going to bite and you can't connect even a few times.

Weis did the same thing in 2001 when Brady didn't have the armstrength yet and it didn't hurt us all that much. Even in 2002, they didn't go deep all that much.

Well, I'll not blast you for that. Manning and his reciever options certainly can be mentioned in the same breath as Brady and Moss this year - with no insult meant or taken.

But a lot of other teams? I don't think so. The Colts - OK. And what did Manning do? Well 49 TDs isn't bad in my book.

But as to "taking advantage" of Moss - no question, without Moss on the team Welker doesn't get the number of catches he did.

But you say "the way I wanted" - "The Way I Wanted" invovled using Stallworth's deep talent to get DBs off of Moss's back.

DBs are worried about guys beating them deep. They were happy to let Brady dump passes off to Welker and Faulk. Now Welker was amazingly slippery to be sure - but DBs will happilly sit back draping Moss in coverage and will then collapse on a dump pass to Welker or Faulk.

They'll GLADLY take that over getting burned deep for TDs.

Since we hopefully can agree that Welker wasn't a deep threat, how did Welkers catches ease coverage on Moss?

I'd prefer a situation where they had to pick their poison on who to cover deep - and would have been forced to cover BOTH Moss and Stallworth. Both would have benefitted - and anything that freed up Moss more would have been a good thing in my book.

McDaniels disagrees. He seemed perfectly happy to have Moss completely covered and did nothing to force Defenses to make a tough choice. That's not a wise strategy in my book.

 

[Deus Irae]

Bear with me on a hypothetical for a second.

Let's say we had Brady, Moss and no offensive coordinator whatsoever in 2007.

Do you really think Brady and Moss wouldn't be as productive?

Of course I believe that. I'd be silly not to. It's why teams have offensive coordinators in the first place.

Now in 2006 noting Deus's "proof" that Defensive coordinators fear Jabbar Gaffney ( as deep threat WRs.... why then didn't McDaniels use Gaffney as a deep threat?

Why do you keep deliberately posting misleading comments about what I've posted? I know your argument sucks, but to deliberately mislead about my comments is completely dishonest.

We had NO ONE going deep that year - McDaniels completely dropped the pretense and gave up any attempts to go deep and it allowed defenses to completely collapse towards the line of scrimmage, putting a ton of pressure on Brady and the running game.

Oh sure tons of short dump passes and passes at or even behind the line of scrimmage can add up in terms of yards after the catch. And again, let's give Brady just a tiny bit of credit (not to mention the offensive line which had a TON of pressure on them in 2006 - more so than in 2007 though they got no credit) for making something from just about nothing.

But giving McDaniels credit for basically coming right out and telling Defensive coordinators that he had no intention of throwing deep in 2006 and inviting them up to the line of scrimmage?

Even assuming that you're correct about this, which you're not, that's called making 'adjustments'. You know, the very thing you claim he won't do.

I don't think that was smart at all.

The offensive system used in 2006 got them to the AFCCG, and would have gotten them to the Super Bowl if not for the defensive collapse. Clearly it was smart enough for that.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't think the weapons in 2006 were anything near what we had in 2007, so I actually do applaud Brady and the OL and wouldn't withhold some credit for McDaniels for doing SOME good things. But to look at the complete abandonment of any pretense that we'd ever throw deep against teams in 2006 and say that was a stroke of genius?

I don't think so.

In 2006, Brady threw "long" (your definition again) 63 times, completing 22 of them. So, let's look back at the Belichick/Brady Era starting with the first Super Bowl season. Brady's 'long' pass numbers:

2001: 13-48
2002: 9-54
2003: 18-62
2004: 24-82
2005: 16-66
2006: 22-63
2007: 26-60

In other words, once again the data shows that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. The team threw 'long' (your definition) more in 2006 with the lesser receivers than it did in 2007. Seriously, don't you even take a moment to think about things before you post?

Of course, I don't think Gaffney's a deep threat and Deus has "proven" he is so we disagree on that - and of course, Reche Caldwell's deep numbers are nearly as good as Gaffney's so I guess he counts him as a deep threat too. So I know he can't contend that McDaniels had no deep weapons in 2006.

So why didn't McDaniels use Gaffney as a deep threat in 2006 when its been "proven" that Gaffney's a deep threat?

Once again you deliberately mislead about what I've posted. It's sad, but not unexpected given how ridiculous your arguments on this topic have been.

 

[wpdougie2180]

What do you mean "How am I wrong?"?



That was your assertion. It was demonstrably wrong.

As I said how am I wrong just by you saying I'm wrong doesn't mean I'm wrong especially when numerous NFL Network Playbook broadcast back up what I am saying. SO please as I said before EXPLAIN how I'm demonstrably wrong.

 

[Deus Irae]

As I said how am I wrong just by you saying I'm wrong doesn't mean I'm wrong especially when numerous NFL Network Playbook broadcast back up what I am saying. SO please as I said before EXPLAIN how I'm demonstrably wrong.

What part of Welker having the longest reception needs explaining? That alone proves your argument wrong.

Then, if you take away the longest reception for each player, Welker had a higher YPC than Stallworth, so it wasn't just one pass where Welker had more yardage on a catch than Stallworth.

Stallworth's receptions were for 7, 18 and 9 yards. There were 2 incompletions thrown his way.

Welker's receptions were for 8,9,15,7,-2,16,19,3,5,13 and 10 yards. There were 3 incompletions thrown his way. 5 of his 11 receptions were for 10 yards or more. Only 3 of his receptions went for fewer than the 7 yards that was Stallworth's shortest gain.

 

[ALP]

if he was, i doubt BB would still have hims as his O coordinator...

 

[JoeSixPat]

Of course I believe that. I'd be silly not to. It's why teams have offensive coordinators in the first place.



Why do you keep deliberately posting misleading comments about what I've posted? I know your argument sucks, but to deliberately mislead about my comments is completely dishonest.



Even assuming that you're correct about this, which you're not, that's called making 'adjustments'. You know, the very thing you claim he won't do.



The offensive system used in 2006 got them to the AFCCG, and would have gotten them to the Super Bowl if not for the defensive collapse. Clearly it was smart enough for that.



In 2006, Brady threw "long" (your definition again) 63 times, completing 22 of them. So, let's look back at the Belichick/Brady Era starting with the first Super Bowl season. Brady's 'long' pass numbers:

2001: 13-48
2002: 9-54
2003: 18-62
2004: 24-82
2005: 16-66
2006: 22-63
2007: 26-60

In other words, once again the data shows that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. The team threw 'long' (your definition) more in 2006 with the lesser receivers than it did in 2007. Seriously, don't you even take a moment to think about things before you post?



Once again you deliberately mislead about what I've posted. It's sad, but not unexpected given how ridiculous your arguments on this topic have been.

Dude...

You're the one who said Gaffney was a deep WR - not me. Don't run away from that now.

I love Gaffney - and he occasionally breaks some big ones - yet so does Lawrence Maroney... but he's no deep threat.


On the other points - Guys - am I really the only one who realizes our passing attack sucked in 2006? Don't leave me hanging here.

Three words: Reche friggen Caldwel

In other words DEFENSES HAD NO RESPECT FOR OUR DEEP GAME. This had major adverse consequences. DBs moved up toward the line of scrimmage. Brady felt intense pressure at times and did a great job avoiding sacks. The field effectively shortend. RBs, TEs and WRs alike encountered tighter coverage. It was not good.

This is common knowledge, no? This was not a secret. Whether we were the #7 offense or #1 offense - none of that would change the reality I just described.

Am I really the only one (besides Belichick obviously) who noticed that? Do you think it was a conincidence that Belichick brought in not one, not two, not three, but FOUR new WRs last year?

That's why getting Stallworth and Moss was such big news. That's why so many fans breathed a major sigh of relief - just with Stallworth alone.

Do you guys really not remember that?

And yet Deus has proven that we had a healthy deep game in 2006. Heck - one that rivaled 2007. They say one can make statistics say whatever one wants them to. Obviously they are right.

I remember all throughout that season there were similar arguments. Guys who argued vociferously that the pass attack was one of the best (7th as it turned out statistically) It seemed like a good handful of people were letting arbitrary statistics get in the way of their eyeballs.

There were actually a few people here just like him who, after the 2006 season argued that we were ALL SET at WR! With Caldwell and Gaffney!!??? They had STATISTICS to prove it! Go back and look up the post-season threads on it!

I'm damn glad we had as great an offense as we did this year. But I can't help but wonder what could have happened if we had another deep WR opposite Moss. We signed one in Stallworth - but McDaniels either couldn't or wouldn't use Stallworth in that way.

Couldn't or wouldn't is really the question.