The optimism thread

soon as we get a slot reciever brady trusts the offense will be fine.

The defense has issues everywhere.

Can't stop the run, Can't stop the pass.

Need the offense to be able to put up 25+ every game in order to take pressure off the defense.

ashley1992 said:

I'm not as worried about the offense as I am the defense. With Edleman, Hollister and hopefully Gordon coming back, Brady will have more weapons and that should free up Gronk.

Wouldn't be surprised if we saw someone getting cut this week on the defensive side.(Sheldon, Brown, Hightower are a few that come to mind, although Roberts definitely needs to go.)

I expect a nice bounce back week against Miami coming up...fingers crossed

Click to expand...

But who do we have for depth?

Are there any hidden gems on the practice squad.

But I do agree, they need a shake up.
Not enough competition in Training Camp?.

Thank God we have BB.
If anyone can right the ship, he can

Silver Blue&Red said:

Thank God we have BB.
If anyone can right the ship, he can

Click to expand...

I dunno. That's like asking Leonardo da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa with finger paints. You gotta have the players and playmakers and the Pats are lacking both on both sides of the ball.

chasa said:

soon as we get a slot reciever brady trusts the offense will be fine.

The defense has issues everywhere.

Can't stop the run, Can't stop the pass.

Need the offense to be able to put up 25+ every game in order to take pressure off the defense.

Click to expand...

Yup. The issue on defence is talent, especially in the front 7. We will get better on D when Flowers and Chung get back, but against a decent offense they will continue to be exposed.

I have faith the offense will figure it out. Our big issue is our receivers are giving Brady no options. Double cover Gronk and he has no one to throw to. Edelman and hopefully Gordon will give Brady more options and free up space for Gronk.

The one glaring issue is we have no depth. Long term injuries to Gronk or Edelman and this team is toast.

Our offense reminds me of the last few games of 2015 when Amendola and Edelman were out. Without them, we couldn't move the ball at all.

Once Jules is back, some of that will be fixed so it gives me hope. Having Jules back and adding Gordon will also help Hogan tremendously. Easier to get open when you are the 4th target rather than the 2nd. Should help Dorsett as well, for the same reason.

So, once Jules is back and Gordon is incorporated, everyone will play a role that suits them better.

Boomer B said:

Yup. The issue on defence is talent, especially in the front 7. We will get better on D when Flowers and Chung get back, but against a decent offense they will continue to be exposed.

I have faith the offense will figure it out. Our big issue is our receivers are giving Brady no options. Double cover Gronk and he has no one to throw to. Edelman and hopefully Gordon will give Brady more options and free up space for Gronk.

The one glaring issue is we have no depth. Long term injuries to Gronk or Edelman and this team is toast.

Click to expand...

We can win a title without gronk(we did), If we don't have a decent option in the slot the offense dies.

We've seen this before. No decent slot option, No security blanket for Brady, Brady has to force balls to players that shouldn't be getting targets.

Everything changes if we keep DA instead of bringing in Patterson/20 something jags, or jules doesn't get suspended. week 5 things will turn around, patriots probably end the season something like 11-5 or 12-4

I would definitely give Grigsby a look. He can't be any worse than Roberts although I thought Roberts was the slowest linebacker I ever saw until I saw Hightower run last night.

Silver Blue&Red said:

But who do we have for depth?

Click to expand...

Le Numéro Douze said:

Our offense reminds me of the last few games of 2015 when Amendola and Edelman were out. Without them, we couldn't move the ball at all.

Once Jules is back, some of that will be fixed so it gives me hope. Having Jules back and adding Gordon will also help Hogan tremendously. Easier to get open when you are the 4th target rather than the 2nd. Should help Dorsett as well, for the same reason.

So, once Jules is back and Gordon is incorporated, everyone will play a role that suits them better.

Click to expand...

Once JE and JG are in, I believe they will start playing far better ball. It’s true what you said about when DA and JE were out, it’s the same deal now.

Week 5 is a short week, Pats playing Thursday so I wouldn't assume Edelman will swoop in and save the team after what, 3 practices? The guy is 32 and coming off an ACL injury. The chances he is great against the Colts are slim

chasa said:

We can win a title without gronk(we did), If we don't have a decent option in the slot the offense dies.

We've seen this before. No decent slot option, No security blanket for Brady, Brady has to force balls to players that shouldn't be getting targets.

Everything changes if we keep DA instead of bringing in Patterson/20 something jags, or jules doesn't get suspended. week 5 things will turn around, patriots probably end the season something like 11-5 or 12-4

Click to expand...

Different team when Gronk went down in 2016. Brady had both Edelman and Amendola plus a decent outside receiver in Mitchell. If we lose Gronk now teams will cloud the middle to take away Edelman and our outsides can’t beat 1 on 1 coverage. It would really come down to how well Josh Gordon plays. That’s a complete mystery right now.

Barring injuries I think we somewhat turn it around and get to 10-6 or possibly 11-5. All starts with the fish on Sunday.

Boomer B said:

Different team when Gronk went down in 2016. Brady had both Edelman and Amendola plus a decent outside receiver in Mitchell. If we lose Gronk now teams will cloud the middle to take away Edelman and our outsides can’t beat 1 on 1 coverage. It would really come down to how well Josh Gordon plays. That’s a complete mystery right now.

Barring injuries I think we somewhat turn it around and get to 10-6 or possibly 11-5. All starts with the fish on Sunday.

Click to expand...

Teams are already taking away Gronk. If you're not going to at least attempt to throw him the ball, what's the point (other than blocking)?

archstanton543 said:

Teams are already taking away Gronk. If you're not going to at least attempt to throw him the ball, what's the point (other than blocking)?

Click to expand...

I hear you, but he was literally doubled or tripled on every play. They showed that on shot where it looked like he was a gunner on the punt team.

The only way they really could have got Gronk involved last night is if they were running well. In obvious passing situations there was no way, the Lions took him out knowing no other receivers were threats. If we had been able to run it would have brought their safeties up and we could have hit him on some play action. But we couldn’t run and everything else went to sh*t.

There aren't any reasons to be positive right now if our pre-season expectation to win the Super Bowl remain valid. We ain't near that level.

There isn't really anyone out there who might fix the D. It looks unfixable to me in the short term. They might paper over the cracks for a few games but the issues are deep rooted and liable to appear at the most important times.
.
Even if the O improves with Edelman and Gordon, I don't see how it will improve to the level where we can consistently beat the best teams in the league.

Maybe I'm just being negative the day after but this just isn't a SB team. It might be a playoff team. And there is a change it's just be a bad team. We all heard through training camp that there was a different atmosphere, a lack of intensity and emotion. We all wrote it all off but maybe it was a serious issue, You don't just turn that on and off. It's difficult to find.

I am optimistic about next year...... sort of

They need to tackle better as well. There have been so many missed tackles they would have forced punts. Do that and there will be a marked improvement.

Lot more talent on those teams. You can't ignore the differences between overall roster strength as well as the decline of guys who were on those teams (Hightower, McCourty, Chung)

Yeah, but there was reason for hope then. There were younger players who were just inexperienced. This team looks old, slow and disinterested. Nobody's walking through that door (save for maybe Edleman) that's going to make a huge impact going forward.

mcmurtry86 said:

Lot more talent on those teams. You can't ignore the differences between overall roster strength as well as the decline of guys who were on those teams (Hightower, McCourty, Chung)

Click to expand...

Exactly like mcmurt said B6 the Talent level on both Teams is like night and day. And if are a betting you just can't pick this Team to win with that what Defense!

I would normally agree and there is a good chance we still end up with 12-4 but there are a few differences.

1. There is so much smoke around the Patriots. At first I did not believe it but the longer it goes the more likely there is a fire there.

2. Superbowl hangover. Losing teams tend to take a step back. This is not normally something I would worry about for us except the Butler fiasco makes it so much worse. I am afraid the locker room is losing some cohesiveness.

3. Lack of talent. I dont quite remember such a talentless Pats team during the Brady years. We simply got rid of too much talent all at once that we did not adequately replace. This is compounded by the less than stellar draft picks the last few years. The talent lost also had a lot of leadership.