Many had assumed coming into the season that the Pats would continue their winning formula from the end of last season and postseason of a run heavy team with Tom mostly under center, winning time of possession, and passing game slowly opening under play action. The first game was a bit discouraging but I understand it’s early days.
It seems the loss of Gronkowski and Allen as well as 2-3 changes in the OL will in aggregate significantly impact the potency of the run game from end of last year. Michel’s 15 yards on 14 carries quickly led to him being shelved in favour of doses of White and Burkhead for the rest of the game. Despite offseason and preseason attempts to integrate Michel into the passing game, it seems we are still a bit too predictable about our run intention with Michel in and have to heavily rely on strong execution which appears harder with the personnel changes. Michel did go 3/3 on 3rd and 1 carries so that was encouraging.
For those who have broken down the film or watched the game again, can someone elaborate how much of us putting the run game aside after the first quarter was the Steelers’ stacking the box and overplaying the run versus our own execution challenges with the drop off from Izzo and Karras etc.
I guess we’ll try and find the identity of this team as the season progresses and I am sure Josh will do whatever is best for the team and certainly we were very successful with the 20 personnel we deployed. I am just curious what that identity will be since I certainly was a bit surprised to see Tom throwing for 350 yards in a blowout win.
Fantastic win guys. Let’s see how Michel’s role evolves this season.
