Idle thoughts - "escape from New York"

I agree with every word, Frank, except the fact that Lawrence Guy had a good game. He was active.

Jakobi Meyers was deer in the headlights and it’s disappointing that all those attempts to complete a pass to Phillip Dorsett were usually ineffective.

The disappointment is the receiver corps went from being an embarrassment of riches to inadequate last Sunday. Got to fix that.

Patstastic said:

How about we lay off on ripping the team so bad? Especially one that has been to four of the past five SB's (Including winning three). There will be days like this. The Chiefs barely beat the Lions. Baltimore got pounded by an inferior Browns team. The Rams got beat by an average Bucs team at home. Dallas lost to a backup QB. All of said teams are SB contenders. It isn't just the Pats who struggled yesterday. There will be days where it's a grind. That's not just football. It's life. This team has earned the benefit of the doubt. They deserve it. They went into a hostile environment and won a tough game. That will only be good for them down the road.

Yes some of the concerns brought up are valid. But let's not pretend the Patriots are the only team with issues. Said teams above have their issues too. Some of the comments in the gameday thread shocked me.

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We’re all rabid fans here. The reason we get upset and emotional is because we care. The reason we focus on the negatives is because that’s where improvements need to be made. How long can we discuss singing praises of Van Noy and McCourty. There’s a reason BB focuses on the negatives even after wins. It’s because he cares and that’s where the improvements can be made.

There are lots of forums of other teams with hardly any traffic and years/decades of despondency and a loss is followed by 1-2 posts saying “SOJ” and noone gets worked up and everyone moves on with life.

We’re worked up because we care. It’s good. It’s precious. And it’s certainly not excessive to the point of being vitriolic. Having a critical examination of all aspects of the game is useful for all forum users and enhances engagement.

Most of the problems flowed through the OL getting whipped coming and going.

shmessy said:

Yup the “Bumper” was JC Jackson on the big Frank Gore run in the 2nd half. That was horrible by the kid (who otherwise was the star of the game). It’ll be classic BB today in team film session for him to over most everything else, shame him by clicking that moment over and over and over and over in front of the entire team.

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I would love to be there for that dressing down. Lordie.

Patstastic said:

Some of the comments in the gameday thread shocked me.

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I’ll never be shocked anymore by the game day thread. It’s not for the faint of heart

If the Bills had an adequate sub for the ageless Gore—Singleton is hurt and they couldn’t afford to keep LeSean McCoy—then instead of letting Gee Whiz Josh Allen play Heroball, which led to two sacks in field goal territory on third down and three picks, the last two were the QB’s fault, Daboll could have run more and used play action.

44 passes to 22 runs played into our strengths.

If the Bills had a smarter QB...

A lot of good points made in this thread, and mostly the criticism is deserved. The offense was off kilter all game, but substantially more skittish in the second half. The Bills have what appears to be a legitimate defense, although I would hold fire on elevating them to top 5 for a while. They were at home, the Bills support was hyper enthusiastic, loud and consistent, and they benefitted from the early mistakes of the refs. And then.....they were facing a vulnerable offense with limited weapons and limited protection. I will wait for the all22 view, but the OL looked porous, with insufficient (if any) blocking from TE's and WRs, and rare visibility from Develin's replacement. It was obvious that Edelman and Burkhead were limited in both snaps and duties beyond decoys, and Michel did well considering the limitations of the blocking in front of him. That left a not-fully-trusted rookie, a ghost of a TE and two WRs to cover. Guess what? All the Bills' defense had to do was double Gordon and Dorsett, and take advantage of the Patriots' frail OL. Hats off to them that they succeeded, but they are not unassailable. It is unlikely that they will prosper as well when they visit Foxboro.

The defense was pretty good, although the number of turnovers was flattering. Those were pretty bad throws by Allen, and yet he kept going back to try them again. Others have pointed out JC's obvious mistake, but even then the D gave up more yardage than they should (ground and air) to a pretty weak Bill's offense. However I do think that this was the game plan, knowing that mistakes were inevitable, and allowing the opposition to believe that they were succeeding against the league's number 1 defense. So while the interceptions were expected, credit does go to executing the kill, especially JC who could have been MVP but for the bump.

The end of the game came with a long sigh of relief. Yes it was an ugly win, but we have a defense that can capitalize swiftly and surely against any opposition's mistakes. FedEx Field will be nowhere near as hostile as Orchard Park.

what was glaring was that Brady couldn't step into the pocket and had to bale to his right. Throwing on the run is not his strong suit. I also noticed that he was dumping the ball into an open space because the OL was a sieve, but never tried to make something happen. His total lack of mobility and just throwing the ball away at first sign of pressure was alarming.

This offensive line is struggling. The running game has been a mess and Brady only has 50 yards in the screen game so far. They aren’t opening holes and they aren’t getting out in space and taking out defenders. On top of that the Bills were getting a lot of pressure on Brady yesterday. I’m hoping yesterday was just one of those road division game rock fights.

I was also confused by burkheads absense. Confusing game plan all around

I saw this on PFT - I should give all the WR groupies who think all the world's problems would be solved by adding a WR. Yes that's a bit of hyperbole, but sometimes it actually sounds like it.

This is a team that has a competent QB, TWO elite WR's and a decent OL. It SHOULD make the WR groupies at least THINK about whether adding a WR will solve all the Pats offensive issues


Kirk Cousins: 3 years, $84M

Stefon Diggs: 5 years, $81M

Adam Thielen: 4 years, $64M

Vikings: 31st in passing yards per game, 32nd in passing first downs per game

BTW- I wonder what the over/under is on when Max Kellerman will invoke "the Brady cliff" hot take. My guess is 2 days.

patfanken said:

I don't recall ever watching so many of Brady's passes miss their receivers by so much. It seemed after the beauty he threw to White to set up the first/ONLY TD, every pass was an adventure and even clean receptions were few and far between. Now the pass protection in the 2nd half wasn't good at all, but it was pretty good in the first half and that didn't help. 46% completion rate. 28% 3rd down conversion rate (which is horrible, but better than I expected) 45 QB rating. Cue Max with a "cliff" sighting

This is all horrid stuff except for the fact we DID win. Also its not like Brady hasn't had games like this, like the 4 pick game the last time the Bills won up there, OR who can forget the FIVE pick playoff game in Denver back in Watson's 2nd year. Even the great ones suck every now and again. All I know is that if Brady needs more incentive to be great, he got it Sunday.

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I actually disagree with this. I thought Brady had under the circumstances a good game. I would estimate that about a third of his incompletions is just him throwing the ball away to avoid bigger negative plays.

Yes, he had that idiotic and unnecessary INT but even on that play he got screwed by his OL and could not go to an open Gordon on a fade because Newhouse was already beat.

Some of his throws were legitimately not accurate other times they were and the ball got dropped (I am looking at you Edelman).

patfanken said:

White was the leading receiver, Michel averaged 3.8 ypc which isn't bad. I didn't see a lot of room but when he got a sliver he made the most of it. Rex was mostly a decoy I think and didn't see the ball much which would have been surprising since he's been the team's best rusher thus far, so its pretty clear his still dinged a bit.

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The Bills took White away, Rex must have reaggravated his injury at some point in the first half given only 12 snaps and when given space to work in Michel look good. The run game is taking baby steps.

patfanken said:

I'm hoping Bennett's snaps goes up as the temperature goes down.

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I am not sure why you want Bennett to have more snaps. They have a nice rotation going right now, putting their players exactly into the position where they can succeed and even there Bennett seems to be pretty impactful:

In response to: "I don't recall ever watching so many of Brady's passes miss their receivers by so much."

It seemed to me that Brian Daboll had his defense primed to exploit what every team knows to be the Patriots achilles heal. Get Brady to move off his spot and don't let him step up into the pocket. And the Bills defensive front responded notably with extraordinary efficiency.

aluminum seats said:

I don’t think taking a look at another kicker is at this point. Always a question of who to look at and I don’t want to make a change, but it’s definitely not an eye roller to suggest it.

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The Ghost apologists only defense of him so far has been "look what he has done in the past, nothing to see here" as he misses kick after kick (or nearly misses). They have been proved wrong by honest and unemotional observers of the game.

Seems like every year the offense has a random "WTF was that?" game. Tennessee last year, Miami in 2017...heck, even back to Cleveland in 2010. At the time of these events, we dig for truths like "Buffalo's D is for real" and while there's at least a kernel of truth to these conclusions, the Pats go out the following weeks and dispel these truths.

I don't know how much of yesterday's offensive performance was on Buffalo or how much was on NE. If history is any guide, I'd be wary to say a trend is starting. We've seen this before. Often it ends in confetti.

Regards,
Chris

I think BB plays every game at the beginning of the season with the idea of showing as little of the offense as possible for as long as possible.

That thought aside, where was the offense that started the season? It seems that the 'Brown incident' threw everything off. It also seems that Brady has lost any confidence he had in Meyer .

Oline.... yikes thank goodness the Skins are next.

Lastly, if healthy when can Harry and Wynn come back and whats up with Cajuste and Meredith?

Patstopia said:

I think BB plays every game at the beginning of the season with the idea of showing as little of the offense as possible for as long as possible.

That thought aside, where was the offense that started the season? It seems that the 'Brown incident' threw everything off. It also seems that Brady has lost any confidence he had in Meyer .

Oline.... yikes thank goodness the Skins are next.

Lastly, if healthy when can Harry and Wynn come back and whats up with Cajuste and Meredith?

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possibility:

Cajuste week 6
Meredith week6
Harry week 9
Wynn week 11

Comments;

a.) I started drinking heavily in the 2nd half of yesterday's game...am barely alive today.

b.) At the end of the day, it was a HUGE win with it being a road division game. *IF* we can win the MNF'er in the Meadowlands 3 weeks from tonight....we will be 4-0 in the AFC East....and 5-0 in the conference. Sets us up good for when **** gets real starting with Cleveland and @ Baltimore before the BYE.

c.) The next two weeks are crucial even if they are out of conference games...we need to BANK wins.

d.) I am alarmed by what I saw on offense yesterday...very reminiscent of last year when Gronk was out for a bit in October or after Gordon went AWOL later in the year. We really need to get the running game going...it is the OL...there isn't just any room for Michel to run and if we can't run...we can't set up play action that is convincing enough. That being said...mad props to the Bills D....and that game could have been a blow out too if Brady doesn't try throwing a ball over Hyde's head (not sure what Meyers was supposed to do on that route though...I thought he was open with Hyde behind him and Hype apparently told BB Brady was staring Edelman down...hmmm).

e.) Hightower makes things look easy....we missed him out there yesterday. I think Bentley had a few missed tackles too many.

f.) That was J.C. Jackson's best game ever..... and kudos to Slater for his first pro touchdown!

g.) I think we let Kessler go when Watson walks back in the locker room and I think we need to roll with 3TE's for now.

Brady was bad in this game. That is really all there is to it.