"Targeting lack of weapons for Tom Brady’s decline growing tiresome" (?)

Triumph · Jan 2, 2020

Dumb move # 1 was to let Gordon come back. He should have been banned from the state of Massachusetts after his shenanigans last season. Go take your personal problems out of here.

# 2 was to keep Dorsett in any role other than a 4th or 5th WR. For 7 games last season lucky 13 disappeared and produced next to nothing. Blind and can't catch a cold.

# 3 was letting Almendola leave. He proved his value 10 times over when Edelman was lost for the season. Just pay a guy for once.

# 4 was WR and TE drafting in general. The whole country knew that Gronk was slowing down. Have somebody worth a 5hit in the pipeline learning from one of the best. No, that makes too much sense.

WR drafting is a 5hitshow. Nobody developed in house in 20 years. Edelman is an outlier who played multiple positions before landing a role as a WR.

The Pat's dodged a huge bullet last season with that WR group and did almost nothing to improve it.

Sicilian · Jan 2, 2020

The wide receivers get the most attention, because it's the flashiest position (and half the board is still pining over AB), but the real problem on offense is two fold (with one exacerbating the other):

1) There has been no consistency in personnel due to a variety of circumstances, and while NFL defenses get better and more consistent over the season, this offense has had to "start over" on it's cohesiveness, seemingly every week or two. It's not that they've gotten worse necessarily. They're just at a stand still while their opponents have been ramping up.

2) They lack the TE's/FB's to run an offense that isn't one dimensional.

I think people forget that the Pats (while struggling offensively in the Super Bowl last year), scored 40 points per game against SD and KC, with Edelman, Dorsett, the ghost of Chris Hogan, and a gadget guy in Patterson at WR. The difference was Andrews at C, Gronk at TE, and Develin at FB.

It's admirable how Karras has developed, how Roberts has done what he can at FB, and that Watson is gutting out a 38 year old season, but each one is a dropoff from who they're replacing.

There's lots of ways to build a successful offense. Hell, Baltimore and KC are two great ones, and are run VERY differently. We don't have the horses to run either of those systems, so the hope is they can cobble together something to compliment what is still a very good defense.

RobertWeathers · Jan 2, 2020

Sicilian said:
The wide receivers get the most attention, because it's the flashiest position (and half the board is still pining over AB), but the real problem on offense is two fold (with one exacerbating the other):

1) There has been no consistency in personnel due to a variety of circumstances, and while NFL defenses get better and more consistent over the season, this offense has had to "start over" on it's cohesiveness, seemingly every week or two. It's not that they've gotten worse necessarily. They're just at a stand still while their opponents have been ramping up.

2) They lack the TE's/FB's to run an offense that isn't one dimensional.

I think people forget that the Pats (while struggling offensively in the Super Bowl last year), scored 40 points per game against SD and KC, with Edelman, Dorsett, the ghost of Chris Hogan, and a gadget guy in Patterson at WR. The difference was Andrews at C, Gronk at TE, and Develin at FB.

It's admirable how Karras has developed, how Roberts has done what he can at FB, and that Watson is gutting out a 38 year old season, but each one is a dropoff from who they're replacing.

There's lots of ways to build a successful offense. Hell, Baltimore and KC are two great ones, and are run VERY differently. We don't have the horses to run either of those systems, so the hope is they can cobble together something to compliment what is still a very good defense.

The same people *****ing about WRs now are the same in 2001 when Bill passed on David Terrell. I can guarantee it.

These people fundamentally believe a winning football team needs gamebreaking, playmaking wide receivers. For the last 20 years BB has proven they don't again, again and again.

They will never give up, change or adapt their philosophy to BBs.

RobertWeathers · Jan 2, 2020

QuantumMechanic said:
That's the $64,000 question.

Also, knee last year. Elbow this year. What's next?

People's views of aging QBs are warped by Manning falling off the cliff because of that neck thing. That's not usually how it goes. Aging QBs are usually taken out by nagging injury after nagging injury where the fans are all "Oh, once he gets over that he'll be OK", except then it'll be something else. Also, the kinds of injuries that might bug a younger guy for a week bug the older guy for 4 weeks. So things pile up and you never can quite recover.

...and its not always injuries and age that push a QB towards retirement. For example I remember Aikman on his A Football Life show saying it wasn't injuries or concussions that pushed him but the quality of the team and 3 head coaches in 4 years.

For Elway, Shanny said he could still play at a high level. He said he was ok with Elway coming back for 1/2 a season.

Elway said in his post retirement interview...

"When it was time to start the offseason program on April 5, less than two months after my last football game [in the Pro Bowl], I said 'You know what? I can't do it any more.'"
Jack Elway told his son he still could play and win, but that as he was getting older, he was becoming more susceptible to injury, and "Dad was dead right," John Elway said.
"I have a chronic bad knee," he said. "It got to the point where it was preventing me from doing the things I wanted to do. Last year, I fell on the football twice and hurt my ribs on both sides. I'd never done that before. Nagging things that used to go away in a week were lingering four and five weeks."

scott99 · Jan 2, 2020

luuked said:
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Everyone saying WRs are not open is clearly not (re)watching games while everyone who argues that Brady has reached a cliff is also a bozo.

Reality is that execution has been extremely inconsistent. And the reasons for this are more nuanced than pointing the finger at any player or entire unit. Sometimes a WR screwed up a route or drops a pass, sometimes Brady overthrows or underthrows them and other times -- although less frequently in the last few weeks -- he is under so much pressure that he has to get rid of the ball even though someone would be open a second later.

It's also mind boggling and incredibly frustrating that Brady, who used to go by the mantra of "throw to the open man", doesn't seem to do that anymore, all he does is key in on Edelman & White. If you take them away, game over, and that's on Brady. I've seen many situations where guys were wide open, and he forces it to Edelman or White. The pick 6 was a prime example, Sanu was WIDE open on that play, 15 yards down the middle.

upstater1 · Jan 2, 2020

Palm Beach Pats Fan said:
A WR who is open but is not where he is supposed to be makes being open irrelevant. Plus, few are actually getting open. The WRs besides Jules and the QB are not seeing the same things and are not making the same adjustments during the play. Not an easy fix, unfortunately, since those adjustments have to be instinctual and thinking too much makes you tentative.

The thing that really bugs me is that even when they are open, even when they actually catch the ball, even when they have a ton of running yards in front of them, they barely manage to do anything with the ball. This goes mainly for Dorsett and Sanu who are seemingly incapable of getting YAC. I've been floored at how unthreatening these guys are. Why would a defender give them any cushion whatsoever? Even if they catch it, they are not going anywhere with it. Harry is a different story. He can run with it--but he can't separate before he gets it. I think eventually he will be a player that's a better Givens or something like that.

patriot1136 · Jan 2, 2020

Does anyone have Meyers stats? I know he hasn't been great, but I didn't think his catch % and stuff was that bad. Especially compared to other players

upstater1 · Jan 2, 2020

patriot1136 said:
Does anyone have Meyers stats? I know he hasn't been great, but I didn't think his catch % and stuff was that bad. Especially compared to other players

His problem is that he has forgotten plays. This seems to be a running theme this year, players not knowing the plays. It was clear 2 weeks ago that Sanu did not know the play when he blew the block on the swing pass to Harry.

Sicilian · Jan 2, 2020

patriot1136 said:
Does anyone have Meyers stats? I know he hasn't been great, but I didn't think his catch % and stuff was that bad. Especially compared to other players

26/41 (63.4%) for 359 and no TD's. Nothing crazy, but for an undrafted rookie in his first season it's not bad. I think Meyers will compete for a bigger role next season, but it remains to be seen what his ceiling is.

patriot1136 · Jan 2, 2020

ok got it, according to pro football reference Jakobi Meyes catch % is 63.4%.
Dorsett 53.7%
Sanu 55.3%

Sicilian · Jan 2, 2020

upstater1 said:
His problem is that he has forgotten plays. This seems to be a running theme this year, players not knowing the plays. It was clear 2 weeks ago that Sanu did not know the play when he blew the block on the swing pass to Harry.

I think that's just kind of what you're going to get from a rookie like Meyers. There's a lot to absorb for a young kid, on top of just getting acclimated to NFL life.

Sanu has no excuse from a mental perspective. It's possible his ankle sprain never quite healed and he's being tentative on it. If you're spending too much mental energy worrying your cuts will cause your ankle to give, you're not focusing on catching the ball and playing instinctively. All speculation though, it's possible he's just not getting it, but given how hard Brady and BB seem to have lobbied for this guy in recent years, I'd be surprised if he wasn't capable of knowing where to be.

sean10mm · Jan 2, 2020

The Patriots are near the top of the league in passes dropped.

Can't get much simpler than "they don't catch."

upstater1 · Jan 2, 2020

Triumph said:
Harry is a stud.

You guys were right. Pat yourselves on the back.

I tend to think Harry will become an excellent #2 receiver. If Brown were here, Harry'd be an excellent #2 with Brady now.

But--if you don't have a #1, he'll play more like a #4.

He'll beat single coverage because of his size and hands. He will never beat double coverage unless the DBs are Earthwind Moreland and Sergio Brown.

Hyped · Jan 2, 2020

This is what I meant when I said a few weeks back that all Brady threads were starting to sound like the Bledsoe threads in the late 90's.....

Brady wasn't accurate in week 17 for damn sure, but I agree that the truth is somewhere in the middle. When watching the offense...it isn't just ONE consistently bad thing...it is inconsistency across all 11 positions (e.g. Brady over throws on one pass, Harry misses an easy block for a 1st down, one OL man draws a holding penalty, Edelman runs an illegal pick play, etc...etc...).

Good news though is that it is DO OR DIE TIME now....no more excuses. We will either be talking the 2020 NFL free agency/draft on Monday or the Chiefs.....

Sicilian · Jan 2, 2020

sean10mm said:
The Patriots are near the top of the league in passes dropped.

Can't get much simpler than "they don't catch."

Which also gives me some hope, because drops are something that can turn around in a hurry. Most of them (that I've noticed) are mental errors, flat drops. There haven't been that many times when it was a tough catch with good coverage and they didn't come down with it. And it's been everybody, even Edelman. It's hard to predict, but if they cut that number in HALF, it makes a huge difference. So many of those drops seemed to happen on 3rd down, or would have been first downs. If this offense can stop killing drives with unforced errors, it will go a LONG way.

luuked · Jan 2, 2020

upstater1 said:
It was clear 2 weeks ago that Sanu did not know the play when he blew the block on the swing pass to Harry.

He didn't forget or not know the play but thought the play was being changed:

"It was me, more than anything, trying to see if we were about to change a play or not. Then the ball was snapped and I was [surprised]," he explained of the play in which Bills cornerback Kevin Johnson was initially up on him before surging past him to the outside to tackle Harry. "I take full responsibility."

(via Patriots' Mohamed Sanu is accountable, upbeat and hungry for more)

It might not change the outcome but to me there is a big difference between forgetting a play or just wrongfully assuming there was a check to something else.

scott99 · Jan 2, 2020

Sicilian said:
The wide receivers get the most attention, because it's the flashiest position (and half the board is still pining over AB), but the real problem on offense is two fold (with one exacerbating the other):

1) There has been no consistency in personnel due to a variety of circumstances, and while NFL defenses get better and more consistent over the season, this offense has had to "start over" on it's cohesiveness, seemingly every week or two. It's not that they've gotten worse necessarily. They're just at a stand still while their opponents have been ramping up.

2) They lack the TE's/FB's to run an offense that isn't one dimensional.

I think people forget that the Pats (while struggling offensively in the Super Bowl last year), scored 40 points per game against SD and KC, with Edelman, Dorsett, the ghost of Chris Hogan, and a gadget guy in Patterson at WR. The difference was Andrews at C, Gronk at TE, and Develin at FB.

It's admirable how Karras has developed, how Roberts has done what he can at FB, and that Watson is gutting out a 38 year old season, but each one is a dropoff from who they're replacing.

There's lots of ways to build a successful offense. Hell, Baltimore and KC are two great ones, and are run VERY differently. We don't have the horses to run either of those systems, so the hope is they can cobble together something to compliment what is still a very good defense.

We don't have the horses, because Belichick refuses to draft the horses. Therefore our offense becomes predictable & easy to defend.

RobertWeathers · Jan 2, 2020

scott99 said:
We don't have the horses, because Belichick refuses to draft the horses. Therefore our offense becomes predictable & easy to defend.

Is this sarcasm?

Before 2019 how did the NEP do in total offense and points scored from 2007-2018?

luuked · Jan 2, 2020

robertweathers said:
Is this sarcasm?

Before 2019 how did the NEP do in total offense and points scored from 2007-2018?

A decade long reign of top 5 offenses -- with the exception of a murderous 2013 -- but "we don't have the horses".

RobertWeathers · Jan 2, 2020

luuked said:
A decade long reign of top 5 offenses -- with the exception of a murderous 2013 -- but "we don't have the horses".

I see what you did there.

"Targeting lack of weapons for Tom Brady’s decline growing tiresome" (?)

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