PostGame Thread 2025 OFFICIAL Patriots Wild Card PostGame Thread: Patriots win 16-3

[patfanken]

Does anyone that has access to the all 22 have the details about the defense they played last night because I saw a blurb from Orlovsky that he said he did not recognize the defense upwards 80% of the time. So I assume it was some kind of amoeba/hybrid defense but what was so confusing?

One of the pods who featured vets, (they all kind of blur together now) talked about it. They said, the Pats "spun the wheel" and described when they basically dial up one different defense after another, constantly changing from man to zone. 4 man rushes to different kinds of blitzes regardless of down and distance situations. So they were constantly doing what the Chargers WEREN'T expecting.

Now whether that is what they were actually doing, I have no idea. Just parroting a reasonable guess.

 

[dliverey44]

One of the pods who featured vets, (they all kind of blur together now) talked about it. They said, the Pats "spun the wheel" and described when they basically dial up one different defense after another, constantly changing from man to zone. 4 man rushes to different kinds of blitzes regardless of down and distance situations. So they were constantly doing what the Chargers WEREN'T expecting.

Now whether that is what they were actually doing, I have no idea. Just parroting a reasonable guess.

Me thinkies you are dead on, I say that because that was my thought as well. lol

 

[SVN]

Did he just call Spillane a liar?

Or did he just say the Chargers players lied to Spillane?

I get it. He’s sitting there in his comfy armchair, running and rerunning the tape in slo mo and stop action until he’s spent as much time as he needs to figure out what he’s seeing.

He can figure it out, so he’s calling ******** on the idea that Herbert and the rest of the Chargers couldn’t figure it out.

Of course, they had to do it in realtime while half a ton of violent men were running full speed at them intent on committing mayhem.

He could do it, why couldn’t they?

Makes perfect sense.

SMH.

Cosell is well known to dissect film. What he likely means is that the coverage wasnt as exotic as chargers said and multple breakdowns have shown that there were plays to be made by herbert when he didnt. Its more an inditement on the chargers coaches and what they are coaching to see on offense if they said they cant figure out what was happening.

 

[WhatJustHappened]

But... he's considered a top 5 QB by many...why didn't he diagnose the defense B4 the snap?
This guy has been given more excuses than Fred Taylor.

 

[n1997y]

One of the pods who featured vets, (they all kind of blur together now) talked about it. They said, the Pats "spun the wheel" and described when they basically dial up one different defense after another, constantly changing from man to zone. 4 man rushes to different kinds of blitzes regardless of down and distance situations. So they were constantly doing what the Chargers WEREN'T expecting.

Now whether that is what they were actually doing, I have no idea. Just parroting a reasonable guess.

I think that may have been David Andrews. Or perhaps Brian Hoyer.

I know it wasn’t Jason McCourty, because I hadn’t watched this until just now. But here he is, talking about the same thing, beginning at 27:30 into this segment,

 

[n1997y]

One of the pods who featured vets, (they all kind of blur together now) talked about it. They said, the Pats "spun the wheel" and described when they basically dial up one different defense after another, constantly changing from man to zone. 4 man rushes to different kinds of blitzes regardless of down and distance situations. So they were constantly doing what the Chargers WEREN'T expecting.

Now whether that is what they were actually doing, I have no idea. Just parroting a reasonable guess.

I saw that and I’ve been looking for it. Haven’t found it yet.

But I did find David Andrews saying he couldn’t figure out who they were going to blitz (0:25 into this), plus a lot more interesting analysis. He also reports Justin Herbert made some comment about not being able to figure it out.

 

[n1997y]

Cosell is well known to dissect film. What he likely means is that the coverage wasnt as exotic as chargers said and multple breakdowns have shown that there were plays to be made by herbert when he didnt. It’s more an inditement on the chargers coaches and what they are coaching to see on offense if they said they cant figure out what was happening.

Yeah, I’m unconvinced

So far I’ve seen comments about difficulty in figuring it out from a former Patriots DB (Jason McCourty), a former Patriots O lineman (David Andrews), an unaffiliated former NFL QB (Dan Orlovsky), and two reports about Chargers comments indicating they couldn’t figure it out (from Spillane quoting unnamed Chargers players on the field post game and David Andrews quoting Herbert). McCourty also commented he was doing his analysis without Milton Williams coming at him with a full head of steam.

And I’ve seen well known armchair keyboard warrior Greg Cosell calling ******** on all of them because he was able to figure it out from the luxury of his home studio.

It seems to me Cosell’s comments were motivated by self aggrandizement and denigration of both teams, especially the Patriots. I’m calling his comments ********, to use the term he already applied to both teams. I’ve not paid attention to Cosell until now, and his comments just convinced me that’s more than he deserves.

 

[n1997y]

One of the pods who featured vets, (they all kind of blur together now) talked about it. They said, the Pats "spun the wheel" and described when they basically dial up one different defense after another, constantly changing from man to zone. 4 man rushes to different kinds of blitzes regardless of down and distance situations. So they were constantly doing what the Chargers WEREN'T expecting.

Now whether that is what they were actually doing, I have no idea. Just parroting a reasonable guess.

Found that one!

It was Hoyer, discussion of defense begins at 0:30 and he talks about “spinn8ng the dial” at about 0:57 into it. He makes the point that it wasn’t that they did anything particularly novel or inventive, it was just that mixed everything up and disguised it well so they were very unpredictable and difficult to analyze in the moment.

So add Brian Hoyer to Jason McCourty, David Andrews, and Dan Orlovsky plus Soillane, Herbert, and unnamed Chargers players as those being called ******** by Greg Cosell.

 

[dliverey44]

I always leaned toward offense but thought if I ever coached at a higher level I would want a DC to get our guys to run multiple formations at a competent level in order to keep the offense guessing/confused.

What the Texans have on defense is pretty special in that they do not need disguised formations to establish dominance they just have better talent on defense that does a couple of things at such a high level that the DC does not need "tricks". Its pretty hard to get to that level, draft picks need to hit and FA's need to hit at close to a 100% rate.

I am very excited about 2026 draft and FA because the Pats have already hit pretty well in draft and FA. Now they just need to add to that and I think they will with players that are a better fit the in system/scheme with hopefully more talent.

Despite what happens in the rest of playoffs we are a perennial playoff team.

 

[NovaScotiaPatsFan]