At The Quarter - What Keeps Us from Being A Likely Playoff Team THIS Year?

[scott99]

This is a young team that will learn hard lessons this year. I think Vrabel is the perfect coach for this team. He will get them going by the end of the year, but I think by the end of the season, they won’t make the playoffs, they just don’t have enough talent, but will be competitive all year.

Hopefully this coming offseason, they will concentrate on improving the overall talent level.

 

[mgteich]

We have to beat the bad teams we should beat (Saints, Browns, Falcons) and show up in the games where we're not expected to win (Bucs, Ravens, Bills).

There is no bonus for showing up against BUF, TB and BAL. The key to those games is to have ZERO injuries.
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Basically, these are very likely to be four losses.
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That puts us at 2-6 with nine very winnable games on the rest of the schedule.

 

[Pats2000]

I mean, we aren't that good is the issue. We can beat the absolute worst team convincingly, but we also were in dogfights with the Raiders, Dolphins and Steelers. Those are teams that going into the season would be viewed as some of the easier midtier games on our schedule. The fact that those are 50/50 games means that playoffs are uncertain

The NFL is different, you have to treat the first month like pre-season a decade ago. The off season has been significantly shortened, we are down a pre-season game. The Pats have installed a whole new Offense, a new Defense and completely new staff. Our second year QB is being asked to learn and run a completely different scheme with a lot of new faces.

This team that you saw is not the team that we will see 30 days from now. They are only going to get better. Maye is the #6 QB in the league right now, despite all of that.

 

[UGAPatsfan]

Defense.

I actually believe if this was a top 5 defense, and created turnovers, this is easily a playoff team.

Offense has been good enough, special teams solid most weeks.

Defense is a problem.

 

[BennyBledsoe]

Okay, the problem with this team is depth, especially at TE and OL. We run a LOT through our TEs. That's one of the positions I hope we get some drafted guys in to start preparing for life without Henry and Hooper.

 

[Clonamery]

No more than a couple of fortuitous plane/bus crashes or a few more strategic cases of turf toe

A lot of thought went in to this scenario. We should all be so lucky as to have Pappy's as a health consultant and spiritual advisor.

 

[DC Patriots]

Lack of consistency and dumb mistakes. Which is reasonable given all the turnover in the organization.

I remain optimistic about the future

 

[Clonamery]

I would like to finish last and get high draft picks and get some more good players through wheeling and dealing and **** everyone up next year. Or a version of that that makes everyone here happy.

 

[Zuma]

AT THE QUARTER -
What keeps us from being a likely playoff team THIS year?

Depth at Offensive Line, turnovers and penalties.

 

[maust]

A lot of thought went in to this scenario. We should all be so lucky as to have Pappy's as a health consultant and spiritual advisor.

As you're already familiar with my spiritual advisor I thought you might be interested to know my spirit animal