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…..for the 2013 season, and a few thoughts going forward.
A loss that ends the season is always a hard loss to take. Usually it takes over a week before I can even listen to a sportscast, come to Patsfans, or think about anything to do with Professional Football. Perhaps its because as the injuries piled up, my expectations had lowered to the point where I am dealing with this much better than the season ending losses of the past several years.
So lets break this down into 2 main components. A the game, and B the future, since we have now joined the 30 NFL teams that have left the 2013 season behind.
Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for any redundancies, since I am publishing this without going through any previous threads
A. The Game
1.When the game ended, almost immediately this thought came to mind. The key stats that ultimately led to this loss on the defensive side where ZERO sacks and ZERO turnovers. With conditions being optimal, and Manning's targets so good, the Pats needed to put pressure of Manning and get him off his spot if they realistically hoped to limit his offense. With the offense going into the game limited, a short field or two was need to make up some of the shortfall. But we went 0-2 in those categories, so the resultant score was not unexpected.
2.Over all the run D was not great, but better than we probably had a right to expect. Early in the game the secondary looked like they were on top of the Denver receivers fairly well.
3.And then came the Talib injury and the impact of that just CAN'T be overestimated. But it should also be noted that just prior to that, Dennard went down with what looked like a shoulder injury, and he never looked the same the rest of the game.
4.I don't know Denver's 3rd down efficiency stat, but it must have been extraordinarily high. It seemed so often that the Pats would hold Denver to a reasonable 3rd down situations (3yds or more), and they'd end up getting a first down over and over again
5.Denver's OL rated first in the league in giving up sacks. They didn't disappoint. Not only did they hold the Pats without a sack, very few of Manning's 43 passing attempts were even challenged by the front 7
6.So ultimately the Defensive stats didn't look great as usual, but giving up only 26 points SHOULD have put us in the position to at least have made this a nail biter.
7.So we come to the offensive side of the ball where the real breakdown occurred. Denver stacked the LOS to stop the run, and the Pats never made them truly pay for that commitment. We all saw there were a few opportunities, which if executed, might have made Denver rethink that strategy. The wide open Edelman overthrow early in the game is the prime example, but there were others.
8.In the end there are about 5 plays in every game (on each side of the ball) which ultimately determine the game. Denver simply made more of those plays on offense than the Pats. Brady had a decent but not great game stats wise, and ultimately there weren't enough “big plays” or “clutch plays” to put the offense over the top.
9.Plenty of blame to go around if you want to play that game. Blame McDaniels if you want. The game plan seemed less than dynamic and creative. Blame Brady, who missed some big throws. Blame the OL for not creating any holes for the RB's. Blame the DL for not creating any pressure on Manning, Blame the 2ndary for never getting off the field on 3rd down, or allowing Manning to throw for 400yds after holding him to 150 in Foxboro. Its rather meaningless, but if it makes you feel better go ahead.
10. I guess I might as well weigh in on the Wes Welker “block” on Talib, that could have been a turning point in this game. Amazingly I find myself somewhat to the left of BB. First, there is no question that it was a clear violation of the rules. Welker was never running a pass route and it was clearly his intention to block Talib (or any other DB covering Thomas at the time). Not pick him, or get in his way, but BLOCK him outright. That's obviously how the play was drawn up.
I think where I differ from Bill is in his vehemence in which he attacked Welker. While it was clearly a penalty, I don't think there was an intention to injure. Welker made a typical block by someone attempting to block someone bigger than himself. I'd categorize it as a cross body block. What made it so nasty was it was low at the knees of a player who had no expectation of being legally blocked.
I think the critical distinction that needs to pointed out to defenders of Welker is that there is big difference between “picking” a defender in a pattern, and “blocking” them outright before the ball gets there. Picking happens all the time, and every team does it. I would have had no problem if Welker had simply gotten in Talib's way. I might have been pissed that a flag wasn't thrown, but I know that's a non-call that every team gets on occasion. But blindsiding a DB/LB with a block at the knees when the DB has no right to expect it, and is defenseless; is simply dirty pool.
Well as I write this I guess I have come around to BB's side of this. What Welker did WAS illegal, wrong, and morally reprehensible. He is dead to me. I hope he never gets his ring. I expect him to be cut by Denver or forced to lower his cap number significantly as be has become rather a non-facter over the last half of the season.
11.Ultimately there are plenty of would have's and could haves that I'm sure have been discussed, but in reality are meaningless at this point
The Future:
I don't think there is a team in the league who is going to improve their roster more than the Pats are in this off season. There isn't a single team who can say that they are going to up grade their roster by adding 4 All Pro players.....and that is BEFORE we get to the draft and UFA. Lets take a cursory look
1.Defense:
a. DE's Solid if unspectacular – 20 sacks and decent to good run support, Our starters are better than most. What is needed are the back ups who can significantly lower their snap counts to 70%, so they are fresher for the playoffs.
Buchannon clearly has to get bigger and stronger, but he showed enough of a burst to convince me he has a got a chance to become a solid back up in the short term and possibly a starter over time. Bequette can be looked, at this point, as nothing but camp fodder going forward, with the hope he shocks us all. Andre Carter is likely to retire, so we are going to have to add a DE in the draft or FA.
b. DT's I think through the injuries we start out strong in that position. Wilfolk's return will be interesting to watch. At worst he declines into a solid run stopper. On the plus side, I hope he works hard to “slim down” noticeably, and become quicker as he comes to the end of his career, and gives us a season closer to what we saw in 2012, than what we saw at the start of 2013. In either case, a fully healthy Wilfolk will be an improvement to the DT corp.
Injuries have led to the early development of Siliga and Chris Jones. 2 young DT's that have developed into 2 solid players. Neither are all pro's, but are improvements over the Love/Deadrick combination.
I love what Kelly brought to the game in his short stint. However his age, and salary cap make him unlikely to return. In my ideal world Armstead returns to fill the Kelly role and the Pats first pick in the draft is a Quality DT with a burst. So between Vince, Siliga, Jones, Armstead, and the high draft pick, we have a young athletic, DT group, anchored by Wilfolk. I don't think we can keep 6 DT's so Joe Velano would be the odd man out barring injury. Not a bad guy to have in reserve.
A loss that ends the season is always a hard loss to take. Usually it takes over a week before I can even listen to a sportscast, come to Patsfans, or think about anything to do with Professional Football. Perhaps its because as the injuries piled up, my expectations had lowered to the point where I am dealing with this much better than the season ending losses of the past several years.
So lets break this down into 2 main components. A the game, and B the future, since we have now joined the 30 NFL teams that have left the 2013 season behind.
Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for any redundancies, since I am publishing this without going through any previous threads
A. The Game
1.When the game ended, almost immediately this thought came to mind. The key stats that ultimately led to this loss on the defensive side where ZERO sacks and ZERO turnovers. With conditions being optimal, and Manning's targets so good, the Pats needed to put pressure of Manning and get him off his spot if they realistically hoped to limit his offense. With the offense going into the game limited, a short field or two was need to make up some of the shortfall. But we went 0-2 in those categories, so the resultant score was not unexpected.
2.Over all the run D was not great, but better than we probably had a right to expect. Early in the game the secondary looked like they were on top of the Denver receivers fairly well.
3.And then came the Talib injury and the impact of that just CAN'T be overestimated. But it should also be noted that just prior to that, Dennard went down with what looked like a shoulder injury, and he never looked the same the rest of the game.
4.I don't know Denver's 3rd down efficiency stat, but it must have been extraordinarily high. It seemed so often that the Pats would hold Denver to a reasonable 3rd down situations (3yds or more), and they'd end up getting a first down over and over again
5.Denver's OL rated first in the league in giving up sacks. They didn't disappoint. Not only did they hold the Pats without a sack, very few of Manning's 43 passing attempts were even challenged by the front 7
6.So ultimately the Defensive stats didn't look great as usual, but giving up only 26 points SHOULD have put us in the position to at least have made this a nail biter.
7.So we come to the offensive side of the ball where the real breakdown occurred. Denver stacked the LOS to stop the run, and the Pats never made them truly pay for that commitment. We all saw there were a few opportunities, which if executed, might have made Denver rethink that strategy. The wide open Edelman overthrow early in the game is the prime example, but there were others.
8.In the end there are about 5 plays in every game (on each side of the ball) which ultimately determine the game. Denver simply made more of those plays on offense than the Pats. Brady had a decent but not great game stats wise, and ultimately there weren't enough “big plays” or “clutch plays” to put the offense over the top.
9.Plenty of blame to go around if you want to play that game. Blame McDaniels if you want. The game plan seemed less than dynamic and creative. Blame Brady, who missed some big throws. Blame the OL for not creating any holes for the RB's. Blame the DL for not creating any pressure on Manning, Blame the 2ndary for never getting off the field on 3rd down, or allowing Manning to throw for 400yds after holding him to 150 in Foxboro. Its rather meaningless, but if it makes you feel better go ahead.
10. I guess I might as well weigh in on the Wes Welker “block” on Talib, that could have been a turning point in this game. Amazingly I find myself somewhat to the left of BB. First, there is no question that it was a clear violation of the rules. Welker was never running a pass route and it was clearly his intention to block Talib (or any other DB covering Thomas at the time). Not pick him, or get in his way, but BLOCK him outright. That's obviously how the play was drawn up.
I think where I differ from Bill is in his vehemence in which he attacked Welker. While it was clearly a penalty, I don't think there was an intention to injure. Welker made a typical block by someone attempting to block someone bigger than himself. I'd categorize it as a cross body block. What made it so nasty was it was low at the knees of a player who had no expectation of being legally blocked.
I think the critical distinction that needs to pointed out to defenders of Welker is that there is big difference between “picking” a defender in a pattern, and “blocking” them outright before the ball gets there. Picking happens all the time, and every team does it. I would have had no problem if Welker had simply gotten in Talib's way. I might have been pissed that a flag wasn't thrown, but I know that's a non-call that every team gets on occasion. But blindsiding a DB/LB with a block at the knees when the DB has no right to expect it, and is defenseless; is simply dirty pool.
Well as I write this I guess I have come around to BB's side of this. What Welker did WAS illegal, wrong, and morally reprehensible. He is dead to me. I hope he never gets his ring. I expect him to be cut by Denver or forced to lower his cap number significantly as be has become rather a non-facter over the last half of the season.
11.Ultimately there are plenty of would have's and could haves that I'm sure have been discussed, but in reality are meaningless at this point
The Future:
I don't think there is a team in the league who is going to improve their roster more than the Pats are in this off season. There isn't a single team who can say that they are going to up grade their roster by adding 4 All Pro players.....and that is BEFORE we get to the draft and UFA. Lets take a cursory look
1.Defense:
a. DE's Solid if unspectacular – 20 sacks and decent to good run support, Our starters are better than most. What is needed are the back ups who can significantly lower their snap counts to 70%, so they are fresher for the playoffs.
Buchannon clearly has to get bigger and stronger, but he showed enough of a burst to convince me he has a got a chance to become a solid back up in the short term and possibly a starter over time. Bequette can be looked, at this point, as nothing but camp fodder going forward, with the hope he shocks us all. Andre Carter is likely to retire, so we are going to have to add a DE in the draft or FA.
b. DT's I think through the injuries we start out strong in that position. Wilfolk's return will be interesting to watch. At worst he declines into a solid run stopper. On the plus side, I hope he works hard to “slim down” noticeably, and become quicker as he comes to the end of his career, and gives us a season closer to what we saw in 2012, than what we saw at the start of 2013. In either case, a fully healthy Wilfolk will be an improvement to the DT corp.
Injuries have led to the early development of Siliga and Chris Jones. 2 young DT's that have developed into 2 solid players. Neither are all pro's, but are improvements over the Love/Deadrick combination.
I love what Kelly brought to the game in his short stint. However his age, and salary cap make him unlikely to return. In my ideal world Armstead returns to fill the Kelly role and the Pats first pick in the draft is a Quality DT with a burst. So between Vince, Siliga, Jones, Armstead, and the high draft pick, we have a young athletic, DT group, anchored by Wilfolk. I don't think we can keep 6 DT's so Joe Velano would be the odd man out barring injury. Not a bad guy to have in reserve.
). Dobson, Thompkins, and Boyce all showed enough flashes to deserve a second season in the offense to show what they have to offer. 
