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This was a game of many highs, but also a few lows. So let's get right to them and put this baby to bed, since Houston is going to come up fast.
1. Let's talk about the good things first.
a. Josh McDaniels REALLY needs to be a HC somewhere, and I can't believe that some owner watching how McDaniel created a game plan that cut up a VERY good defense for most of the first half.....and then takes a rookie, completely changes the game plan completely in an instant and STILL got at least 2 first downs on every JB possession for the rest of the game. Now granted the O only scored 10 points after JG goes down, but at least 2 of those times the refs killed potential scoring drives with weak ass holding penalties.
b. The only chance the Pats have to keep McDaniels is if the Denver experience soured him on being a HC, or more importantly soured his wife. Or the combination of the long term security of being in a great environment, in a area your young family loves, with an owner who you like and likes you, and the prospect of becoming a HC in NE in a few years. But the inevitable fact is that at the end of the season he IS going to get an offer to be a HC, period.
c.Bottom line you cannot underestimate the affect that excellent coaching can make on a team. That's why all those receivers were open, and how they could move the ball with a Rookie #3 QB in a different offense.
d. The next coach that needs to be put on a pedestal has to be Dante Scarnechia. Facing ANOTHER very good DL, the OL actually improved their play over week one. And they did playing 2 different games. What I mean by that, if I had to critique the OL while Jimmy was playing I would have said the pass protection was Excellent, but the run blocking rarely created any holes. However in the 2nd half, with JB in the game, the OL virtually flipped the switch. Their run blocking became very effective, but their pass protection declined a bit. But all in all, with the prospect of seeing a Solder, Tuney, Andrews, Karras/Mason, Cannon line up, is looking better and better every week, and some of those off season OL questions are being answered.
e. That being said we CANNOT afford to run to the left all the time, like we did today. BTW- can we get a "hell yes" for Marcus Cannon today, who seems to keep on getting better.
f. LGB is a BEAST! He WAS the MVP in my opinion, just because of the situation we were put in. Miami has a very good run defense, and they KNEW we were going to run, and they KNEW it was likely going to be to the left, and they STILL couldn't stop us most of the time. How long has it been since we saw that.
g. Also kudos should got to Bennett, Harbor, Devlin and the WR's who also were critical to the success of the run game.
h. And speaking of Bennet, between his blocking, pass catching, and running after the catch, maybe HE should be the MVP. And for the doubters, THIS is why the Pats brought him to NE. Can you imagine the problems DC's will have when Gronk gets back.
BTW- the best post game comment I heard, came from Zolack, when he gave Bennett the best compliment, when he said, "Once the game started, we didn't mention Gronk's name the entire broadcast"
And Bennett once again endeared himself to me when he talked after the game and said, "this is the most fun I've had playing football in a long time". He also talked about his blocking before talking about his pass catching and his TD......and he writes children's books too.
i. Horrible to see JG go down, especially after such a great start. Even after just 6 quarters the price of trading for him has gone to multiple first rounders (IMHO) IF the Pats decide to use him in that way. JB did nothing in this game to make the Pats feel they HAVE to keep him.
Fortunately the X Rays were negative, so while I doubt very much JG will play Thursday, there may be a chance he can play vs Buffalo. I'd say about a 35% chance. On the bad side, his absence hurts the Pats, but it is NOT going to hurt his future chances, in fact in may enhance them against a potential bad performance.
2. Now let's get to the Defense where the results IMHO weren't so positive.
a. And it all starts with the coaching, which started off great. While building that 24-3 lead, the Pats D managed to put some pressure and hits on Tannyhill, while at the same time provide really tight coverage on the receivers, so even when there was a rare catch, there was someone right on them fighting for the ball. So I have to ask myself WTF happened to cause such a change in the 2nd half, Matty?
Clearly we came out with a different game plan in the 2nd half. We loosened the S's and played zones underneath and lo and behold, Tannyhill was finding wide open receivers and he suddenly had all the time in the world to complete them. (and also he and his receivers played real well too).
MATTY, this isn't 2011-14 when you had to protect your defense so the offense could win games. It's 2016 and you have a REALLY good defense. You don't NEED to change the way you are playing to keep long plays from happening, because usually when you do the opposite occurs. The Dolphins have on TD that was 80 yds on 5 plays. It wasn't the 7 points that killed us, but the 5 plays. If it had taken the 12-15 plays that you'd expect with that kind of D, the game would have been over even with Gotskowski's miss.
b. The run D keeps getting better and that will be a big plus as the season wears on. Miami's rush attack only netted 35 yards on 10 carries, which is particularly good, because often there is a lot of garbage time yds that a rushing attack gets when a team is in full pass mode. Tannyhill, got 35 yds on 6 carries, but half of them came on that great run on the last drive.
c. Early in the game the Pats didn't get to Tannyhill, but they DID pressure and hit him. Later, like in the last game, the pressure seemed to abate for some reason. I'm hoping someone who has the game on tape and can revue it can tell me why this happened. We have too many rushers to think we just ran out of gas.
d. What a revelation Chris Long has been, and we'll stop at that, because you all know what I mean.
e. It was clear to me that the Dolphins wanted Collins to follow the RB who released up the middle and went to the flat. Instead Jamie stayed in the middle and was right there when Tannyhill tried to get the ball to Landry running a crosser.
BTW- and who wouldn't want that Landry kid on their team. The kid is a real baller.
f. I mentioned in the game thread that Coleman's technique on that out and up on Sim's TD, was really poor technique. He fully sold out on the out move, and you can't do that when you have no S help. Hopefully a lesson learned. The rest of yards the secondary gave up, I blame on zone defense and a soft mentality the big lead created. When they DIDN'T play that way, Miami was struggling. When they did, they allowed Tannyhill to put up close to 400 yds. Worse they allow the Dolphins to be licking their chops for our trip to Miami. We had the opportunity not only to beat them, but to crush them mentally. Whether it's true or not, the real negative we have after this game is that Miami THINKS they could have won the game and can handle our defense.
g. Coaches don't practice for 24-3 scenarios early in games, but I wish they had and perhaps we wouldn't have had the defensive results we got. I don't think the same mistake will be made again.
h. Another plus that should be mentioned was we finally cracked our TO cherry. It ended up being a 4-1 win, and where would we have been without it.
3. Special teams - Well as good as they were the first game, that's how bad they were today. Ryan Allen was decent, but even he will admit he didn't have one of his better days, and of course the Gotskowski miss was monumental, since the game should have been over, after a great final drive by the offense. These days, you CANNOT miss kicks that are less than 40 yds. Maybe one a year, and Steven, this better be IT.
Coverage teams weren't a factor since it was clearly the game plan to let them start on the 25.
BTW- I just lost my entire General Comments section is some F$cking computer glitch. I'll try to reconstruct it later, but I'm too pissed off to do it now
1. Let's talk about the good things first.
a. Josh McDaniels REALLY needs to be a HC somewhere, and I can't believe that some owner watching how McDaniel created a game plan that cut up a VERY good defense for most of the first half.....and then takes a rookie, completely changes the game plan completely in an instant and STILL got at least 2 first downs on every JB possession for the rest of the game. Now granted the O only scored 10 points after JG goes down, but at least 2 of those times the refs killed potential scoring drives with weak ass holding penalties.
b. The only chance the Pats have to keep McDaniels is if the Denver experience soured him on being a HC, or more importantly soured his wife. Or the combination of the long term security of being in a great environment, in a area your young family loves, with an owner who you like and likes you, and the prospect of becoming a HC in NE in a few years. But the inevitable fact is that at the end of the season he IS going to get an offer to be a HC, period.
c.Bottom line you cannot underestimate the affect that excellent coaching can make on a team. That's why all those receivers were open, and how they could move the ball with a Rookie #3 QB in a different offense.
d. The next coach that needs to be put on a pedestal has to be Dante Scarnechia. Facing ANOTHER very good DL, the OL actually improved their play over week one. And they did playing 2 different games. What I mean by that, if I had to critique the OL while Jimmy was playing I would have said the pass protection was Excellent, but the run blocking rarely created any holes. However in the 2nd half, with JB in the game, the OL virtually flipped the switch. Their run blocking became very effective, but their pass protection declined a bit. But all in all, with the prospect of seeing a Solder, Tuney, Andrews, Karras/Mason, Cannon line up, is looking better and better every week, and some of those off season OL questions are being answered.
e. That being said we CANNOT afford to run to the left all the time, like we did today. BTW- can we get a "hell yes" for Marcus Cannon today, who seems to keep on getting better.
f. LGB is a BEAST! He WAS the MVP in my opinion, just because of the situation we were put in. Miami has a very good run defense, and they KNEW we were going to run, and they KNEW it was likely going to be to the left, and they STILL couldn't stop us most of the time. How long has it been since we saw that.
g. Also kudos should got to Bennett, Harbor, Devlin and the WR's who also were critical to the success of the run game.
h. And speaking of Bennet, between his blocking, pass catching, and running after the catch, maybe HE should be the MVP. And for the doubters, THIS is why the Pats brought him to NE. Can you imagine the problems DC's will have when Gronk gets back.
BTW- the best post game comment I heard, came from Zolack, when he gave Bennett the best compliment, when he said, "Once the game started, we didn't mention Gronk's name the entire broadcast"
And Bennett once again endeared himself to me when he talked after the game and said, "this is the most fun I've had playing football in a long time". He also talked about his blocking before talking about his pass catching and his TD......and he writes children's books too.
i. Horrible to see JG go down, especially after such a great start. Even after just 6 quarters the price of trading for him has gone to multiple first rounders (IMHO) IF the Pats decide to use him in that way. JB did nothing in this game to make the Pats feel they HAVE to keep him.
Fortunately the X Rays were negative, so while I doubt very much JG will play Thursday, there may be a chance he can play vs Buffalo. I'd say about a 35% chance. On the bad side, his absence hurts the Pats, but it is NOT going to hurt his future chances, in fact in may enhance them against a potential bad performance.
2. Now let's get to the Defense where the results IMHO weren't so positive.
a. And it all starts with the coaching, which started off great. While building that 24-3 lead, the Pats D managed to put some pressure and hits on Tannyhill, while at the same time provide really tight coverage on the receivers, so even when there was a rare catch, there was someone right on them fighting for the ball. So I have to ask myself WTF happened to cause such a change in the 2nd half, Matty?
Clearly we came out with a different game plan in the 2nd half. We loosened the S's and played zones underneath and lo and behold, Tannyhill was finding wide open receivers and he suddenly had all the time in the world to complete them. (and also he and his receivers played real well too).
MATTY, this isn't 2011-14 when you had to protect your defense so the offense could win games. It's 2016 and you have a REALLY good defense. You don't NEED to change the way you are playing to keep long plays from happening, because usually when you do the opposite occurs. The Dolphins have on TD that was 80 yds on 5 plays. It wasn't the 7 points that killed us, but the 5 plays. If it had taken the 12-15 plays that you'd expect with that kind of D, the game would have been over even with Gotskowski's miss.
b. The run D keeps getting better and that will be a big plus as the season wears on. Miami's rush attack only netted 35 yards on 10 carries, which is particularly good, because often there is a lot of garbage time yds that a rushing attack gets when a team is in full pass mode. Tannyhill, got 35 yds on 6 carries, but half of them came on that great run on the last drive.
c. Early in the game the Pats didn't get to Tannyhill, but they DID pressure and hit him. Later, like in the last game, the pressure seemed to abate for some reason. I'm hoping someone who has the game on tape and can revue it can tell me why this happened. We have too many rushers to think we just ran out of gas.
d. What a revelation Chris Long has been, and we'll stop at that, because you all know what I mean.
e. It was clear to me that the Dolphins wanted Collins to follow the RB who released up the middle and went to the flat. Instead Jamie stayed in the middle and was right there when Tannyhill tried to get the ball to Landry running a crosser.
BTW- and who wouldn't want that Landry kid on their team. The kid is a real baller.
f. I mentioned in the game thread that Coleman's technique on that out and up on Sim's TD, was really poor technique. He fully sold out on the out move, and you can't do that when you have no S help. Hopefully a lesson learned. The rest of yards the secondary gave up, I blame on zone defense and a soft mentality the big lead created. When they DIDN'T play that way, Miami was struggling. When they did, they allowed Tannyhill to put up close to 400 yds. Worse they allow the Dolphins to be licking their chops for our trip to Miami. We had the opportunity not only to beat them, but to crush them mentally. Whether it's true or not, the real negative we have after this game is that Miami THINKS they could have won the game and can handle our defense.
g. Coaches don't practice for 24-3 scenarios early in games, but I wish they had and perhaps we wouldn't have had the defensive results we got. I don't think the same mistake will be made again.
h. Another plus that should be mentioned was we finally cracked our TO cherry. It ended up being a 4-1 win, and where would we have been without it.
3. Special teams - Well as good as they were the first game, that's how bad they were today. Ryan Allen was decent, but even he will admit he didn't have one of his better days, and of course the Gotskowski miss was monumental, since the game should have been over, after a great final drive by the offense. These days, you CANNOT miss kicks that are less than 40 yds. Maybe one a year, and Steven, this better be IT.
Coverage teams weren't a factor since it was clearly the game plan to let them start on the 25.
BTW- I just lost my entire General Comments section is some F$cking computer glitch. I'll try to reconstruct it later, but I'm too pissed off to do it now
