Idle thoughts - the "are you f*cking ****ting me" edition

[patfanken]

At the very least it's a reasonable argument to make. And it may be that there isn't much of a dropoff from Arrington to Coleman either, if anyone can gauge how well Arrington's playing in that trainwreck in Baltimore. And Butler may not be Revis, but he's good and getting better.

With decent health, ongoing improvement, and one of those Belichick pick-ups that don't seem too important until we realize they're hugely important, this secondary & defense is a winner.

Now enough with the injuries, injury gods. Sick of this S#%@!

Actually I think that the success that Ryan and Butler are having is more an example of the effect of the rest of bthe defense has on secondary as whole and CB's in particular.

Soon after the shock of having Revis/Browner/Arrington all leave at the same time, I came to the conclusion that the improvement of the front 7 and the excellence and depth of the Safety position would make up for some of the drop off we'd see at the CB position. The end result of which would be that the defensive stats we saw from the 2014 team would very similar to the ones we would see from the 2015 defense when all things were said and done.

BTW- part of that assessment was predicated on the fact that the offense would end up better because Brady would be more familiar with his receivers, and the OL would be the best we've had with 2 great experienced OT's, and a C who might develop into an elite one, plus 2 solid young OG's (Kline/Flemming) being pushed by 2 decent draft picks

Now through the first 8 games the defense is actually doing better than last year's team (#5 scoring D, #3 in run D) and so is the offense, even though the OL has collapsed due to injuries. I was right about the effect of Brady having all his receivers back this year. But who could have expected David Andrews, or the rapid development of Mason, plus the composure of Flemming and Jackson.

Only time will tell if the OL situation isn't just a house of cards ready to be exploited, or if they will improve and be an asset by the time the playoffs come around.

The defense will have a LOT to live up to last season's defense the 2nd half. We are now coming on to the time where last season's D started its run of not allowing single TD in the 4th quarter for the rest of the season, including the playoffs. IIRC it was a run of 10 straight games. So I don't care about sack stats, or how much yardage we give up. If this defense can shut out good teams in the 4th quarter, we will win the vast majority of those games.