Idle thoughts - The "cracks in the armor" edition.

[Dorito Dink]

-The team shouldn't have to go for it on every kick that is 40 yards or more. That increases the likelihood of not getting points. Against great teams that will come back to haunt them. This position needs to be upgraded as soon as possible. He's definitely a liability.

- Karras had a rough game. Noticed more floaters out there too. The OL as a whole was poor. An extra blocker may be necessary against Baltimore. Or scheming needs work.

-Choosing Michel over Chubb was definitely a mistake. Chubb is able to pick up big yards without spectacular blocking and/or holes. Not so much for Sony. The drafting/personnel decisions over the past few years is a topic for a different day.

-Unless a trade is made for a lineman before Sunday. Or a tight end is brought in (Both very unlikely), it's up to the defense to get us to 9-0. BB has had alot of success against 1st and 2nd year starters. Hope that continues.

League wide, the Colts are looking very good. And other than @New Orleans & Houston, their schedule is very favorable. Need them to drop a few more games.

The Colts needed a 50+ yard field goal from a 44 year old Adam V to beat the hapless Broncos at home, to boot. They have some young talent and I'm proud of how Jacoby has played, but I have less than 0 concerns about the Colts.

I still don't see any team in the AFC team that can hold the Pats jock strap. That includes the Chiefs with Mahomes back fully healthy. Wake me up first week of February.

 

[p8ryts]

For full disclosure, when my wife watches playoff football with me (she watches all those games), she verbalizes too many complaints. She expects Patriots to outperform each play, especially on defense. Just not reasonable...I usually have to tell her that the other guys get paid to play well too and they want to win.

my favorite wifely observation-"Why do they keep running into the middle where everyone is at? Why don't they go to the side? Do not try explaining it.

 

[p8ryts]

Apparently if you stop their QB who is their leading rusher with 576 yds you stop their rushing game. I think Pats athletic LB's will do the job against Jackson. Just my two cents.

Next weeks defense-Beef it up with Cowart, maybe more Roberts, everybody along the line of scrimmage, DB's you are on your won, we're all playing run.

 

[drewskie]

Would Chubb be able to even start here in NE? Harris cannot even crack the game day roster when there is a clear opening for a RB with Burkhead out. Instead, a perennial special teams player, in Bolden (who has played great in his role), gets snaps ahead of him.

Belichick would not put somebody back there who doesn't know the playbook and who cannot pass protect. We know Chubb is iffy in protection and really, the playbook is probably another area where we don't know much about.

He may be a physically gifted runner, which IMO he looks big and fast and difficult to bring down. However, there is a lot that goes into playing for the Patriots.

Those saying Michel was a mistake are being harsh imo. But I disagree with the sentiment that Michel was WHY we won #6. It was the great team blocking as a whole.

Chubb by every measure is the superior back, and it is what it is.

 

[shmessy]

Long term, give me Chubb. He will be one of NFLs superstars for the next 5 years. Sony is an average talent in an amazing system.

The Cleveland Browns have lots of amazingly talented players at the "skill positions", don't they?

Food for thought.......

.

 

[Nunchucks]

It's not about Harris being able to "crack" the active roster- he's being redshirted just like White and Vereen were.

No, those guys had better players in front of them.

 

[patsfanincleveland]

I counted 4 missed tackles on Chubb’s long run. Take that 55 yarder away and he is 19 carries for 76 yards and just 4 YPC.

They have been occasionally prone to that this year- I think the Redskins and Bills got a long one off them for the same reason. Would be good to clean that up.

Actually, Chubb went 20-130 yards.

Started
3-72 yards in Q1.

Ended
17-59 yards.

Is that what they call adjustments?

Doom sayers prefer the bad. How about, the problem got cleaned up quickly.

BTW. As of last week......the Patriots like......led the league in scoring.

Just sayin'

 

[rochrist]

The fact that we’ve played tomato cans this first eight weeks of the season hasn’t really given us a good glimpse of what we truly are. These next four or five weeks will give us a really good idea of what our ceiling is this year. Including this Sunday in a potential conference final matchup.

That you, Dan Shaughnessy?

 

[Patriotic Fervor]

Never has an 8-0 team looked so shaky. Right? Hasn't this been the most consistent theme of the last month. Another double digit win AND a cover, yet the first things that will come out of our heads will be criticisms of our team, with the end result being anxiety, fear, trepidation, AND @Joker pulling his hair out and railing about the fear mongers....and probably rightfully so. So lets begin the exercise and get started.

1. Some Cleveland Brown talk - This team is almost the polar OPPOSITE of our Pats. Never has a team seemingly done so little with so much talent. And it's not like this was the first game this season that they self-destructed so abysmally. . Nor is there a team that so justly DESERVES that 2-5 record more than the team we played tonight. Their long suffering and infinitely loyal fans should be outraged.

That SHOULD have been a highly competitive game between 2 talented teams, but it wasn't mostly because of 3 plays in the first quarter, and more than a DOZEN freakin' STUPID penalties that sabotaged what was left of the Cleveland Offense throughout the game.. Cleveland has MORE than enough talent on offense AND defense to be able to keep their team in every game they play.. But the fact is, the "generosity" shown by Cleveland tonight has been shown to 3 or 4 OTHER teams this season, as they continue to be the team that shows the rest of the league how to LOSE, just as the Pats are the team that shows the league how to win.

BTW- the immediate blame will fall on Freddie Kitchens, but the fault isn't all his. The REAL blame should fall on the people who hired him to a job they had NO right to expect him to be successful at. It is just TOO hard a job to have thought he could go from being in charge of 4 guys about a year ago and running a team now.

The purpose of all this Browns talk is to point out that the good news is we beat a very talented football team tonight. The bad news is we needed a LOT of that generosity to do it so convincingly again. I don't think the Ravens will have as much talent, but they WILL be a better opponent in a tough road game.

2. General Offensive thoughts - There were a LOT of good reasons why the offense still didn't look like what we wanted it to look like. But just like last week, and the week before that, it took a few more baby steps in the right direction. That was a good defense who got their 2 high pick CB's back to go along with an excellent front 7. So the fact we made some small progress despite missing 3/5ths of our OL, the TE's still need GPS to get to the stadium, and we got 36 snaps out of Sanu after only 3 practices.

As long as keep seeing those baby steps going forward, I'm fine with the offense where it is right now. Help is coming. Wynn and Mason should both be ready after the bye. Sanu and the TE's will be better prepared to contribute. While getting Rex back should add some depth and more flexibility to the running attack.

Finally - I would have liked to see more picks, slants, and crossers included in the pass routes. Cleveland ran a lot of man tonight and we weren't running much to threaten that.

3. QB- Brady made a BUNCH of really good throws tonight. The ones to Watson, Dorsett and the 2 TD passes to Edelman come immediately to mind. But there were a bunch of others that weren't even close. Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the rush. I don't know, but there were way too many errant throws tonight, which contributed to a surprising 55% completion rate. Again, not sure why that was. Could be the dislocation at the WR and TE positions, but some just looked like bad throws

4. RB- Thought the run game did better tonight. A lot of worst plays came when the Browns were stacking the LOS at the end of the game and we were just running clock. Still not seeing much in the way of holes late in the game.

I think that it is pretty clear that we don't win the Superbowl without Sony's playoff run, but it's also pretty apparent which Georgia RB we should have taken. Bigger, stronger, more explosive. It wasn't a bad choice, just not the BEST one.

5. OL - The fact that Ferentz was the choice to replace Mason tonight really disappointed me. Elumanour by all reports, is by far the better prospect, so I figured he's be the one to get the nod in Mason's absence. The fact that he wasn't makes me wonder about the 3 trades we made for Cunningham, Elumanour, and the other guy we cut a couple of weeks ago, and just what we got for what we gave away. If Elumanour couldn't beat out Karras, who was getting hammered by guys who were playing for a chance to make it in the XFL, what's going on with our pro scouting department, and dare I say....Dante? It's a nice story that the future HC of Iowa got his first start of his career, but I GOT to think we can do better. Right?

The GDT was all over Newhouse, but it is so hard to tell (at least for me) who is or is not screwing up from the TV feed. We shall see. By Wednesday Kyed, Bedard, and Howe, etc will have their own breakdowns
for us to discuss.

6. Receivers - Nothing new here to see. One really nice over route for Sanu gives hope for the future. Meyers got what was given. Jules was OK. Watson gave us TE hope, and Dorsett did what he does. It added up to 260 yds if you include the RB's and how can we not.

7. General defensive thoughts - Bell got some decent yardage, and now Chubb added 140 more. Are we seeing a "blueprint" being issued here? Are there "cracks in the wall"? I don't know if what we saw was some kind of defensive trade off to protect against "the long ball" , but it sure didn't look good and it isn't going to make people feel better since the NEXT team we play leads the league in rushing. But one thing for certain, how we plan on stopping the Raven running game SHOULD be the major topic of the upcoming week.

I LOVE all the turnovers, but the unfortunately thing about TO's is that it is hard to count on them. Defenses that rely on them (like say the 2011 D) Can find themselves on the wrong end of a score, when they don't come. Fortunately I think the depth of talent across all 3 levels of THIS defense is good enough to carry us over, even when the ball DOESN'T bounce our way.

8. Front 7 - Good tackling can cure a lot of ills. Good tackling would have cut Chubb's rush yardage by about half. The weather might have been a factor in the first half, but not as much in the 2nd as the rain died down. I saw one play where Jaime Collins was very late getting to a gap which made me wonder if he had fallen back into the guessing game again. Though Collins had a MOSTER game with 13 tackles and a sack and a half. Guy had ANOTHER great game helping others look good. I really hope he gets at least some recognition for the job he does.

Butler had 2 more sacks. What's up with him. I thought he looked slow in TC and wondered if he was going to be here, given how good Cowart looked. He's having a career year this season.. BTW- anyone else think that Roberts and Bentley were no shows last night?

9. Secondary - I thought they were very good again last night. I liked the fact there weren't any flags on Jackson. I thought the coverage was good on OBJ and Landry. What was frustrating on the TD pass was that Hightower actually got to his man. He just didn't see the ball in time to make a play on it. I think our DB's do an EXCELLENT job of that for the most part. Hightower needs more work at it.

10. ST's - So I guess its time we can get back to the paranoia about the kicker again. That was a nice one week respite, but it's OVER! Feel free to panic. Though I have to admit I kind of like the idea of going for it all the time when the kick is longer than 40 yds.

11. General League talk - Carolina has been a pretty good team the last month and SF simply took them apart. I won't mind a bit if they get rated #1 in all the power rankings. It will help cement our place as an underdog.

b. Lots of good games coming up. The Eagles have resurrected their season in Buffalo. The Chiefs gave the Packers everything they wanted without Mahomes, The Cowboys are still the beasts of the NFCE and have a DE who might be carrying a grudge. The aforementioned Ravens, and very dangerous Texans are all on the immediate schedule. So while the first 8 could be dismissed by the naysayers, the next SIX cannot.

c. I wonder if we should start a pool over which mediot will think its time to break the news to us that Tom Brady has his house on the market and will be a FA next season.

See you all on the rewatch thread and welcome back K'Neal Harry. It's about f*cking time. And get your ass on the practice field bright and early on Tuesday, Issaiah Wynn.

I believe the name is N'Keal Harry.

 

[PP2]

No, those guys had better players in front of them.

Nice try, but no.

2014, the year White was drafted, was a RBBC year. Everyone got to start- Blount, Bolden, even Jonas Gray.

Vereen was selected in the 2nd round, Ridley, the 3rd. BB elected to redshirt Vereen because he was a true dual-threat.

 

[rochrist]

I think you are holding on too strongly to this position, luuked. It doesn't take a football savant to notice the difference between the 2 runners. This isn't to diminish what Sony accomplished last season, BUT what we see is what we see.

To date Sony has never shown the kind of explosiveness, speed, and acceleration that he seemed have at Georgia. Last season, his one great skill seemed to be his vision, which generally got him to the right hole to maximize his yardage. But we never saw him make people miss, or gain much after first contact.

No doubt Michel is a fine RB, and could be even better if they found a way to include him in the passing attack, but the thing is he isn't just a RB, he's a first round RB. So while if he had been picked in the 4th round, he'd have been hailed as a steal, as a first rounder it isn't unfair to consider him lacking that "special" quality that we tend to associate with first rounders, even ones at the end of the round.

BTW- Prior to last night's game Chubb had fumbled once in over 310 attempts.

The thing is, none of us know the calculations that Belichick is making when he drafts a player. Yes, Chubb looks like the better RB. Taken in a vacuum. What we don't know are the intangibles and behind the scenes factors that may have gone into the selection. Maybe there weren't any and Bill just made a boneheaded blunder. But, generally speaking, there's a reason for everything he does concerning football.

 

[BaconGrundleCandy]

Those saying Michel was a mistake are being harsh imo. But I disagree with the sentiment that Michel was WHY we won #6. It was the great team blocking as a whole.

Chubb by every measure is the superior back, and it is what it is.

Arguably the best OL we've ever had & posters legit believe a RB was the biggest reason we won.

Michel wasn't a bad pick at all. In fact, regardless of position Michel was one of the better fits we've taken coming out, out of the last few draft classes.

He displayed everything you want in a real RB1. He was a bigger Kamara. Patience & elusivenss to make you miss but had that L Bell type power in close quarters. He could block, run a more diverse tree than most RBs coming out.

Definitely not a bad pick. And he hasnt been bad. He just hasnt been what you expect in a RB taken Rd1 or even top 40. There's nothing wrong w wanting more out of that investment.

Hopefully Sony can recapture some of that magic he had in Georgia. If not, again he hasn't been bad & we have Harris as a fall back.

Btw I have np w anyone wanting Chubb over Sony. I just hope that was your play back then as well. I had Chubb graded slightly higher but both had major injuries & would have been great fits here. I just thought Sony was a classic PTP.

TLDR
Dont draft RBs early. Throughout the history of the league the examples are plentiful every year. Just dont do it.

 

[PP2]

Wake me up second week of February.

FIFY.

 

[venecol]

I
But like someone posted after the drat(I think kontra) if we win the SB he would be a great pick. you need to stop dwelling on what 'we should have' done, its water over the dam.

Is the saying 'water over the dam' or 'water under the bridge?'

Water under the bridge is commonplace, whereas water over the dam is not a good thing at all, in fact it would be a catastrophic failure. Just curious since heard this before.

 

[reflexblue]

Is the saying 'water over the dam' or 'water under the bridge?'

Water under the bridge is commonplace, whereas water over the dam is not a good thing at all, in fact it would be a catastrophic failure. Just curious since heard this before.

good point, I'm not a morning person i meant water under the bridge, on the other hand i have a view of a waterfall and you could say water over the falls. either way whats done is done.

 

[patsfanincleveland]

The Cleveland Browns have lots of amazingly talented players at the "skill positions", don't they?

Food for thought.......

.

......and the guy FUMBLED twice.

 

[Nunchucks]

Nice try, but no.

2014, the year White was drafted, was a RBBC year. Everyone got to start- Blount, Bolden, even Jonas Gray.

Vereen was selected in the 2nd round, Ridley, the 3rd. BB elected to redshirt Vereen because he was a true dual-threat.

White didn't play because he wasn't better than those guys. People were down on White big time for being a terrible runner. Heck Vereen was the 3rd down back that year.

You are not making an argument that a first-year Vereen was better than little Danny Woodhead? Please don't make that argument.

They didn't play because they were not good enough.

 

[patfanken]

The thing is, none of us know the calculations that Belichick is making when he drafts a player. Yes, Chubb looks like the better RB. Taken in a vacuum. What we don't know are the intangibles and behind the scenes factors that may have gone into the selection. Maybe there weren't any and Bill just made a boneheaded blunder. But, generally speaking, there's a reason for everything he does concerning football.

No, not a "bone head blunder". That would imply Michel hasn't been an asset. He has. For me its a matter of degrees. I saw the need of a "bigger RB" being paramount, while Bill might have felt the chance at another Alvin Kamara was worth the shot.

Again, its not whether Sony was a bad pick, but rather if he was the best one....given the perfect 20-20 hindsight we have available to us now.

 

[DaBruinz]

-The team shouldn't have to go for it on every kick that is 40 yards or more. That increases the likelihood of not getting points. Against great teams that will come back to haunt them. This position needs to be upgraded as soon as possible. He's definitely a liability.

- Karras had a rough game. Noticed more floaters out there too. The OL as a whole was poor. An extra blocker may be necessary against Baltimore. Or scheming needs work.

-Choosing Michel over Chubb was definitely a mistake. Chubb is able to pick up big yards without spectacular blocking and/or holes. Not so much for Sony. The drafting/personnel decisions over the past few years is a topic for a different day.

Chubb had huge wholes to go through because of how the Patriots schemed.

Sony didn't have the same holes. In fact, the most common thing I saw was almost no holes last night.

-Unless a trade is made for a lineman before Sunday. Or a tight end is brought in (Both very unlikely), it's up to the defense to get us to 9-0. BB has had alot of success against 1st and 2nd year starters. Hope that continues.

League wide, the Colts are looking very good. And other than @New Orleans & Houston, their schedule is very favorable. Need them to drop a few more games.

Guess you need to pay attention to Matt Chatham more.

The Colts barely beat a horrible Denver team.
Houston just lost their best defensive player (again) in JJ Watt. That defense won't be near as good.

The idea that the defense will be the only reason we make 9-0 against Baltimore shows your lack of understanding of this team.

I don't know your history, but I'm going to say you weren't around for the 2001-2004 Patriots. Where the offense had "No-Name" receivers like Troy Brown, David Patten,

 

[RobertWeathers]

......and the guy FUMBLED twice.

Thats kind of an interesting question.

For one game, would you rather have a player with 20 caries, 130yds and he fumbles twice accounting for basically 14 lost points OR 21 carries, 74yds, 0 fumbles and a handful of 1st down runs.

Seems easy to me