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Well, this game started with the Pats getting 4o yds of penalties (some of which were actually earned) and was going apoplectic on the game day thread wondering if this was going to be "one of THOSE games". 
I mean Christ, this was Gene Steratore's crew, supposedly the league's best, and we were getting phantom calls (Solder's hold), and then non-calls on obvious holds. It seemed like the offense was gaining yards and yet we were moving backward. It was like, start first and ten, get a penalty, wind up 1st and 20, gain 17 yds and punt. It seemed that way the entire first quarter. BUT in the end, things did even out and by and large Steratore's crew let the players play and there weren't any more outrageous calls.
But here's the thing. Most of the calls on the Pats WERE technically penalties, but they were also calls that aren't called 90% of the time. It was like the league has been asking the Pats to play at a higher level than everyone else, with calls going against the Pats that AREN'T being called on their opponents, for things that SHOULDN'T be called on anyone. But like I said, while it wasn't perfect, the refs had a much better game after the first period.
I just wish they didn't interject themselves into the flow of the game with calls that often have nothing to do with the success or failure of a play. Years ago that was the way the game was called. I don't blame the refs for this. It's the league that wants them to call everything, and it ends up not only affecting the results of the game. It destroys any flow the game is trying to build up. It is simply not as enjoyable to watch for the audience, and it's showing in the numbers. They really need to look hard at this.
OK, the rant is over. Let's get back to finally seeing a bit of what this team MIGHT become. As a charter memeber of the "we have to have patience" league, I might have a case to crow a bit and throw out an 'I told you so' or two. But Brady in his post-game presser made a great point going back to the Pat's mantra that each game is a separate entity. Sure it was a great game tonight and a perfect example of complimentary football, but next week will be an entirely DIFFERENT set of challenges. New offensive game plan, new defensive game plan, new matchups on both sides of the ball, so what was shown tonight has NO effect on next week's game. So while it was nice they were able to run the ball more than they passed it, it doesn't mean next weeks game will be the same. Nor does it mean the players that played big roles THIS week, will be the playmakers next week.
So while we would all love to think that, "boy, THIS is the kind of defense we all thought we would see at the start of the year", let's see them string a few game just like this one before we anoint them a championship defense as fast as we called them a bad defense every week for the last 6 weeks.
All that being said, this was a great night for this team, and I'm still grinning ear to ear at 2 in the morning knowing I got another couple of hours ahead before I post this. So let's break it down.
1. Offense
a. General thoughts - Not a great night statistically, but certainly the most balanced and efficient attack we've seen all year. Penalties killed any chance for points in the first quarter, but after that, I think they only punted the ball one more time (2 total). So like I said, while it wasn't explosive, it was VERY effective. The best offensive stat I saw was the 7 for 13 third-down completion rate. Anytime you are over 50% on 3rd down is a very good night, and a lot of those 3rd downs were long yardage. Finally the offense didn't end up with any turnovers. When your offense is clean in that area, it makes it much easier to win games.
b. QB- Brady had a quiet but efficient night. With the ground game gaining a season-high 162 yds, he didn't have to carry this team like he often has this season. Brady had 249 passing yds, had a 72% completion percentage, despite 3 bad drops (one each from DA, Hogan, and Cooks). But it wasn't always perfect. He jeopardized our first score with a bad throw into the endzone. That pick was luckily reversed on the PF penalty. (which I think was more for the helmet shot he took than the lateness of it.) He also had another pass that could have been picked. But overall, it was a nice night for Brady. A night he didn't have to be ' "The Tom Brady" for the Pats to win.
b. OL - I saw a stat that said Brady had 2 sacks. Well, one sack was a screw-up and a guy came in clean (I'm guessing Gillislee was the culprit, but I could be wrong). The other was a nice rush by Beasely on a slow developing play action pass. I think once Brady understood that he could step up into the outside rush, the OL ultimately provided him tons of time for the most part. It must have been a great job by the 3 interior guys to allow that to happen. Because you'd think that with both Grady Garrett and D Poe, you'd get a ton of inside rush, but it didn't happen.
But were the OL really shined was in the run game. Nice running by the backs, but they were creating movement. My favorite rush was Brady's sneak for 3 yds. Andrews, Mason, and Thuney allowed Brady to go 2 yds before he was even encountered a Falcon. I LOVED that replay. The OL keeps getting better and that's a good thing. The Chargers have a great 1/2 threat in Bosa and Ingram next week. I think they lead the league in combined sacks by 2 players on the same team.
c. RB's - Great to see Burkhead get a few runs in. The Pats ran the ball for 33 times (not counting the 3 kneel downs) for a very healthy 4.9 ypc. You aren't going to lose many games with kind of average and consistency. Going forward it will be interesting to see how the snaps are divided since all of them have had some success. Dion Lewis continued to lead the pack with 13 carries. I think he's the best runner of the bunch to this point. I wonder if he will get more touches as the season goes on.
d. Receivers- 3 drops weren't good on a day no WR/TE got more than 4 catches. The ball was spread out a bit more tonight. The most impressive pass I saw was the back shoulder to Cooks. That pass takes a lot of timing and practice. If he and Brady can do that route on a consistent basis it will really hurt defenses. With Cook's speed, it would be practically impossible to cover. Usually, you'd want to throw that to a bigger receiver, but the threat of Cook going deep makes this the exception that proves the rule. The comeback is the obvious route to take advantage of Cook's speed threat. The back-shoulder throw adds another pattern that could be even harder to cover. It's also harder to throw.
Hogan continues to impress with another solid if unspectacular game. As teams continue to focus on Gronk and Cooks, big gain opportunities are going to open up for Hogan. I think he's taken a big leap forward in his 2nd season with the team.
BTW- I'm glad the Pats don't target Gronk as much as they could. Without Edelman, his presence is critical to the success of the whole passing game. I don't think will get to the Superbowl this year without him. So I'm fine with other TE's getting more looks and stats.
3. Defense
a. General thoughts - what a great job or doing your job. When you looked at the starting DL (Flowers, AButler, Brown, and Wise), its a little scary when you compare it with other DL's around the league. I mean Wise was a 4th round pick and Butler was a f*cking UDFA. Talk about a group of no-names.
b. Almost every defensive player who spoke to the media raved about the defensive game plan for this week. So kudos need to go out to MattyP and is staff. The Falcons had almost as many yards, more first downs (21-25) than the Pats, and they too only had to punt twice in this game. But on the CRITICAL downs they only converted 2 of 9 third downs, and 1 of 3 fourth downs. If your opponent is only converting 22% of their 3rd down opportunities, you are going to win most of those games. Unlike the start of last week's game, the Pats defense was getting off the field. And that was critical early on when penalties were killing drives in that first quarter. Like most teams, it is a LOT easier to play from ahead, and Atlanta had their opportunity to create a lead in this game, and the defense stoned them.
c. The Pats FINALLY held a passing offense to under 300 yds. Interesting to note that at least 100 of those yds came in garbage time at the end of the half and late into the 4th quarter. So HURRAH, the great Patriot defensive nightmare is over.
d. Front Seven - it was their most coordinated game. They completely stoned the Atlanta run game until late when Brown and Hightower went out with injuries and allowed a few good runs in garbage time. Kyle Van Noy had his best game as a Patriot. It helped that the Pats ran a defense where they covered the interior OL and kept KVN clean to fill gaps and he did it well and was the leading tackler.
e. The LB's have been getting a lot of heat for not covering RB's well. The Falcons have 2 of the best RB threat in the league, and yet those RB's had only 3 catches for 18 yds. Nice job guys.
f. Nice time for Adam Butler to get his first sack. It was a great individual effort. Good to see him starting to grow. I wonder what the story was that got him to be an UDFA. He's big. He's athletic and seems fairly quick. What a find.....among several other finds.
g. The Falcons had more sacks, but it seemed to me that the Pats had more consistent pressure on Ryan over the course of this game. I know the Atlanta DE's forced Brady to step up a lot and will get hurries for their efforts, but in reality, they posed little real threat to Brady as they most often just ran by him. I'll be interested in seeing how the rating sites grade this game. Please be sure to post them in this thread when they come out.
h. Nice to see a David Harris sighting. He got his jersey dirty and played enough to need a shower after the game.
i. Just a caution. Both Malcolm Brown (ankle) and Hightower (shoulder) were forced from the game. I hope Danta isn't going to miss more time, and Brown has been having his best year as a Patriot before going out in the 3rd quarter.
j. Secondary- Everything you could hope for when you are missing 2 of your top CB's for the game. I mean it looked like it would be a massive mismatch on the outside, and yet at no time did it seem like Pats defense wasn't in control. Wide open receivers were rare, and clearly, any "communication" issues were kept at a minimum.
k. After watching 20+ yd completions being a regular feature for our opponents, there was only one such catch (22yds) and I think that came at the end of the half. So if you are looking for reason's why this game turned out so well, you can start here.
l. Johnson Badimosi - I mean WTF. This is a guy who has been in the league since 2012 and has started a grand total of 3 games over those 5 seasons. He's NOT supposed to start 2 games and solidify your secondary. Last week the Jets rarely tested him for some unknown reason, and this week he must have done really well. I have no idea what his actual passing stats are for this game (though he had 7 tackles), but he certainly wasn't a liability.
Its a really cool story about a guy who hung on in this league for 5 seasons as a career special teams guy, and then gets a shot to not only play but START, and seems to be doing a solid job.
m. But here's the disturbing part (for me). Right away the first thing I heard from Felger was, "Gee the Pats played good defense without Gilmore, so he must be the problem. How can your most expensive defensive salary be the problem? Bill screwed up again. yadda yadda yadda". Giardi quickly joined the chorus, and I now know the main topic of the week on sports talk. BELIEVE ME. The Pats secondary will be even better when Gilmore and Rowe return.
n. Malcom Butler was a beast out there tonight. Troy Brown thinks he's the best CB tackler since Ty Law. He said, '0ther CB's usually just throw a shoulder on a knee and hope for the best, while Butler hits hard, wraps, and hogties his man. I agree. He tackles HARD. He also had his best night in coverage, imho. Julio had great stats (9 for 99 and a TD), but Butler wasn't on him all the time and the TD was closer to a pick than a catch. Jones made another great play ripping the ball out of Butler's hands. Like Rowe last year, Butler was in perfect position.
o. With Butler continuing to round into shape, I think when Rowe and Gilmore get back, the dominant secondary we hoped to have at the start of the season, might eventually become a fact.
4. Special Teams - ANOTHER group that had a great night. The coverage was awesome both on the KO's and punt return. With the FG block, I saw something that I thought I would never see again. What was even more impressive is that it looked like they attacked a flaw they saw on film. Marsh made a great move, got skinny, and made a BIG play. And Gotskowski was 4-4 for the night, so maybe he can keep his job for another week.
I mean Christ, this was Gene Steratore's crew, supposedly the league's best, and we were getting phantom calls (Solder's hold), and then non-calls on obvious holds. It seemed like the offense was gaining yards and yet we were moving backward. It was like, start first and ten, get a penalty, wind up 1st and 20, gain 17 yds and punt.
It seemed that way the entire first quarter. BUT in the end, things did even out and by and large Steratore's crew let the players play and there weren't any more outrageous calls.But here's the thing. Most of the calls on the Pats WERE technically penalties, but they were also calls that aren't called 90% of the time. It was like the league has been asking the Pats to play at a higher level than everyone else, with calls going against the Pats that AREN'T being called on their opponents, for things that SHOULDN'T be called on anyone. But like I said, while it wasn't perfect, the refs had a much better game after the first period.
I just wish they didn't interject themselves into the flow of the game with calls that often have nothing to do with the success or failure of a play. Years ago that was the way the game was called. I don't blame the refs for this. It's the league that wants them to call everything, and it ends up not only affecting the results of the game. It destroys any flow the game is trying to build up. It is simply not as enjoyable to watch for the audience, and it's showing in the numbers. They really need to look hard at this.
OK, the rant is over. Let's get back to finally seeing a bit of what this team MIGHT become. As a charter memeber of the "we have to have patience" league, I might have a case to crow a bit and throw out an 'I told you so' or two. But Brady in his post-game presser made a great point going back to the Pat's mantra that each game is a separate entity. Sure it was a great game tonight and a perfect example of complimentary football, but next week will be an entirely DIFFERENT set of challenges. New offensive game plan, new defensive game plan, new matchups on both sides of the ball, so what was shown tonight has NO effect on next week's game. So while it was nice they were able to run the ball more than they passed it, it doesn't mean next weeks game will be the same. Nor does it mean the players that played big roles THIS week, will be the playmakers next week.
So while we would all love to think that, "boy, THIS is the kind of defense we all thought we would see at the start of the year", let's see them string a few game just like this one before we anoint them a championship defense as fast as we called them a bad defense every week for the last 6 weeks.
All that being said, this was a great night for this team, and I'm still grinning ear to ear at 2 in the morning knowing I got another couple of hours ahead before I post this. So let's break it down.
1. Offense
a. General thoughts - Not a great night statistically, but certainly the most balanced and efficient attack we've seen all year. Penalties killed any chance for points in the first quarter, but after that, I think they only punted the ball one more time (2 total). So like I said, while it wasn't explosive, it was VERY effective. The best offensive stat I saw was the 7 for 13 third-down completion rate. Anytime you are over 50% on 3rd down is a very good night, and a lot of those 3rd downs were long yardage. Finally the offense didn't end up with any turnovers. When your offense is clean in that area, it makes it much easier to win games.
b. QB- Brady had a quiet but efficient night. With the ground game gaining a season-high 162 yds, he didn't have to carry this team like he often has this season. Brady had 249 passing yds, had a 72% completion percentage, despite 3 bad drops (one each from DA, Hogan, and Cooks). But it wasn't always perfect. He jeopardized our first score with a bad throw into the endzone. That pick was luckily reversed on the PF penalty. (which I think was more for the helmet shot he took than the lateness of it.) He also had another pass that could have been picked. But overall, it was a nice night for Brady. A night he didn't have to be ' "The Tom Brady" for the Pats to win.
b. OL - I saw a stat that said Brady had 2 sacks. Well, one sack was a screw-up and a guy came in clean (I'm guessing Gillislee was the culprit, but I could be wrong). The other was a nice rush by Beasely on a slow developing play action pass. I think once Brady understood that he could step up into the outside rush, the OL ultimately provided him tons of time for the most part. It must have been a great job by the 3 interior guys to allow that to happen. Because you'd think that with both Grady Garrett and D Poe, you'd get a ton of inside rush, but it didn't happen.
But were the OL really shined was in the run game. Nice running by the backs, but they were creating movement. My favorite rush was Brady's sneak for 3 yds. Andrews, Mason, and Thuney allowed Brady to go 2 yds before he was even encountered a Falcon. I LOVED that replay.
The OL keeps getting better and that's a good thing. The Chargers have a great 1/2 threat in Bosa and Ingram next week. I think they lead the league in combined sacks by 2 players on the same team.c. RB's - Great to see Burkhead get a few runs in. The Pats ran the ball for 33 times (not counting the 3 kneel downs) for a very healthy 4.9 ypc. You aren't going to lose many games with kind of average and consistency. Going forward it will be interesting to see how the snaps are divided since all of them have had some success. Dion Lewis continued to lead the pack with 13 carries. I think he's the best runner of the bunch to this point. I wonder if he will get more touches as the season goes on.
d. Receivers- 3 drops weren't good on a day no WR/TE got more than 4 catches. The ball was spread out a bit more tonight. The most impressive pass I saw was the back shoulder to Cooks. That pass takes a lot of timing and practice. If he and Brady can do that route on a consistent basis it will really hurt defenses. With Cook's speed, it would be practically impossible to cover. Usually, you'd want to throw that to a bigger receiver, but the threat of Cook going deep makes this the exception that proves the rule. The comeback is the obvious route to take advantage of Cook's speed threat. The back-shoulder throw adds another pattern that could be even harder to cover. It's also harder to throw.
Hogan continues to impress with another solid if unspectacular game. As teams continue to focus on Gronk and Cooks, big gain opportunities are going to open up for Hogan. I think he's taken a big leap forward in his 2nd season with the team.
BTW- I'm glad the Pats don't target Gronk as much as they could. Without Edelman, his presence is critical to the success of the whole passing game. I don't think will get to the Superbowl this year without him. So I'm fine with other TE's getting more looks and stats.
3. Defense
a. General thoughts - what a great job or doing your job. When you looked at the starting DL (Flowers, AButler, Brown, and Wise), its a little scary when you compare it with other DL's around the league. I mean Wise was a 4th round pick and Butler was a f*cking UDFA. Talk about a group of no-names.
b. Almost every defensive player who spoke to the media raved about the defensive game plan for this week. So kudos need to go out to MattyP and is staff. The Falcons had almost as many yards, more first downs (21-25) than the Pats, and they too only had to punt twice in this game. But on the CRITICAL downs they only converted 2 of 9 third downs, and 1 of 3 fourth downs. If your opponent is only converting 22% of their 3rd down opportunities, you are going to win most of those games. Unlike the start of last week's game, the Pats defense was getting off the field. And that was critical early on when penalties were killing drives in that first quarter. Like most teams, it is a LOT easier to play from ahead, and Atlanta had their opportunity to create a lead in this game, and the defense stoned them.
c. The Pats FINALLY held a passing offense to under 300 yds. Interesting to note that at least 100 of those yds came in garbage time at the end of the half and late into the 4th quarter. So HURRAH, the great Patriot defensive nightmare is over.
d. Front Seven - it was their most coordinated game. They completely stoned the Atlanta run game until late when Brown and Hightower went out with injuries and allowed a few good runs in garbage time. Kyle Van Noy had his best game as a Patriot. It helped that the Pats ran a defense where they covered the interior OL and kept KVN clean to fill gaps and he did it well and was the leading tackler.
e. The LB's have been getting a lot of heat for not covering RB's well. The Falcons have 2 of the best RB threat in the league, and yet those RB's had only 3 catches for 18 yds. Nice job guys.
f. Nice time for Adam Butler to get his first sack. It was a great individual effort. Good to see him starting to grow. I wonder what the story was that got him to be an UDFA. He's big. He's athletic and seems fairly quick. What a find.....among several other finds.
g. The Falcons had more sacks, but it seemed to me that the Pats had more consistent pressure on Ryan over the course of this game. I know the Atlanta DE's forced Brady to step up a lot and will get hurries for their efforts, but in reality, they posed little real threat to Brady as they most often just ran by him. I'll be interested in seeing how the rating sites grade this game. Please be sure to post them in this thread when they come out.
h. Nice to see a David Harris sighting. He got his jersey dirty and played enough to need a shower after the game.
i. Just a caution. Both Malcolm Brown (ankle) and Hightower (shoulder) were forced from the game. I hope Danta isn't going to miss more time, and Brown has been having his best year as a Patriot before going out in the 3rd quarter.
j. Secondary- Everything you could hope for when you are missing 2 of your top CB's for the game. I mean it looked like it would be a massive mismatch on the outside, and yet at no time did it seem like Pats defense wasn't in control. Wide open receivers were rare, and clearly, any "communication" issues were kept at a minimum.
k. After watching 20+ yd completions being a regular feature for our opponents, there was only one such catch (22yds) and I think that came at the end of the half. So if you are looking for reason's why this game turned out so well, you can start here.
l. Johnson Badimosi - I mean WTF. This is a guy who has been in the league since 2012 and has started a grand total of 3 games over those 5 seasons. He's NOT supposed to start 2 games and solidify your secondary. Last week the Jets rarely tested him for some unknown reason, and this week he must have done really well. I have no idea what his actual passing stats are for this game (though he had 7 tackles), but he certainly wasn't a liability.
Its a really cool story about a guy who hung on in this league for 5 seasons as a career special teams guy, and then gets a shot to not only play but START, and seems to be doing a solid job.
m. But here's the disturbing part (for me). Right away the first thing I heard from Felger was, "Gee the Pats played good defense without Gilmore, so he must be the problem. How can your most expensive defensive salary be the problem? Bill screwed up again. yadda yadda yadda". Giardi quickly joined the chorus, and I now know the main topic of the week on sports talk.
BELIEVE ME. The Pats secondary will be even better when Gilmore and Rowe return.n. Malcom Butler was a beast out there tonight. Troy Brown thinks he's the best CB tackler since Ty Law. He said, '0ther CB's usually just throw a shoulder on a knee and hope for the best, while Butler hits hard, wraps, and hogties his man. I agree. He tackles HARD. He also had his best night in coverage, imho. Julio had great stats (9 for 99 and a TD), but Butler wasn't on him all the time and the TD was closer to a pick than a catch. Jones made another great play ripping the ball out of Butler's hands. Like Rowe last year, Butler was in perfect position.
o. With Butler continuing to round into shape, I think when Rowe and Gilmore get back, the dominant secondary we hoped to have at the start of the season, might eventually become a fact.
4. Special Teams - ANOTHER group that had a great night. The coverage was awesome both on the KO's and punt return. With the FG block, I saw something that I thought I would never see again. What was even more impressive is that it looked like they attacked a flaw they saw on film. Marsh made a great move, got skinny, and made a BIG play. And Gotskowski was 4-4 for the night, so maybe he can keep his job for another week.
