Official Post Game Thread- Pats beat the Chargers

[captain stone]

On the exercise bike this AM tuned into ESPN and there were the top 10 plays of the weekend.. no Gunnar and no McCourty.. lots of lame other ones that I did not give a crap about.

How could any reliable sportsnews site ignore either of those two plays??

But then again, it was ESPN...

Therein lies your mistake...

 

[The Brandon Five]

Looked like JC had an Achilles' issue with the way he was limping around before he was removed...

Did he injure himself while celebrating?

 

[TomPatriot]

Interesting notes from Evan

The Pats had Newton calling the direction of running plays based on the defense’s alignment and then often reading the defense after the snap as a part of those run concepts. That’s a lot mentally to put on the QB.

That’s what QBs do when they run option plays. It’s not unusual.

 

[Doctor DDS]

Not sure if it is true or not but my sense is that the Patriots have had way fewer possessions this year than normal due mainly to the run game. Was looking at Bailey's punt numbers and he has had only 34 punts through 12 games compared to 81 in a full season last year. Makes it harder to assess some of the traditional passing stats.

 

[Sciz]

Not sure if it is true or not but my sense is that the Patriots have had way fewer possessions this year than normal due mainly to the run game. Was looking at Bailey's punt numbers and he has had only 34 punts through 12 games compared to 81 in a full season last year. Makes it harder to assess some of the traditional passing stats.

Yeah, down from ~11.8 possessions per game last year to ~9.8 this year last I checked maybe a week ago.

 

[DarrylS]

Did he injure himself while celebrating?

He hurt himself on a tackle.. I missed the celebration.

 

[Uptown]

 

[lancerman]

It doesn't take much to get all the "Always Cam-ers" up on their soapboxes. Wow, I can't believe how emotionally weak so many Pats fans are. We get a big win, great! But, if anyone sees this game (high score) being anything connected to Cam being worth a big contract, or next years starter, you're crazy. This was all D & ST, and a good start in the run game - which Cam was a part of... but he's just not a good (=consistent) passer anymore. That's just objective fact.

This post is an example of the problem of forming narratives.

Most people aren’t saying Cam is the answer or should even be the longterm starter of the future. But based on the evidence we have, he’s a better answer than what is immediately available and it’s dumb to discard him until we have a real concrete view of what the off season will bring.

So naturally that has to be straw manned into a ridiculous position of “these guys think Cam is amazing and can do no wrong” so a preposterous strawman argument can be set up. I think most of us are very aware that Cam has severe flaws and will not be the guy to lead us into the future, but we also realize that despite it being convenient to believe there is magical answer on our bench right now..... there’s just no real evidence of that and Belichick is probably making the right decision with more information than we have.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

It’s interesting to see the same people who trash Stidham when he throws picks in garbage time, say “don’t read too much into his success in garbage time” after he had a couple of nice throws yesterday. You can’t have it both ways.

Sure they can.

 

[lancerman]

Sure they can.

I mean it works both ways. The same people that said not to read too much into a few late game appearances watched Stidham go into a game where Cam had two rushing TD’s and a passing TD in a blowout and throw to a wide open receiver who made a couple of great cuts when the game was over fir a TD and used that as the basis to dismiss everything else.

 

[Conflicted Panthers fan]

That’s what QBs do when they run option plays. It’s not unusual.

I don’t think QB’s normally call which direction the run goes pre-snap when running the option. It sounds like Lazar is saying Cam was reading the defense pre-snap and adjusting the play call to the left, right or middle depending on what the defense shows. After the snap, sure the option is basically the same for any QB.

 

[Uptown]

 

[Patsgofor4]

Did he injure himself while celebrating?

Landed awkwardly after a pass breakup. Given the landing and his limp after the play, achilles seems unlikely to be. I’m worried about a foot injury. Ankle is also possible.

 

[fnordcircle]

It's reassuring to see that all it takes is 45-0 for some of you to find anything positive.

 

[TomPatriot]

I don’t think QB’s normally call which direction the run goes pre-snap when running the option. It sounds like Lazar is saying Cam was reading the defense pre-snap and adjusting the play call to the left, right or middle depending on what the defense shows. After the snap, sure the option is basically the same for any QB.

Ok, I guess I’m not seeing what is unique about calling the run direction pre-snap. It’s just an audible and calling run direction doesn’t seem hard to me. I think it can be done by a good HS QB.

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

Not sure if it is true or not but my sense is that the Patriots have had way fewer possessions this year than normal due mainly to the run game. Was looking at Bailey's punt numbers and he has had only 34 punts through 12 games compared to 81 in a full season last year. Makes it harder to assess some of the traditional passing stats.

Yep, thats why its hard to compare offensive output overall too to last year. Seems our drives are longer and until last week our defense wasn’t getting off the field as well as last year.

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

Landed awkwardly after a pass breakup. Given the landing and his limp after the play, achilles seems unlikely to be. I’m worried about a foot injury. Ankle is also possible.

I watched the replay closely. The ankle did not seem to twist. Could have been anything really. Foot injury is a good guess. There was no real contact so that is not good in my opinion.

 

[Ring 6]

Yeah. And. So. What ? You really have not presented any coherent point with that slice of stats.

Are you saying Newton is not producing enough ? Because I'd say that the conversion rate, the TDs he scored on a run (11) and the way his presence manipulates the defense is not captured by your selection of only attempts and TDs.

Are you trying to imply that you think Stidham's performance in those "26 attempts" would scale similarly over a season ? Maybe, but I am not sure a 50% completion percentage and going about 20:30 in TD:INT is in any shape or form favorable to where we are with Newton.

So what your "the point" actually ? Apart from overreacting to the backup getting two series of mop up duty in garbage time.

Of course he isn’t producing enough.
They are 23rd in scoring (with 4 d/st tds) 30th in passing and 32nd in td passes.

Whether Stidham would be more productive (and more turnover prone) is debatable but the fact that newton has been abysmal is not.

 

[luuked]

Landed awkwardly after a pass breakup. Given the landing and his limp after the play, achilles seems unlikely to be. I’m worried about a foot injury. Ankle is also possible.

It is most likely still connected to the back injury he suffered after awkwardly landing on his hip last week in the endzone.

 

[PF_SU]

Yep, thats why its hard to compare offensive output overall too to last year. Seems our drives are longer and until last week our defense wasn’t getting off the field as well as last year.

The Patriots D this year have faced the fewest drives against with 105, which is 6 less than the next-closest team (the Giants). So while the D is #7 in points per game allowed, they are actually #20 in points per drive allowed. The problem is probably not so much getting off the field on 3rd down (they are #18 in that), but rather allowing chunk plays on 1st and 2nd down, leading to easy 3rd downs and extended drives (they are #31 in average duration per drive).

The offense meanwhile is also last in number of drives. Quite interesting is that they are doing much better in terms of yards per drive (#9) than points per drive (#22), which shows a central problem of this offense, the QB/WR combination on that team is just not capable of delivering chunk plays to quickly bridge the field and get into scoring position. Rather they work their way slowly across the field using short passes and the run game and then get stuck somewhere in nowhere more often than not.