Game Day Thread Official Post-Game Thread: Week 1 - Pats lose to Dolphins 17-16

[DropKickFlutie]

When he returned, he wasn’t able to block an incoming defender, which - I figure - was the last straw for that game…

I mean that's almost cuttable. Can't protect the ball and fumble, can't block. There are a lot of run-only RBs who basically never make it to the nfl.

 

[masterbouncer]

281yards/74,4%(!)/102,6rating/1TD/0INT

That is an impressiv stat line for a rookie QB in his first ever NFL game!
I was expecting him to have more struggles with the over aggressiv Miami D# but he made the best out of it and people can be sure now, he is the real deal. After the shaky start he really looked poised out there, like he belongs to the NFL and is a 10 year veteran.

So Mac was actually the bright spot yesterday, good to have him, but...

...very conservative play calling from McDaniels is annoying and still predictable
...OL play was horrendous at times, especially Herron was out of place it seems, was eatan alive there, no wonder he was benched before Mac was killed there
...penalties were killing them, there were some stupid ones like the one from Judon on the Miami sideline but a lot of ******** calls that only went against the Pats, Miami OL came away with a lot of holding penalties that were not called, Blakemans crew should run around in clown suits rather than the zebra shirt
...fumbles? Pats: Yes! Ball security has to be a top priority, of course the Miami Patriots with all the ex Patriots coaches and players do it great copying the Patriots but boy you just have to take care of the ball out there, unexcusable.
...RB Stevenson, ouch fumble was bad, but what really showed he ain't ready for the NFL is basically the blitz where he has been run over by Roberts and almost ended Macs season with the hit to the knees. Thats unexcusable. Period. Such a big dude got run over by ****ing Elandon Roberts? no wonder he was benched after that, however you can't run only with Harris, and not that many times McDaniels is calling it, he will wear out by WK10 if they keep it like that, so Stevenson better learn fast.
...DLine was quite up and down, had some great run stops and than left the Miami RBs run around and push for extra 3-4 yards down field, quite a deja-vu from last year, they have to be better there, pass rush was quite impressiv though
....Secondary? ouch Gilmore better get back soon, because we obviously need him in order to be competitive against better Offenses, though Miami played 2 impressiv drives at begining of each half, which obviously was enough to win, because the Pats fumbled away the win.

Way to go, but its encouraging to know you have your next franchise QB in the building.

 

[scott99]

 

[BobDigital]

All due respect dude, almost all your pregame takes were dead wrong. You grossly underestimated the MIA defense and offense and you grossly overestimated our O and D. According to you, this was going to be a blow-out.

I said let's not underestimate Flores. He would prepare Tua for what Bill cooked up.

Actually it was fairly accurate. Besides the points i said I had incorrect. I think my final score prediction was something like 27-16. I pretty much hit on the Miami score. Their offense did about what I expected it to do. They had some drives but overall they didnt show they were much improved there without Fuller. Their oline had ossues all game which we all thought they would and they didn't run successfully on us. Tua as I thought didn't show je was specail or made a huge 2nd year jump. He also tossed up a few qiestionanle balls one of which we came down with. I made a 20 dollar prop bet on that btw, which i won.

As for how our offense looked, I was pretty close. I thought Mac would manage to take care of the ball and he did. I thought we could run on them pretty well, and we did. Mac actually did better than I thought passing.

As for why my prediction was wrong, as I said, the turnovers and penalties. I thought 1 fumble was possible. 2? Didn't see tgat coming and I think it cost us 7. All those penalties might have cost us 3 more. If those things dont happen I would have been pretty accurate. Likely hitting 23-17 or 26-17 as opposed to what it ended up being which would have been reasonably close to my score. Would it have been completely right? No. But we3'll within the neighborhood.

I also thought our Oline would do better, but injuries happened.

 

[TomPatriot]

This loss sucks, but the damage with regards to the division is limited. It's worse for the wild card, but it's still just week one.


A loss next week, though.....

They’re not losing next week. Book it.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Mac outperformed Brady statistically in his first start...just sayin'

Mac: 29 of 39, 281 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, 102.6 passer rating (yesterday)

Brady: 13 of 23, 168 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs, 79.6 passer rating (9/30/01 vs Indy)

 

[Ollie]

If Fuller had played, Miami would probably have won the game by 14+.

and if Trent brown hadn't got injured we might have scored 14 more, or if we don't fumble we win the game, or if we don't giveup nearly 100yds in pens.... lots of ifs and probablies that we will never know

 

[Ollie]

He fumbled, maybe not clear enough on our replay but give me a break. Hold onto the ball at all times. All the way to the ground. Don’t give the refs a ******* chance to be involved with the outcome. Who knows why he didn’t challenge it? Possibly his people told him not to challenge it? Maybe he is going to use the fumbles as a teaching lesson to the team this week? Importance of holding onto the ball? More importantly he almost singlehandedly ended Mac Jones season with a fairy block that went south in a bad way. This enormous man got destroyed in pass protection because his technique sucked. He’s gonna get better, maybe even the lead back before we know it, but this week he was a liability early and often in his limited snaps. Love the upside of this guy , just needs to work on the little things.

Aren't all turnovers reviewed anyway so there is no need to challenge?

 

[Give Kraft A Hand]

Mac and the running game (fumble aside) looked good. Wide Receivers looked much better than last year. Overall I guess this is a moral win against a good team that should have been a win in the standings. I can live with it. Just go beat them in Miami.

 

[A Defiant Goose]

All things considered this was the 2nd best possible outcome. Everyone else in the AFCE lost so we're only behind Miami. I don't think anyone is worried about the Dolphins taking the division this year. And on top of that Mac looked really good.

 

[PScottman]

There's still a part of me that wonders do we win this game if Cam Newton starts.

They lose by more. How many second/third and longs did Mac complete with touch passes (the James White over the shoulder example)? How many hot reads against the blitz? How many protection changes that would've led to free blitzes to the QB?

For the terrible penalties and turnovers, if it had been Cam with this team that would've been a horror show. Those pre-play adjustments are the kind of plays that simply aren't in Cam Newton's repertoire.

(why are some still talking about this?????????????????????????)

 

[FredFromDartmouth]

Mac threw for 74% completion which is excellent. This includes multiple batted balls. Threw to 8 different guys. Against an elite Miami secondary.

Seems like the pass catchers are just fine.

Mac did better than even the stats say. Of the 26% misses, almost all were throwing the ball away when he could not find an open receiver, batted balls, or having a CB bat the ball away because the receiver could not get open. I remember maybe one miss; all the other throws were on target. The Patriots receiver corps sucks, big time.

 

[condon84]

Crappy loss because we should have won

Mac played great. Rookie QB making his first start and he played like that against a top defense. Made great throws and was decisive.

Josh needs to involve the TEs more in the play calling. Jonnu looks like he's a really weapon when he has the ball in his hands. We waited until the 4th quarter to finally get them involved.

Pass defense looked good for the most part. Some of those long completions were simply great plays where the defenders were right there. Tua was hit or rushed in a lot of his dropbacks.

Run defense on the other hand looks concerning. When they knew the Phins had to run they couldn't stop them. The middle is still getting pushed off the LOS.

 

[chasa]

hopefully the TE's live up eventually - very underwhelming start for them recieving wise.

Did we watch the same game?
The Tightends were targeted 8 times, had 8 catches, for 73 yards.

They also did a TON of blocking, and anytime we got into the redzone a running back fumbled.

The tightends had some huge catches on third down.

All of last year the tight ends caught what, 18 TOTAL passes?

100 Catch rate is hardly underwhelming imo

 

[NG Pats Fan]

We always play poorly at Miami. It's not a big surprise that we lost. Rather it was the way it happened. It felt like Mac Jones was making a drive for a comeback score, but then Damien Harries fumbles inside the 10 yard line. Big OOPSIE!

Growing Pains. Don't expect Mac Jones to be a stud straight away. Believe it or not he's still a rookie. There's still a part of me that wonders do we win this game if Cam Newton starts. But we cut ties, possibly to take away pressure from results like today, so obviously we are taking chances with the youngster, and let what happens, happen.

“At miami”

we played at home

 

[stelfans]

Mac looked really good. Excited to see a less conservative play calling and more confidence.
The rest was really bad.

 

[libra957]

A highly winnable game butchered by fumbles.

 

[Lavictoire]

Mac looked good and glad to see Agholor and tight ends catching balls. First game was winnable but lots of mistakes to clean up.

 

[jimnance]

They lose by more. How many second/third and longs did Mac complete with touch passes (the James White over the shoulder example)? How many hot reads against the blitz? How many protection changes that would've led to free blitzes to the QB?

For the terrible penalties and turnovers, if it had been Cam with this team that would've been a horror show. Those pre-play adjustments are the kind of plays that simply aren't in Cam Newton's repertoire.

(why are some still talking about this?????????????????????????)

That line by @VJCPatriot is the stupidest post I've seen in approx. 18 years of visting this board. Dumber than anything Ive seen from NEM or Stevenson. So dumb I think he did it deliberately just to get reactions,which is weird.
But if he was being honest about it, he needs commitment- the involuntary kind.

 

[Kontradiction]

Positives:
Mac
Harris (fumble aside)
The TEs and 12 personnel in general
Edge rush
Agholor
Meyers
Folk

Negatives:
Turnovers and penalties
Pass protection
Secondary
Run D (meh)
Rham

The secondary is going to be a problem area until we get Gilmore back. Jackson is an excellent CB2, but he isn’t Gilmore. Not even really close, actually.

When we signed Agholor, I said that I didn’t really feel confident that he could be THAT GUY who consistently takes the defense out of Cover-1. In LV last year, he benefitted from Waller consistently drawing double teams and defenses at least having to respect Ruggs’ speed. That left him with a lot of one-on-one opportunities if the defense was in man. Flores utilized a ton of Cover-1 man under against us yesterday with generally decent results. You saw McDaniels try to shake him out of this coverage with the skinny post to Meyers that was dropped. A few plays later, Mac caught them in Cover-2 and ripped the ball up the seam and between the hashes to Agholor. Mac was generally at his best against Cover-0, Cover-2, and Cover-3 yesterday. We need someone at the WR position opposite Agholor to keep defenses in the latter two coverage packages, or you’re going to see Mac holding the ball longer against man, which will lead to more hits like the ones we saw yesterday as the season progresses. This would be a really good time for Harry to start playing like a first round pick when he actually gets on the field.

It was very encouraging to see Mac consistently beat the blitz yesterday, though. He knew who his outlet receiver was, diagnosed where the blitz was coming from, and got the ball out of his hands quickly. That’s what you want to see out of a rookie as he grows. By contrast, I watched the Jaguars/Texans game yesterday before our game and Lawrence was absolutely terrible against the blitz. Threw three picks, two of which were panic throws in the face of the rush, and genuinely looked confused by Lovie Smith’s disguise. So Mac is already ahead of him in that department due to his desire to hone in on the mental aspects of the game mixed with better coaching. Meyer didn’t look like he belonged at the NFL level yesterday.