Opening Kickoff - why did we elect to receive?

[condon84]

Don't really have an issue with this decision.

More issue with our defense playing as soft as they did on that first possession. That was a free TD and you can't do that in a game with evenly matched teams.

 

[convertedpatsfan]

Belichick said the weather wasnt a factor when they didnt elect to defer

Then I'm wrong.

At the end of the day, it didn't really matter though.

 

[TinhWoodhead]

Then I'm wrong.

At the end of the day, it didn't really matter though.

it sorta did matter as we had to punt and they got a fg out of it before HT

 

[convertedpatsfan]

it sorta did matter as we had to punt and they got a fg out of it before HT

Not everything that happened in the game is directly linked to a coin flip or a missed XP.

But if you take out that first drive and everything plays out the exact same way (this is not the way the world works btw, but what the hell, enough people seem to think this way), then we still would have had to punt, and then they still get that FG, just sooner.

We just might have more time at the end, although I don't think we'd do much with it. For all we know, we could have been down more if we screwed around and got a punt blocked like against the Eagles. It's impossible to predict, but it really is silly to be spending this much time discussing this.

By not deferring, you give the possibility of the other team to score at the end, then score to begin. They didn't.

The team that starts with the ball scores first 60% of the time. But that means 40% of the time, they don't. We fell in that 40%. But again, it wasn't the reason we lost.

If it mattered that much, we might as well just forfeit once we don't score on the opening drive. The 23 hits on Brady, the porous OL, the lack of chipping, Miller and Ware spending more time in our backfield than our running backs, the DBs playing way off the receivers on that first drive, the blown coverage on Daniels, Collins losing Daniels, the big run that set up a FG, all those things mattered too. They all factored into our loss.

I know some fans gave up right after that first drive failed to score, while many others probably jumped on board the fail train after the Broncos scored first. But we had numerous opportunities to win this game, and not just by a bit, but a lot. They beat us on a ton of plays. They didn't just beat us on one or two key plays or a coin flip.

 

[eom]

let's face it, HE'S NOT GOOD ANYMORE!

 

[Drewwho]

It's hard to say because we were the #2 seed with a ton of injuries, but here it goes "It was a poor coaching year for BB". Yes, I said it! If down the stretch things were coached a bit differently, more consistently then we are the #1 seed. Not to mention the fact that I will never understand how you do not take the FG with 6 minutes left in the AFCCG when your D was shutting Denver down in the second half. Mind-boggling crazy coaching.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I wonder if he just figured, who knows about the weather conditions, and it is supposed to drop 10 degrees over the course of the game, so why not take the known, which is good conditions, and get the ball as much as we can while we can?

Regardless, coin toss elections mean so little in the big picture it's hardly worth discussing. I don't think BB really thinks deferring or taking the ball is a big deal either way.

 

[EatSleepWinRepeat]

Bill has been outsmarting himself since the Eagles game.

 

[jmt57]

I think the decision to defer was due to the predictions of bad weather later in the game as mentioned above, and the altitude.

By electing to receive you remove the possibility of the defense having to be on the field for a long opening drive, and having that negatively effect them later. The Patriots are very good at in-game adjustments, but it is not unusual for an opponent to look good on their opening drive while the staff adjusts to what is happening on the field. The D would then have a 15 minute rest before taking the field to begin the second half.