A Defiant Goose
Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal
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- Sep 14, 2015
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Regardless of what happens in this DEN-SD game, there are a few things that need to change for the Patriots to make another Super Bowl run.
1. The end of half play-calling. We've seen it quite a few times over the past 6 games (especially @NYJ), the offense uncharacteristically turtle and refuse to try and put points up on the board with around two minutes and enough timeouts. Why have they been doing that? God only knows. It could be because they don't want to risk horribly ****ing it up (like they did against Philly, though that was a special teams **** up and not an offensive one). It could be the injuries. Who knows? But they need to go back to their roots and go for the jugular when they're ending the half.
2. Long-yardage situation playcalling. Countless times today they had 2nd and 10+ or 3rd and 10+ and more often than not they either ran a draw play or threw a 3-5 yard pass. That **** has got to stop. The offensive line isn't making it any easier mind you, it's hard to make a 10+ yard pass play when the defense can pin their ears back against such a bad offensive line, but maybe not immediately giving up on 2nd and long and trying to gain some yards back early would help.
3. Defending pick plays. They have been ****ed the last two weeks on those pick plays. I don't know why we refuse to try passing receivers off instead of running around behind the player and chasing him from behind, but something's gotta change with that. The down side is they've given up quite a few easy catches when playing zone. Coaches need to be better because that's going to kill us come playoff time.
A couple of things that won't change:
1. The offensive line. Nobody is coming through the door to save our season there. Edelman, Hightower, Jones, etc do not play offensive line. Vollmer is coming back, but the line was struggling before he left the game last week. I said in the GDT Edelman's return should help mask those issues as they did earlier in the season, but they can't throw the ball within 2 seconds every single play. Offensive line is going to have to step up on their own. That's going to be the team's Achilles heel this post season. I hope they can figure something out to get both Andrews and Stork on the field at the same time, as Andrews held his own pretty well during Stork's absence at center.
2. Special teams/punt returning. This one is mostly speculation, but I think we might be stuck with Martin receiving punts even with Edelman returning. The last thing you need with Edelman coming back from a foot injury is him making more hard cuts and jukes on the punt return team and risking re-injury. As long as we don't give up any back breaking fumbled punts, I'm sort of ok with this.
This is going to have to be a full team performance moreso than the last couple of seasons. We're really going to need the defense to live up to their talent and keep some games close. If the Patriots end up falling behind early it would be very difficult to make it back into the game with the way the offensive line has been playing and how we've been against the run. Here's to hoping we have all hands on deck, and remember this is a veteran championship team. I don't see them mentally folding in the playoffs. If they lose it'll be because the other team just flat out played better than them, no excuses.
1. The end of half play-calling. We've seen it quite a few times over the past 6 games (especially @NYJ), the offense uncharacteristically turtle and refuse to try and put points up on the board with around two minutes and enough timeouts. Why have they been doing that? God only knows. It could be because they don't want to risk horribly ****ing it up (like they did against Philly, though that was a special teams **** up and not an offensive one). It could be the injuries. Who knows? But they need to go back to their roots and go for the jugular when they're ending the half.
2. Long-yardage situation playcalling. Countless times today they had 2nd and 10+ or 3rd and 10+ and more often than not they either ran a draw play or threw a 3-5 yard pass. That **** has got to stop. The offensive line isn't making it any easier mind you, it's hard to make a 10+ yard pass play when the defense can pin their ears back against such a bad offensive line, but maybe not immediately giving up on 2nd and long and trying to gain some yards back early would help.
3. Defending pick plays. They have been ****ed the last two weeks on those pick plays. I don't know why we refuse to try passing receivers off instead of running around behind the player and chasing him from behind, but something's gotta change with that. The down side is they've given up quite a few easy catches when playing zone. Coaches need to be better because that's going to kill us come playoff time.
A couple of things that won't change:
1. The offensive line. Nobody is coming through the door to save our season there. Edelman, Hightower, Jones, etc do not play offensive line. Vollmer is coming back, but the line was struggling before he left the game last week. I said in the GDT Edelman's return should help mask those issues as they did earlier in the season, but they can't throw the ball within 2 seconds every single play. Offensive line is going to have to step up on their own. That's going to be the team's Achilles heel this post season. I hope they can figure something out to get both Andrews and Stork on the field at the same time, as Andrews held his own pretty well during Stork's absence at center.
2. Special teams/punt returning. This one is mostly speculation, but I think we might be stuck with Martin receiving punts even with Edelman returning. The last thing you need with Edelman coming back from a foot injury is him making more hard cuts and jukes on the punt return team and risking re-injury. As long as we don't give up any back breaking fumbled punts, I'm sort of ok with this.
This is going to have to be a full team performance moreso than the last couple of seasons. We're really going to need the defense to live up to their talent and keep some games close. If the Patriots end up falling behind early it would be very difficult to make it back into the game with the way the offensive line has been playing and how we've been against the run. Here's to hoping we have all hands on deck, and remember this is a veteran championship team. I don't see them mentally folding in the playoffs. If they lose it'll be because the other team just flat out played better than them, no excuses.
