Sure, it's a reach. He threw a catchable ball that Devlin had hit him in the hands and was in the process of hauling in before it popped out.
Devlin needs to secure that ball and haul it in. He does his job there and it's likely the Patriots get a new set of downs where they can continue to milk the clock. Instead, what happened is the same thing that has happened in spades this season - the receiver loses the ball, it pops up, and gets intercepted. But to act like that wasn't a good decision nor was it a catchable ball reeks of bias. It's the same bias you've had against the guy all offseason.
And I'm fine with people harping on him when it's needed. Throwing the ball into double coverage multiple times to Gronk and once to Hogan in Week 1 is a justified harping. But you're reaching badly here and should thus be called on it. If you want to talk about excuses, look no further than your posts defending the defense (which you've already admitted is a problem in your first post to me in this thread):
- 31 points allowed to the Bears. "It's the offense's fault!"
- 40 points allowed to the Chiefs. "It's the offense's and ST fault!"
Genius. Pure genius. If that's the sort of hard-hitting analysis that you're going to offer on here, maybe you should become sort of a reverse troll account where you just agree with everything BB does and think everything is great. It'll save people time from having to decide whether or not they want to take your posts seriously.
Lazar has had enough hawt taeks and terrible takes to render this statement incorrect. You've referenced one of them in your last two posts to me. Where he's good is providing the All-22 and the breaking down the play with what he THINKS is the call. Where he fails miserably is assigning blame or credit for what went wrong or right.
Why do one or the other when you can do both?
I'll try to make this as simple as I possibly can for you...
- The offense's job is to move the ball and score points.
- The defense's job is to stop the other offense from moving the ball and scoring points.
Short field or not, it's still the defense's job to either A) stop the offense from scoring altogether, B) hold the offense to a FG, or C) turn the offense over. The defense has not consistently done any of those three. Furthermore, as I mentioned, this is a BBDB unit that supposedly benefits from short fields. They still can't get the stops they need and those possessions turn into TDs far more often than not. That's not something we've seen from our defenses in years where they won championships. Those defenses routinely stopped the opposing offense or, at the very least, held them to FGs. Hell, we even saw that from non-championship teams (late 2012, 2013, 2015). But those defenses were good. This one is not.
And the defense could have made an 8 point difference on each possession. They did not. That's to say nothing about the 31 points they allowed in the second half of the Chiefs game where the team as a whole had to be bailed out by Brady and the offense sealing the game.
Talk to Brady's receivers. They've been at fault for the majority of his INTs in the 2018 season. Meanwhile again, in the real world, the Patriots as a defense are 27th in the league on third down giving up 45% on third down. They can't get off the field. They're even worse on 4th down giving up 71%. They're surrendering 25.6 points per game - helped greatly by the Dolphins only scoring 7. That looks like the lone outlier on the list. In the last two weeks, they've given up 40 (31 in the second half) and 31 points on the road. And, meanwhile, you're sitting here trying to lay blame on an offense that still put up 24 shorthanded in a hostile environment without its biggest weapon. All of this coming
after you already admitted that the defense has been a problem. Good work.
