Patriot Missile
Pro Bowl Player
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2005
- Messages
- 14,080
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Now Imagine if the Texans had a competent QB...
Imagine if Pittsburgh or Dallas or Green bay or Atlanta had Houston's defense?
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CLICK HERE to Register for a free account and login for a smoother ad-free experience. It's easy, and only takes a few moments.Now Imagine if the Texans had a competent QB...
Can't be, DMac doesn't make plays.
I think we should be happy that BOB and Crennel showed us a few things they did not show us in the regular season game. Andrews was exposed one-on-one, when Hogan went out they took away Edelman, Amendola can be single covered, Floyd was not a factor, Bennet did not get separation. Maybe Mitchell would have been able to help? Our D was great - 3 turnovers and still held them to 16 points - have to be happy. Our D still looked like it was a bit disorganized a couple of times but not as bad as the mistakes against Miami. Overall the O-line learned a few things, the D looks like it is still improving and a lot of our receiving threats struggle to get open even covered one-on-one. Great lesson for the offense - great lesson on our weaknesses.
This team can not run the ball in the playoffs against non colts teams. It's been a consistent pattern for years now.
Thank you, Captain Obvious.It's good to win, but we'll never win a superbowl by playing this badly on offense. Brady needs to clean up his act, 47% completion and 2 int won't get it done when we play a better opponent. The offensive line was pretty bad too, Brady was having a hard time even executing a basic screen play.A lot of things needs to be corrected and it going to start with playing a turnover free game.
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Consistent Pattern?
Maybe the fact that Blount was ill the whole week had something to do with it?
Or the fact that Crennel simply outsmarted Josh this time.
Or the fact that HOU front seven simply executed better and won the battle in the trenches.
They are allowed to prepare for the game and play, you know.
Talent evaluators would even tell you that their D is much more talented than Pats O (athletic ability, draft picks), especially the front 7.
Despite all that Pats managed 98 yards with at least one big run wiped out by ref. mistake (holding on Solder)
I bet you were thrilled by ATL and SEA running game as were all commentators.
Here are the rushing numbers for all 4 teams in div playoff games:
HOU .. 104
SEA .... 101
ATL .... 99
NE ...... 98
So please look at the numbers and context before writing about “consistent patterns“ etc.
And do take a good look at Pats running game next Sunday with healthy Blount . without “patterns“..
Still all Brady had to do was move the ball a foot.
It's good to win, but we'll never win a superbowl by playing this badly on offense. Brady needs to clean up his act, 47% completion and 2 int won't get it done when we play a better opponent. The offensive line was pretty bad too, Brady was having a hard time even executing a basic screen play.A lot of things needs to be corrected and it going to start with playing a turnover free game.
It appeared (though this was only from a handful of wide overhead views) the Texans' D was playing the classic anti -Patriot tight man and crowd up front defense. Team's that can successfully do that slow down the Patriots (the Patriots bread and butter are quick strikes in that 7 to 11 yard range). Further, Texans' D was getting good pressure on Brady through much of the first half. They also were playing the run very well.
The solid pressure they put on Brady is a non starter. When an opposing team does that it will make the Patriots sustained drives much less frequent, our scoring potential drop tangibly and make the L a much m much more real possibility. But assuming the OL and coaching is good enough to adjust in order to provide Brady satisfactory protection(they did) -- the Patriots must make an opposition D pay for crowding up front. On this front give the Texans' D a lot of credit. In the beginning I saw Brady trying to make the Texan's pay by going to the inherent Dion Lewis vs slower/bigger defender mismatch. On the face of it it was a good place to throw but these Texans defenders often played Lewis stubbornly well. The Patriots tried some quick slants but that proved not fruitful enough. The Patriots also tried a page out of the Joe Flacco handbook of chuck it downfield a number of times (with some-ish moderate success).
I'm in the crowd that this was actually a helpful game as it played out. The Patriots just got a high level training session on what happens when the classic anti-Patriot defense is deployed. In the next two games the Patriots can't come out and say "we were caught off guard and didn't know how to adjust".
On this front I think we saw that Floyd's newness showed through and Mitchell's absence was felt (Gronkowski out was REALLY felt but that's a different ball of wax). But first and foremost our O starts and ends with satisfactory pass protection. As long as that happens we can grind out enough points to make the W reachable.
Side note on the D and Brock O. Yes Brock O is not a good QB, however, (A) give him some credit for dropping a few passes right on the money. but more importantly (B) Brock had the look that many better QBs have had against us too: Everyone is covered and the Patriots' pass rush is coming. Again this is just based on the handful of sucky CBS overhead views but Brock O was looking at everyone covered. And this is a reality that the Patriots D has been putting on opposing offenses for some weeks now.
Whoever we face next week. If the Offense plays like it did yesterday, I would expect a much offense out of the Steelers or Chiefs to put way more points. Next week we can't afford the mistakes of yesterday. If that happens, we could lose and lose big. The Offense has to help the defense.Given the short fields the offense kept leaving them to deal with, that was a tremendous defensive performance.