Reactions to “The Dynasty”

[venecol]

You guys who have wished yourselves into believing Butler would've saved that Super Bowl should go back and watch it again. Patricia game-planned the softest, most passive zone scheme in the history of playoff football. The whole idea was slowing Philly down just enough to beat them offensively, NOT stop them. Butler was not a difference-maker late that year and whether he could've stemmed the tide that day, in THAT defense, is questionable at best.

Patricia's plan worked brilliantly.

Stop it on Butler not making a difference nonsense. He was their best tackler.

DIV: NE 35 - TEN 14
Butler: 4 tackles, 1 TFL

AFCCG: NE 24 - JAX 20
Butler: 6 tackles, 1 PD

Regular:
Butler: 98% D snaps
2 INT, 12 PD, 3 FF, 1 SK, 60 tackles, 1 TFL, 2 QBH

Gilmore: 77% D snaps
2 INT, 9 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 50 tackles, 1 TFL, 0 QBH

Rowe: 24% D snaps
0 INT, 2 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 15 tackles, 1 TFL, 0 QBH

Bademosi: 20% D snaps
0 INT, 1 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 29 tackles, 0 TFL, 2 QBH

Richards: 26% D snaps
0 INT, 1 PD, 1 FF, 0 SK, 27 tackles, 0 TFL, 0 QBH

 

[Tunescribe]

Patricia's plan worked brilliantly.

The Eagles scored 41 points and won.

Stop it on Butler not making a difference nonsense. He was their best tackler.

If you mean for me to stop talking sense, sorry to disappoint you. I'm not saying he was a bad player, but people arguably are overrating his impact on the season and prospective impact on that game (more on this below).

DIV: NE 35 - TEN 14
Butler: 4 tackles, 1 TFL

AFCCG: NE 24 - JAX 20
Butler: 6 tackles, 1 PD

Regular:
Butler: 98% D snaps
2 INT, 12 PD, 3 FF, 1 SK, 60 tackles, 1 TFL, 2 QBH

Gilmore: 77% D snaps
2 INT, 9 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 50 tackles, 1 TFL, 0 QBH

Rowe: 24% D snaps
0 INT, 2 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 15 tackles, 1 TFL, 0 QBH

Bademosi: 20% D snaps
0 INT, 1 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 29 tackles, 0 TFL, 2 QBH

Richards: 26% D snaps
0 INT, 1 PD, 1 FF, 0 SK, 27 tackles, 0 TFL, 0 QBH

No, you can't say definitively that Butler playing in that soft zone would have made a significant difference. I'm not trying to justify BB's decision to bench him, just that Butler was not the "force" people now assume he was via revisionist history.

COULD he have made a difference? Possibly. Was his absence an OBVIOUS reason for the loss? No way.

Consider: These Malcolm Butler stats might help explain his Super Bowl benching

From the article:

"While many of course would have liked to see him play in the Super Bowl against the Philadelphia Eagles, 2017 was a tough year for Butler. Among all cornerbacks, he regressed slightly, finishing with a 79.2 overall grade, ranking 51st being ranking fifth in 2016 and 18th in 2015. He also gave up six touchdowns in his coverage, tying for third-most at the position, while also yielding the 11th-most yards at 698 and ranking 108th in yards after the catch at 233."

"The eye test told us that Butler was not the same cornerback in 2017 as he’d been across the two seasons prior — so these stats aren’t hard to believe. It’s just jarring to see how steeply he dropped off from the Patriots’ Super Bowl LI-winning season. Six touchdowns in coverage is a lot, and while he was still a relatively reliable starter, a player who’s in a contract year in his prime shouldn’t be experiencing that type of regression.

"Factor in his vocal unhappiness over the fact that he and the Patriots couldn’t settle on the contract he wanted prior to that season, and how well Stephon Gilmore played comparatively down the stretch, and it’s not hard to understand why Belichick might not have trusted him to get the job done against their toughest Super Bowl competition since the 2001 Rams."

There's more on this but I'm off to bed.

 

[Boomer B]

You guys who have wished yourselves into believing Butler would've saved that Super Bowl should go back and watch it again. Patricia game-planned the softest, most passive zone scheme in the history of playoff football. The whole idea was slowing Philly down just enough to beat them offensively, NOT stop them. Butler was not a difference-maker late that year and whether he could've stemmed the tide that day, in THAT defense, is questionable at best.

So that defense that sucked was on Patricia, but when it’s a shut down D it’s on Belichick.

 

[Tunescribe]

So that defense that sucked was on Patricia, but when it’s a shut down D it’s on Belichick.

View attachment 57173h,

You're putting words in my mouth, I never said that. Patricia was a DC known during his tenure here for favoring the infamous "bend but don't break" strategy apparently at BB's behest. Maybe it was the best approach for that game based on personnel but results leave that open to question. One would have to assume BB signed off on it.

 

[Clonamery]

I agree - - I guffawed at that. (The only funnier Pats documentary moment was the ESPN "The Two Bills" - when thetalking heads describe the the Belichick Jets declining job press conference in January 2000. 3 or 4 talking heads follow each other in succession describing how catastrophic, uncomfortable, weird, etc. that press conference was...........immediate cut to a joyous open smiling Kraft "I thought it was GREAT press conference!"

But what isn't funny is his driving the school bus into the lake at the very last moment of that SB 52 season for his own personal reasons (NOT in the "best interests of the team) - an affront to the 53 players who put their bodies and lives on the line and the fans who follow the team , spend their money and give their loyalty. Amedola was openly bitter in that doc about it - - and he has every right to be.

If Belichick had any SHRED of decency he would explain to the players and the fans why he pulled the plug.

.

Life is short, get over it. It's not about you or me and any self-righteous "shred of decency."

If Butler didn't want to say anything about it to his teammates at the time (cold, affair, taking swing at coach, missed curfew, screamed at coach - any other rumors?) then you can figure that it's about something that really doesn't need to be addressed in public.

And if Belichick kept his mouth shut as Butler scored a big contract with the Titans and later came back to the Patriots before retiring, you can see BB didn't need to make more of it than it had been.

Yeah it would have been nice to win another SB but in the end it's just a ****ing game.

 

[shmessy]

You did not state a fact. You repeated what someone said (hearsay). It proves nothing. Without knowing why Bill benched Butler its hard to make definitive judgment.
We are all speculating.
Now Kraft did say it was personal but still seems odd Butler will not say anything about it.
If Kraft is to be believed…it was inexcusable bs by Bill.
I do not know if Kraft can be believed.
He seems out to destroy Bill to make himself look good

Read the words I wrote.

I didn't say WHAT Butler said was "fact". I wrote that he made a statement answering the question about it on the documentary. The question was asked and he answered. That is a fact. He COULD be lying through his teeth.

In the meantime, Belichick 100% LIED on camera that it was mutually discussed before the interview that they would not be talking about the subject.

When confronted with the truth he snorted and looked into the camera. It is what it is.

I cannot trust someone who lies that brazenly. Perhaps Butler did too, I do not know. But I DO know that Belichick directly lied on camera.

.

 

[upstater1]

The Eagles scored 41 points and won.



If you mean for me to stop talking sense, sorry to disappoint you. I'm not saying he was a bad player, but people arguably are overrating his impact on the season and prospective impact on that game (more on this below).



No, you can't say definitively that Butler playing in that soft zone would have made a significant difference. I'm not trying to justify BB's decision to bench him, just that Butler was not the "force" people now assume he was via revisionist history.

COULD he have made a difference? Possibly. Was his absence an OBVIOUS reason for the loss? No way.

Consider: These Malcolm Butler stats might help explain his Super Bowl benching

From the article:

"The eye test told us that Butler was not the same cornerback in 2017 as he’d been across the two seasons prior — so these stats aren’t hard to believe. It’s just jarring to see how steeply he dropped off from the Patriots’ Super Bowl LI-winning season. Six touchdowns in coverage is a lot, and while he was still a relatively reliable starter, a player who’s in a contract year in his prime shouldn’t be experiencing that type of regression.

"Factor in his vocal unhappiness over the fact that he and the Patriots couldn’t settle on the contract he wanted prior to that season, and how well Stephon Gilmore played comparatively down the stretch, and it’s not hard to understand why Belichick might not have trusted him to get the job done against their toughest Super Bowl competition since the 2001 Rams."

There's more on this but I'm off to bed.

Eric Rowe was horrible in that game. He was a split second off every single throw made his way. Always close but NEVER there.

That being said, Rowe is still in the NFL and he's getting minutes for a good team.

As bad as that decision was, it's not a crazy one.

I agree that we win with Butler. I'm just saying that the decision to go with Rowe to offset a certain kind of WR is one that a coach, especially a coach with Belichick's evaluation skills, might actually make. He got it wrong. Anyone expecting him to be perfect in his stategies must've been disabused by then given what happened in 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012.

 

[upstater1]

You're putting words in my mouth, I never said that. Patricia was a DC known during his tenure here for favoring the infamous "bend but don't break" strategy apparently at BB's behest. Maybe it was the best approach for that game based on personnel but results leave that open to question. One would have to assume BB signed off on it.

That was the same defense though that was top ranked the prior year and the same defense that held one of the top 10 offenses in NFL history to 21 points, 3 off a fumble. So...

It makes sense that they ran back Patricia's defense after all the success they had the previous year.

 

[bresna]

Patricia's plan worked brilliantly.

Stop it on Butler not making a difference nonsense. He was their best tackler.

DIV: NE 35 - TEN 14
Butler: 4 tackles, 1 TFL

AFCCG: NE 24 - JAX 20
Butler: 6 tackles, 1 PD

Regular:
Butler: 98% D snaps
2 INT, 12 PD, 3 FF, 1 SK, 60 tackles, 1 TFL, 2 QBH

Gilmore: 77% D snaps
2 INT, 9 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 50 tackles, 1 TFL, 0 QBH

Rowe: 24% D snaps
0 INT, 2 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 15 tackles, 1 TFL, 0 QBH

Bademosi: 20% D snaps
0 INT, 1 PD, 0 FF, 0 SK, 29 tackles, 0 TFL, 2 QBH

Richards: 26% D snaps
0 INT, 1 PD, 1 FF, 0 SK, 27 tackles, 0 TFL, 0 QBH

Funny to see you edit those statistics as well as they edited the footage for The Dynasty.

How about including the entire secondary in your analysis of "best tackler"? You know that if you did, it would show that both Chung & McCourty had more tackles in the regular season & the playoffs.

 

[Tunescribe]

Eric Rowe was horrible in that game. He was a split second off every single throw made his way. Always close but NEVER there.

That being said, Rowe is still in the NFL and he's getting minutes for a good team.

As bad as that decision was, it's not a crazy one.

I agree that we win with Butler. I'm just saying that the decision to go with Rowe to offset a certain kind of WR is one that a coach, especially a coach with Belichick's evaluation skills, might actually make. He got it wrong. Anyone expecting him to be perfect in his stategies must've been disabused by then given what happened in 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012.

You seem to be suggesting, then, that not playing Butler perhaps was a tactical decision but not a good one. At least that's a step removed from the growing urban myth that BB intentionally blew the Super Bowl for vanity's sake to prove a point over something "personal."

At the time it occurred, whatever reasoning was behind Butler's benching might have seemed justified to BB. Now with everyone enjoying the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it looks like a bad move regardless. Ironically, we likely wouldn't be pondering this mystery ad nauseam had Brady not been stripped-sacked. (Team sports tend to defy cherry-picked analysis.)

 

[shmessy]

I'm sorry, but I cannot trust

You seem to be suggesting, then, that not playing Butler perhaps was a tactical decision but not a good one. At least that's a step removed from the growing urban myth that BB intentionally blew the Super Bowl for vanity's sake to prove a point over something "personal."

At the time it occurred, whatever reasoning was behind Butler's benching might have seemed justified. Now with everyone enjoying the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it looks like a bad move regardless. Ironically, we likely wouldn't be pondering this mystery ad nauseam had Brady not been stripped-sacked. (Team sports tend to defy cherry-picked analysis.)

"At the time it occurred, whatever reasoning was behind Butler's benching might have seemed justified." Perhaps to 3% of anyone watching.

".......Now with everyone enjoying the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it looks like a bad move regardless"

"Now"?? "With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight"?????

Where's the SB 52 thread?? That would put to rest any delusion someone may harbor now that many were ok at the moment with the decision.

(and it wasn't just the Butler decision that night - - Belichick inactivated Alan Branch who spent the game eating Panda Express at the Mall of America while the Eagles danced up the middle for 164 yards rushing on 27 attempts for a 6.1 avg - - hey at least he kept Ricky Jean Francois in there).

 

[Tunescribe]

".......Now with everyone enjoying the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it looks like a bad move regardless"

"Now"?? "With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight"?????

Where's the SB 52 thread??????????????

The context is current discussion via the documentary and this notion that Belichick intentionally blew the game.

 

[upstater1]

You seem to be suggesting, then, that not playing Butler perhaps was a tactical decision but not a good one. At least that's a step removed from the growing urban myth that BB intentionally blew the Super Bowl for vanity's sake to prove a point over something "personal."

At the time it occurred, whatever reasoning was behind Butler's benching might have seemed justified. Now with everyone enjoying the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it looks like a bad move regardless. Ironically, we likely wouldn't be pondering this mystery ad nauseam had Brady not been stripped-sacked. (Team sports tend to defy cherry-picked analysis.)

Obviously it's foggy. Butler might've been benched for conduct. The way we always saw players benched. Welker, Thomas, etc. Wouldn't be the first time. But it's certainly plausible that Rowe was elevated over him for play. We've also seen players sit while others with different attributes play over them. That's not something that hasn't been seen before, especially at WR.

The "personal" stuff coming from Kraft is absurd on its face. If by "personal" he means Butler was yelling or screaming at a coach, or taking a swing at a coach, then that's obviously not a personal matter. That' a football matter, for obvious reasons.

 

[shmessy]

The context is current discussion via the documentary and this notion that Belichick intentionally blew the game.

I don't think he intentionally blew the game. He may have had a psychological breakdown issue.

 

[shmessy]

Obviously it's foggy. Butler might've been benched for conduct. The way we always saw players benched. Welker, Thomas, etc. Wouldn't be the first time. But it's certainly plausible that Rowe was elevated over him for play. We've also seen players sit while others with different attributes play over them. That's not something that hasn't been seen before, especially at WR.

The "personal" stuff coming from Kraft is absurd on its face. If by "personal" he means Butler was yelling or screaming at a coach, or taking a swing at a coach, then that's obviously not a personal matter. That' a football matter, for obvious reasons.

Rowe was first informed he would be starting AFTER the national anthem and AFTER the pregame warmups that had him on the second unit and Butler on the first unit during the run-throughs.

"it's certainly plausible that Rowe was elevated over him for play......."

Ok, valid question - - what about Rowe's play in that first half, with Philly up 22-12 precluded Belichick from bringing in Butler for the second half? Even the ever diplomatic Matthew Slater uncomfortably during the doc sounds PLEADING in his saying 'Hey is there any way, coach, we could get Malcolm in here to stop the bleeding?" To paraphrase the famous quote to LBJ during Vietnam about Cronkite "When you've lost Slater...........

.

 

[skinnydog]

The Eagles scored 41 points and won.



If you mean for me to stop talking sense, sorry to disappoint you. I'm not saying he was a bad player, but people arguably are overrating his impact on the season and prospective impact on that game (more on this below).



No, you can't say definitively that Butler playing in that soft zone would have made a significant difference. I'm not trying to justify BB's decision to bench him, just that Butler was not the "force" people now assume he was via revisionist history.

COULD he have made a difference? Possibly. Was his absence an OBVIOUS reason for the loss? No way.

Consider: These Malcolm Butler stats might help explain his Super Bowl benching

From the article:

"The eye test told us that Butler was not the same cornerback in 2017 as he’d been across the two seasons prior — so these stats aren’t hard to believe. It’s just jarring to see how steeply he dropped off from the Patriots’ Super Bowl LI-winning season. Six touchdowns in coverage is a lot, and while he was still a relatively reliable starter, a player who’s in a contract year in his prime shouldn’t be experiencing that type of regression.

"Factor in his vocal unhappiness over the fact that he and the Patriots couldn’t settle on the contract he wanted prior to that season, and how well Stephon Gilmore played comparatively down the stretch, and it’s not hard to understand why Belichick might not have trusted him to get the job done against their toughest Super Bowl competition since the 2001 Rams."

There's more on this but I'm off to bed.

At the time, I thought Butler was overrated, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was on the field for 98% of the defensive snaps that year and was an integral part of the defense every game that year right up to the Super Bowl. Benching him for that game only made no sense. It was obvious then and more so after the documentary that the team was surprised and unprepared for the benching. The benching also resulted in multiple defensive backs switching positions positions just for that game. The secondary was awful that game. It was blindingly obvious midway through the first half. For a coach who preaches doing what’s best for the team, not changing course and playing him in the second half was even worse. And it’s not just fans second guessing the benching, the documentary makes it clear that the players on that team disagreed with the decision then and now.

 

[shmessy]

At the time, I thought Butler was overrated, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was on the field for 98% of the defensive snaps that year and was an integral part of the defense every game that year right up to the Super Bowl. Benching him for that game only made no sense. It was obvious then and more so after the documentary that the team was surprised and unprepared for the benching. The benching also resulted in multiple defensive backs switching positions positions just for that game. The secondary was awful that game. It was blindingly obvious midway through the first half. For a coach who preaches doing what’s best for the team, not changing course and playing him in the second half was even worse. And it’s not just fans second guessing the benching, the documentary makes it clear that the players on that team disagreed with the decision then and now.

Great point! I was going to go into that next. I always liked Rowe. Good guy, good utility part. As a third CB, he was actually an advantage.

But his moving to CB2 meant someone else had to now be CB3. I'm trying to figure out who that could have been.

(Post edit: Jordan Richards and Johnson Bademosi had a combined 27 snaps, but that may be for ST's - - not sure how it was counted. I heard they used Chung in the slot sometimes for spreads - - but Chung as a CB3 is nowhere near what Rowe could've been.)

Everyone focuses on the Rowe for Butler change, but few focus on what that meant down the roster for CB3.

.

 

[Tunescribe]

"At the time it occurred, whatever reasoning was behind Butler's benching might have seemed justified." Perhaps to 3% of anyone watching.

You added the bolded sentence above after my response. My reference was to who made the decision to bench him, not the fans watching. Of course everyone (including myself) was scratching their heads over why he wasn't playing.

I don't think he intentionally blew the game. He may have had a psychological breakdown issue.

Or maybe Linda told him to do it.

At the time, I thought Butler was overrated, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was on the field for 98% of the defensive snaps that year and was an integral part of the defense every game that year right up to the Super Bowl. Benching him for that game only made no sense. It was obvious then and more so after the documentary that the team was surprised and unprepared for the benching. The benching also resulted in multiple defensive backs switching positions positions just for that game. The secondary was awful that game. It was blindingly obvious midway through the first half. For a coach who preaches doing what’s best for the team, not changing course and playing him in the second half was even worse. And it’s not just fans second guessing the benching, the documentary makes it clear that the players on that team disagreed with the decision then and now.

The maddening thing is even the players have no specifics to offer about the benching and we have yet to hear BB's side of the story. The overriding sentiment is he made a bad decision. But I don't buy the conclusion by many they lost exclusively because of it.

 

[shmessy]

You added the bolded sentence above after my response. My reference was to who made the decision to bench him, not the fans watching. Of course everyone (including myself) was scratching their heads over why he wasn't playing.



Or maybe Linda told him to do it.



The maddening thing is even the players have no specifics to offer about the benching and we have yet to hear BB's side of the story. The overriding sentiment is he made a bad decision. But I don't buy the conclusion by many they lost exclusively because of it.

Fair enough. I disagree, but fair enough.

 

[signbabybrady]

In the meantime, Belichick 100% LIED on camera that it was mutually discussed before the interview that they would not be talking about the subject.


.

Bill didn't lie he wasn't referring to a mutually discussed anything he was referring to comments he made long ago. Presumably the one line he said about it in the post game or next day press conference. Every other time he's been asked he's said he already discussed it.