Rewatch Thread: NE @ Detroit

[QuantumMechanic]

And I think it speaks volumes about where Hightower is at that Bentley wearing the green dot even when Hightower is on the field.
Is that really true? Ouch.

 

[luuked]

And I think it speaks volumes about where Hightower is at that Bentley wearing the green dot even when Hightower is on the field.
Is that really true? Ouch.

I don't think this is particularly telling of anything.

 

[Kontradiction]

I don't think this is particularly telling of anything.

IMO, it might speak more positively about Bentley than it does negatively about Hightower.

 

[DaBruinz]

For those interested, Thornton's lengthy breakdown. It's Barstool so he throws in some humor, but also some good observations.

Barstool Sports

–How bad was this? Let us count the ways. …


–The offense started with three 3 & outs for the first time in the Belichick Epoch. Drew Bledsoe never did it. Matt Cassel didn’t do it. Neither did Jimmy Garoppolo or Jacoby Brissett. Brady barely cracked 100 passing yards. They held the ball for half the time Detroit had it. And yet the offense wasn’t the worst Patriots unit on the field. Let that sink in.


–That indistinction belongs to the Front-7, who got mauled by one of the weakest rushing attacks in football. Let that sink in.


–The defensive line is supposed to be a strength of this team, yet they got blown off the ball all night by the likes of Frank Ragnow, Graham Glasgow and TJ Lang. And the best player on that unit, who tried at least to play inspired tackle football, was Deatrich Wise, Jr. Let that sink in.


–At cornerback, the Patriots relied heavily on Jason McCourty, who was playing safety with the fifth-stringers in the 4th quarter of preseason games, and Cyrus Jones, who’s done nothing in his career and was released so they could save a roster spot for the immortal Kenjon Barner. Let that sink in.


–The passing offense took a huge hit when Phillip Dorsett went down. He didn’t catch a pass and yet he’s still a guy they can’t afford to lose. Let that sink in.


–They were this horrifically gawdawful against Matt Patricia’s team, who by all accounts had quit on their new coach before the season even began, were building toward an all out mutiny, gave up 48 points to the Jets in a game in which he had no answers for Sam frickin’ Darnold. Our Matt Patricia. Whose defense Nick Foles cut through like he was wielding a lHatori Hanzo blade. Let that sink in.


–That’s how bad this was. They lost their second game in a row by double digits, something they haven’t done since the Super Bowl hangover team of 2002, the worst Pats team since the Dynasty began. If this game was a movie, it’d be Pixels. If it was music, it’d be Yoko Ono. If it was a TV show it would be Walking Dead, but just the insufferable Carl-Enid teen romance subplot part. If it was sound, it would be two pieces of styrofoam being scraped together while a colicky baby cries. In fact, I’d rather experience all of those things together while Harvey Weinstein opens his bathroom and rubs one out in front of me before I’d ever watch this painful, infected, bleeding, open sore of a game again. Or even talk about it. But my bills won’t pay themselves, so here goes. Time to earn a living.


–The real pisser is, I didn’t see Patricia’s team do anything especially clever or out of the ordinary. Offensively they just physically dominated the Pats, mainly out of 11 personnel (1 tight end, 1 back) with a lot of pulls from the guards and wham blocks from the TEs. Defensively his schemes were about as exotic as a stay-at-home mom from Ann Arbor who drives a Ford Focus and hosts the book club. And yet the Padawan coached his old Jedi Master’s brains in. And, by comparison, made Brian Flores look like Young Anakin. I take that back. Nobody has ever deserved that insult. It was bad, but nothing could ever be that bad. My apologies.


–It looked like Patricia was able to use his understanding of the Patriots defensive communication to create confusion. He gave them presnap looks knowing what adjustments they’d make, then made adjustments off those adjustments. Which is why we saw so much gesturing and audiblizing and defenders still moving into position as the ball was snapped.


–That confusion made it easy for Matthew Stafford to grab any prize he wanted out of the Patriots Defensive Weakness Claw Machine. Shallow crossers in front of the linebackers? He got some of those. Defenders like Cyrus Jones and Jonathan Jones chasing receivers? He got a bunch of those. Theo Riddick undercuts Cyrus on a 3rd down option route to pick up the 1st? Yup. A misdirection to get Duron Harmon (the single high safety) to bite leaving the field wide open for Marvin Jones to run a deep slant on Stephon Gilmore? Oh, Stafford wasn’t going to leave that one behind, even if he needed another roll of quarters. Which he obviously didn’t.


–Even more concerning than the breakdowns in coverage – which we saw at this time last year and were corrected – is the way they were manhandled up front. Again, a defensive line group of big, space-eating 2-gappers like Malcom Brown and Danny Shelton, plus solid 3- and 5-tech tackles like Lawrence Guy and Adam Butler should never be pushed around like that. Especially not by a line that hasn’t produced a 100-yard rusher since Walter White was still alive. Even when the Pats dropped down extra defenders to give them a numbers advantage in the box, there were still holes wide enough to run a post-holidays-weight Pablo Sandoval through to the second level, untouched. If you can’t account for all eight gaps and are getting gashed at the point of attack against a typically bad rushing team, nothing else you do matters.


–Most concerning of all is Dont’a Hightower, who just can’t possibly be right. He moves slow, he’s hesitant and deliberate. When he was a rookie, it looked like the game was too fast for him, but he was just athletic enough and plenty physical enough to make up for it while he figured out how to play ILB at the pro level. Now he looks like none of those things. Lang wiped him off the map pulling from his right guard spot to convert a 1st down run. He’s playing mostly Sam linebacker – which is great, right where I prefer him – but he’s not setting an edge and outside runs are turning the corner around him. We better hope it’s just him still coming back from last year’s injury and not the permanent state of things because watching him every down it’s hard to believe he was the free agent everyone was furiously swiping right for just a year ago.


–Simply put, Brady had nobody open to throw to and no time to not throw it to them. Rob Gronkowski was doubled from the snap to the whistle. From the second he came off the line to the moment Ricky Jean Francois forced yet another throwaway. I bet every time Gronk rubbed himself with soap in the shower he elbowed Darius Slay and Quandre Diggs.


–The receiving corps that looked like it was going to be a bright spot, back in the Spring when we were all dreaming hopeful dreams of a bright future with Kenny Britt, Malcolm Mitchell and Jordan Matthews roaming free like wild horses has been reduced to watching a community theater production of a real receiving corps. It’s Chris Hogan trying to be a No. 1 when he’s at best a reasonable man’s 3. It’s Dorsett trying to get open deep while wearing the corner like a conjoined twin. Cordarelle Patterson rounding off all his cuts, the kind of sloppy route-running that would get him waived in minicamp if they had anywhere close to the depth they usually do.


–So what was supposed to be a nice balance of youth, experience, deep threats and slot weapons is just an endless loop of Brady checking down the back, then walking to the sidelines on 4thd down with the body language of, pick one:
1) A Beverly Hills socialite working a court-ordered highway litter detail
2) Lebron on the 2009-10 Cavaliers


–It makes me want to take one of those pictures where you shame your dog by making him wear a sign that says “I Ate the Pot Roast Off the Table” or whatever. Only I’ll be putting a “I Tested Positive for PEDs” sign on Julian Edelman.


–I suppose this is where I need to look for positives. But it’s not like there are a ton of diamonds to be found in the dogshit here. Sony Michel flashes. Though he seems slow on his decision-making and hole-hitting, resulting in too many negative plays. He’s not at the level of Slo-Mo Lawrence Maroney, and it’s just been two games so I’m not going to harp on him. But we should be looking for him to be more decisive as he gets some mileage on his odometer.


–And Ja’Whuan Bentley continues to be something to feel good about. If they accomplished nothing else in the draft, they pulled a magic trick in the 5th round with him. Considered a pass coverage liability at Purdue, he nevertheless slid over to Luke Wilson at the snap and stayed with him a good 20 yards upfield, undercut the route and came down with the interception that put the Patriots almost close to being back in the game practically. He had issues in the running game. At the start of the 4th quarter he got trucked by Taylor Decker, leaving a hole LeGarrette Blount tore through for 19. But he was still probably their best defender. And I think it speaks volumes about where Hightower is at that Bentley wearing the green dot even when Hightower is on the field.

While I appreciate you posting this, you're going to get Ian in trouble. Only supposed give a small amount and then the link..

 

[DaBruinz]

I don't think this is particularly telling of anything.

How is it not telling that the Rookie has the dot over the guy who has been the leader on this defense in terms of lining up the front 7 when he's been healthy?

 

[Boomer B]

While I appreciate you posting this, you're going to get Ian in trouble. Only supposed give a small amount and then the link..

Thanks for the heads up

 

[luuked]

How is it not telling that the Rookie has the dot over the guy who has been the leader on this defense in terms of lining up the front 7 when he's been healthy?

Because the dot has been going around for years. KVN had it for some time in 2016 even when HT was playing, Roberts had it last year even before HT got knocked out.

I think you want the player who is mostly in the middle to have it. And if they plan to play certain other players inside and outside it doesn’t make sense to give them the comm dot as much.

The thing is that the comm helmet gets overrated by fans. This is just the playcall(s) coming in. Corrections on the field come from everyone. It is not like only the guy with the dot is allowed to speak.

 

[PP2]

While I appreciate you posting this, you're going to get Ian in trouble. Only supposed give a small amount and then the link..

I'm actually happy that @Boomer B did what he did, which is to quote just the football stuff. For as talented a writer and football-insightful as Thorton is, his forays into politics is annoying, and his "teacher sex scandal of the week"(or whatever that is) is downright disgusting.

 

[DaBruinz]

I'm actually happy that @Boomer B did what he did, which is to quote just the football stuff. For as talented a writer and football-insightful as Thorton is, his forays into politics is annoying, and his "teacher sex scandal of the week"(or whatever that is) is downright disgusting.

You may appreciate it, but it's against the board rules.

 

[pencilneckgeek]

I’m trying to watch Shelton but my eyes keep coming back to 54 attempting to chase the rb.

How he didn't read run on a toss sweep with an unobstructed view of the backfield is beyond me. Even after that, he should have been sprinting to his position to set the edge, but he just drifted there before getting outrun by a faster player. He is reacting slow mentally, which coupled with the fact that his injury was to his upper body, allows me to cling to the illusion that HT will turn it around. Hopefully, his shame will be motiviating.

Still stuck in that one-gapping mindset. You can see he's already committed to one side before the play comes to him. He's not squaring up/extending to give himself the option of shedding to both sides or allowing the backers to make the play.

This, or at least 1-gapping technique. Shelton is getting turned way too easily. He needs to hit with both hands and hold his ground, but he's often hitting with one hand and getting knocked off-balance and walked away from the play. He was sometimes drifting into the wrong gap with the blocker's hands on the back of his shoulder. It was just ugly.

Because the dot has been going around for years. KVN had it for some time in 2016 even when HT was playing, Roberts had it last year even before HT got knocked out.

I think you want the player who is mostly in the middle to have it. And if they plan to play certain other players inside and outside it doesn’t make sense to give them the comm dot as much.

The thing is that the comm helmet gets overrated by fans. This is just the playcall(s) coming in. Corrections on the field come from everyone. It is not like only the guy with the dot is allowed to speak.

Yes, the guy in the middle is the one who is best suited to having it if the coaches are going to provide input against hurry-up offenses. You also want somebody who is going to play three downs to wear it. The only thing that is revealed by the green dot on Bentley's helmet is that we lost a promising young player to IR this week.

 

[State]

Numbers show Shelton is the biggest culprit on the dline. Non existent pressure up the middle as well as failing at the main thing we brought him in as, a run stuffer.

Lions rookie LG Frank Ragnow dominated Malcom Brown.

 

[iapatsfan]

This is the play I was talking abt, @reamer.

Can somebody please tell me what Devin McCourty is reading on this play? The play is designed to go around the edge from the beginning. Where is he going?

 

[iapatsfan]

Believe me you are not the only person to be frustrated by Roberts. He flashes, he whiffs, he flashes, he whiffs..

At least he "flashes", as infrequently as that may be. Still waiting for our $20 million tandem of Hightower and McCourty to "flash" once.

 

[State]

Can somebody please tell me what Devin McCourty is reading on this play? The play is designed to go around the edge from the beginning. Where is he going?

He got sucked inside like a Pop Warner player. Very lackadaisical approach.

 

[iapatsfan]

He got sucked inside like a Pop Warner player. Very lackadaisical approach.

What sucked him inside? The entire line shows where the ball is going. If he makes an obvious read, he should be able to beat the back to the edge, take out a pulling OL or something. Instead he does what he's done for the last two years...make himself completely irrelevant. Watch that video and play out what happens if McCourty makes the obvious read and gets around the edge into the backfield. He had to actually travel further to get inside. It is almost like he is intentionally moving in the wrong direction.

 

[iapatsfan]

Actually a nice play by Davis here as well.

 

[BaconGrundleCandy]

Actually a nice play by Davis here as well.

Eh it was ok. He got some help from Shelton getting bodied. Kinda got his man off balance a bit but not bad considering what we've seen.

 

[BaconGrundleCandy]

Rivers absolutely needs more snaps. He played 13 I believe. A few stunts, power rushes but nothing that gave him a chance to make an impact.
The guys in front of him, AC/Davis have been bad. Esp in the run game.
Let Rivers work off the edge opposite Flowers/Wise for 25-35 snaps. There's no reason not to. He wasn't a bad run defender in college, hasn't shown to be a liability in what little we've seen & the players in front of him haven't been good.

Ive heard a lot say talent isn't the problem. You're either fooling yourself or just don't understand what you're talking about.

It's a problem. Coaching & chemistry can help but denying it is useless.

We're playing the same way, using the same "schemes" we've always run. We went w a diamond front last week. We've run this vs other teams w good 11 personnel before (KC comes to mind)


The only thing I can get Josh about is Sony > White last game. I understand why, possibly to get Sony involved more since his absence but White is a killa in the pass game.
We saw it in the wheel route for a TD. Remember the wheel route is undefeated. He might be the best rec option besides Gronk. I'm not abandoning Sony at all but living/dying w White rn.

It's absolutely insane to be blaming him for "creativity" or w/e. The guy is great at adapting to what he's been given to work w but this is something else.

The offense has no quick options in the passing game, maybe White & that should tell you all you need to know.

The OL hasn't been great but I think there's hope. This offense is a mess & not doing the unit any favors. Chemistry issues there. Individuals have to play better but I'm more than hopeful w this group.


Moving HT to edge won't help from what I saw. There's just too many negatives w/e he is. That said we need him more than even inside which is scary.

 

[iapatsfan]

Eh it was ok. He got some help from Shelton getting bodied. Kinda got his man off balance a bit but not bad considering what we've seen.

Compare it to McCourty's effort on the play I previously mentioned, and he looks like an All Pro. At least he is moving in the direction of the ball carrier.

 

[primetime]

I think they have to see what they've got with Rivers. He can't be worse than Davis, that's for sure.