Scattered thoughts

[mgteich]

I think two lessons of this game is that the offense is great as long as Brady is healthy and the line has Neal and Light healthy. The key to ball distribution is the availaility of the tight ends, who indeed are our #3 and #4 receivers if they are not needed to as linemen.

THOUGHT FOR 2010
Mankins, Neal, Watson and Faulk are important to this offense.

With a nod to Patfanken's "Idle Thoughts" thread, some observations coming off of the big win against Jacksonville.

1. I thought this was by far the most balanced offensive attack we have had all year. 197 yards rushing with Brady 23/26 for 267 yards (and 4 TDs/0 INTs) is just about as perfect as you can get. I'd much rather have that kind of balance than a 400 yard passing performance from Brady.

2. I thought it was Brady's best ball distribution since the Indy game. He's much more effective when he spreads the ball around.

3. I thought Maroney was clearly in the end zone when he fumbled, and it should have been a TD. But I'm glad BB benched him - it sends a clear message to the team about not tolerating screw ups in the red zone, and the team responded.

4. I thought the catch of the day was Chris Baker's TD reception. Baker was deadly in the red zone for us in preseason, and we haven't take advantage of that all year.

5. Light-Mankins-Koppen-Neal-Vollmer is one heck of an OL. 0 sacks and 197 yards rushing. Brady had lots of time to find the open receiver. The Pats are a legitimate SB contender with that kind of offensive line performance.

6. Best performance of the year from Jerod Mayo. He's finally looking back to form.

7. In the 10 years under BB, the Pats have only once had a pass rusher with more than 10 sacks in a season - 12.5 by Mike Vrabel in 2007, when the Pats were often up big and could let loose the pass rush. Tully Banta-Cain has 9.5 sacks with a game to go. Who would ever have believed it when we picked up Banta-Cain in free agency last year?

8. The secondary seems to have finally recovered from it's post-Indy funk. The addition of James Sanders has been huge. I can't figure out what happened to McGowan, who was arguably out best defender through 10 games, but Sanders and Springs have done a lot to stabilize the secondary. Meriweather looks like he is back on his early season form, after going through a bad stretch for several games.

9. Best drive of the game resulted in 0 points - the 12:12 74 yard drive in the 4th quarter. 20 plays (almost 1/3 of the 62 plays on offense for the Pats), 17 of them runs. Only 1 play went for more than 10 yards. 2 successful 4th down conversions. The Pats run 13 consecutive running plays. We haven't had a drive like that all season. At that point in the game, points were meaningless. But to be able to sustain that kind of drive will be huge for the Pats in the playoffs. It reminded me of the good old days with Corey Dillon in 2004.

It took 15 games to finally see a Pats team play for a full 60 minutes, and what a difference it made. Can we sustain it, against better teams? That's the big question right now.

 

[The Dynasty]

I think in practice they should practice doubling moss and welker and forcing the offense and brady to come up with third and fourth receivers. He's looking at his favorites too much. Throw to the TEs. Maybe they were taking my advice last game by throwing to the TEs, can't be sure.

The reason why the TEs havent been that involved in the offense is because they have been asked to stay in and block instead of running a route. The injuries to the OL definitely had a lot to with this. Last week was different for two reasons, one being we had a healthy OL minus Kaczur and then because of Jacksonville's weak pass rush. I agree that it would be nice to get the TE's more catches like we did last week, but protecting Brady is more important.

 

[DeSi_PatzGal]

Hi...i wanna know that is it possible that jets don't make it(i hate to see em in playoffs) and pats win and still get #4seed?

 

[mgteich]

If cinci makes a serious mistake and beats the jets, the jets will be out.

If the patriots then lose to Houston, the pats would be the #4 seed.

Hi...i wanna know that is it possible that jets don't make it(i hate to see em in playoffs) and pats win and still get #4seed?

 

[mayoclinic]

I think two lessons of this game is that the offense is great as long as Brady is healthy and the line has Neal and Light healthy. The key to ball distribution is the availaility of the tight ends, who indeed are our #3 and #4 receivers if they are not needed to as linemen.

THOUGHT FOR 2010
Mankins, Neal, Watson and Faulk are important to this offense.

I don't think there's any doubt that a healthy Neal is a very good offensive guard, and a great asset to the team. The problem is, that has not been something we've been able to depend on the past 2 years, and we haven't been able to effectively compensate for Neal's absence, going back to the Super Bowl loss to the Giants 2 years ago.

The FO will decide how much they value Neal for 2010 and beyond, given his obvious playing skills but also given his age and injury pattern. Either way, we need to develop an effective alternative for when he moves on, or when he's out.

 

[mayoclinic]

One other thought - I think it was one of our best tackling games by far. I thought that could be a big issue with MJD, but the defense did a great job of wrapping him up and preventing the big gains. Tedy Bruschi mentioned in one of his pre-game analyses that the key to tackling Drew was to go high rather than low and get your arms around him until help arrives, because he is so strong that he breaks lower body tackles, and I saw the Pats do exactly that several times.

 

[Tucker]

One other thought - I think it was one of our best tackling games by far. I thought that could be a big issue with MJD, but the defense did a great job of wrapping him up and preventing the big gains. Tedy Bruschi mentioned in one of his pre-game analyses that the key to tackling Drew was to go high rather than low and get your arms around him until help arrives, because he is so strong that he breaks lower body tackles, and I saw the Pats do exactly that several times.

With exception to that one run by MJD where he had about 15 players on his back. LOL. But I agree great job tackling last weekend. I jumped off my couch when Seau blew up MJD on that play action. Reminded me of SB36 when we were teeing off on Marshall Faulk

 

[mgteich]

I certainly hope Belichick agrees that the answer is more than extending Neal and counting on Connolly, Wendell and Ohrnberger as backups and potential starters. I wanted a top OG in the 2009 draft. The need is that much greater in 2010.

I don't think there's any doubt that a healthy Neal is a very good offensive guard, and a great asset to the team. The problem is, that has not been something we've been able to depend on the past 2 years, and we haven't been able to effectively compensate for Neal's absence, going back to the Super Bowl loss to the Giants 2 years ago.

The FO will decide how much they value Neal for 2010 and beyond, given his obvious playing skills but also given his age and injury pattern. Either way, we need to develop an effective alternative for when he moves on, or when he's out.

 

[WhoaDirty]

No sacks in three games is awesome, but perhaps not the whole story. Anyone know what the hurries and hits count were in the last three games, and how that has compared to the rest of the season?

 

[mayoclinic]

No sacks in three games is awesome, but perhaps not the whole story. Anyone know what the hurries and hits count were in the last three games, and how that has compared to the rest of the season?

I don't know about hurries, but ESPN records QB hits in its box scores. According to ESPN, Jacksonville had 0 QB hits (vs. 6 QB hits by the Pats, including 2 sacks). Buffalo had 0 sacks but 5 QB hits, and Carolina had 2 QB hits and 0 sacks. Miami had 0 sacks and 2 QB hits. So Brady's been hit a total of 9 times in the past 4 weeks, during which time he has not been sacked.

Going back before that, Brady was hit 7 times alone in the New Orleans game and sacked twice - almost as much as in the 4 weeks since. The Jets hit him 4 times and sacked him twice. The Colts hit him 5 times and sacked him twice. And Miami hit Brady 6 times in the first game and sacked him twice. So in those 4 games Brady was hit 22 times and sacked 8 times.

Big difference.

In the first 7 games of the season Brady was hit 26 times and sacked 8 times.

The conclusions I draw from this is that Brady's protection was generally decent in the first part of the season but not great (he got hit 6 times against the Bills and 7 by the Jets to open the season, but then the protection got better). It then broke down with injuries to the OL, resulting in Brady getting hit and pressured much more frequently, particularly in the New Orleans game. Since then, with a healthier OL and with Light and Vollmer at the OT positions, Brady has been relatively untouched.

 

[slash83]

With the way the o line has played as of late no way Kaczur replaces Vollmer. I said the same about Light and was wrong cause he got his job back , but I dont think Kaczur was playing good at all so its Vollmer the rest of the way.

 

[mgteich]

I expect Vollmer to be our starting RT at least through the 2010 season.