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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....you can't show me anything that says SD has demonstrated a proclivity for playing well against good competition on the road.
Those stats include how the Bolts played at home and against non-playoff-caliber competition...none of which applies for this weekend's game.
They got crushed at NE, fell apart in the 4th quarter at GB, squeaked by in OT at TEN and nipped an inexplicably uninspired team at IND. You can add getting wasted at MIN if you want.
The Pats beat SD, PIT and JAX at home all by 10+ points. Squeaking by PHI at home is the only blip on the schedule. Their other big wins (DAL, IND, NYG) were on the road.
Past performances don't guarantee future results, but you can't show me anything that says SD has demonstrated a proclivity for playing well against good competition on the road. Plays hard and scraps? Sure. Hangs in the game? Usually. Gets big plays? Sometimes. Plays at a high level? Don't see it.
Take away the Philly game (it would take a separate thread to explain why the Philly game is not representative) and the Pats have shown an ability to beat all challengers comfortably...meaning even a late fluke play for a score wouldn't have changed the outcome.
So if form holds, the Bolts will stay in the game into the 3rd quarter, using a big play or turnover to keep them close. The Pats will start to pull away late in the 3rd and into the 4th quarter and win by 10-17 points. The key for SD is to do something different to make sure that the game doesn't follow form...and do it in a way that doesn't explode in their face and turn it into a blowout.
Without yet opening the link let me guess...
1.) pressure Brady
2.) rough up the Pats receivers off the line/don't let the get off clean
3.) establish the ground game/kill the clock
4.) win the turnover battle
Gee, now that would be new stuff. We keep seeing the same freakin' blueprint every week, just on a different team's letterhead but with the same end result. Now I'm off to read the link.
Actually, it only recommended #4 as the surest road to victory.
How about this last sunday, knocking off the defending SB champs on the road in one of the loudest stadiums, without our starting QB and RB? They were not good competition on the road?
I see you are still predicting a blow-out.
For what it is worth, unlike the vast majority of experts and fans across the land last week, Cold Hard Football Facts predicted a very close game (20-17 Indy) and that margin assumed that Gates would not play.
These Cold Hard Football Facts are about to become.......as Manning said at the end of the game Sunday....The Cold Hard Truth!
I'm pretty sure that CHFF's big play index also includes defensive and special teams big plays. The Chargers as we know are proficient at causing turnovers, so thats going to inflate the big play stat.
The other thing to consider is that CHFF pretty much kills their own argument by revealing that the Pats have given up the fewest big plays in the NFL. So that kind of negates that doesn't it.
OK . . . so all the team that's #1 in Big Play differential has to do is force the team that's #2 in Big Play differential (and top 10 overall in Big Plays made) to allow Big Plays--but, oh yeah, they're the best team in the league at preventing Big Plays. Heck, the Pats spotted them two turnovers in Week 2, and left points on the board, and it was still a blowout.
As someone put it, basically the "blueprint" for beating the Pats is "Do something you're not used to doing, and do it extremely well. Oh, yeah, and do it while the Patriots take away the thing you most want to do."
As I said... they served up some pretty weak sauce for a CHFF article.
They should have just come out and admit that there is no blueprint for beating the Patriots.
This "blueprint" word has become so cliched that it is being used without any regard to its actual meaning.