The Middle Eight

Very interesting article:

The Middle Eight

 

I think we've all been aware of BBs feeling for the last drive of the first half and first of the second for a long time.

But that was still interesting and I love they game they chose as an example.

 

In making his point what the author leaves out in terms of the game and sequence he chose was Andy Reid helping things along by leaving two unused timeouts on the table. Properly applied Reid could have used those timeouts to give his offense the ball back with a minute and a half left rather than 27 seconds. Rather than saying this to diminish the overall point of the concept I only bring it up to illustrate one should never discount Belichick's ability to read his opponent. Reid is not only notoriously poor at clock management but has a tendency to eschew using his timeouts on D. It's not hard to imagine BB is probably a heck of a poker player.

 

Many coaches are now deferring when they win the toss to try and take away Belichick's last drive first drive concept....only to see it backfire when Brady marches down the field and immediately scores.

 

Great read.

I recall Belichick being the master of the middle eight sometime around 2011 - 2012. It seemed during those years that the scores would always be something like 13 - 10 approaching halftime, then you'd take a pee break, come back, and they'd be up 23-10.

In recent years that halftime domination seems to have actually slowed .