Week 5 Post Game Thread- Pats beat the Colts

[1960Pats]

Gordon watched footage of Moss against miami. Sweet.

That's the greatest catch I've ever seen. Moss caught the ball one handed in the crook of his elbow with his back to the ball while holding off two defenders. Incredible!

 

[bbobbo]

No, when you see the all-22. You will see. I saw it on NYJFL* Network when they showed Gordon's 2 catches in all-22. The only thing I can think of is that Brady is afraid of Hooker's range? It looks like he's looking that way but there's no way Hooker gets there in time.

Or watch the broadcast version, and wait until the clots get the ball back and they'll show the QB view replay. You can see Hogan is wide open.

yup, hogan is wide open and it seems like brady stares in his direction for a long time. maybe he's losing a bit of trust in him:


still frame. nobody in that entire quarter of the field, and brady seems to be staring right at him:

 

[1960Pats]

Gordon mentioned that he locked eyes with Brady for a fraction of a second and felt like the pass was meant for him. If this was for Hogan then it might have been Brady's worst throw in years.

I'll have to have another look at the play, maybe in your re-watch thread, but I thought that Brady motioned Hogan over to the right and he was all alone behind everyone.

No matter who it was meant for it was well under thrown.

 

[Hyped]

I don't think D. McCourty has "lost" anything.

It seems to be a technique issue. He is almost always running along with the receiver or getting to the ball as soon as possible, but he isn't blowing up plays with regularity.

Some in this thread have pointed out that he is playing a different position (Harmon/#21 was the FS all night)….so makes sense to me. Still, I'd like to see more from McCourty and Hightower...they are arguably two of our 3 best defenders (Gilmore being the other).

 

[maineman209]

Was DMC moved from corner to safety because of his versatility, or because he was terrible at corner?

Jeez! THIS again?

When DMac was drafted in 2010, the Pats were still playing primarily zone-read coverage schemes. DMac put up DROY-worthy stats 7 INT, 17 PD, 2 FF, 1 SK, 73 tackles.

In 2011, the Pats began transitioning to more man/press-man coverages, something that DMac had never done. He struggled with it, but improved over the curse of the season and ended up with 2 INT, 12 PD and 90 tackles.

In 2012, none of the Pats' safeties - Chung, Wilson, Gregory - could play deep safety worth sh it. Deep coverage safety still referred to as "free safety"/FS) requires a solid zone-read skill set, as well as great range. So, they began transitioning DMac to deep safety (where he excelled), and acquired Talib as an experienced man-coverage corner.

At some point in the 2016 season (and maybe even earlier), the Pats began integrating some of the zone/pattern-matching coverage principles that BB and Saban had developed together in Cleveland and that Saban had implemented at 'Bama. Zone/matching schemes require that safeties (FS, SS) to be interchangeable, and often require one or both safeties to function essentially as slot corners. They're basically a zone that morphs to man-coverage for some of the DBs after the snap (and that's a drastic oversimplification).

That worked very well for them in 2016, and especially in the 2nd half of the SB.

In 2017, partly due to the lack of competent (healthy) DL and LB bodies, the Pats coverage schemes were almost entirely zone/matching out of the 3-safety nickel ("Big Nickel") and 4-safety dime (unfortunately relying on Richards as the 4th safety). So, DMac has been playing "out of position" quite a bit.

This has all been discussed at length on this forum for at least a few years, and while I'm sure that there are other posters who know their football much better than I do who will take issue with some of the details in my synopsis, it's been pretty obvious to many forum members for a long time that the whole "McCourty was moved to safety because he sucked at corner" was a superficial analysis from the get-go and has now become a really tired cliche.

 

[luuked]

Jeez! THIS again?

When DMac was drafted in 2010, the Pats were still playing primarily zone-read coverage schemes. DMac put up DROY-worthy stats 7 INT, 17 PD, 2 FF, 1 SK, 73 tackles.

In 2011, the Pats began transitioning to more man/press-man coverages, something that DMac had never done. He struggled with it, but improved over the curse of the season and ended up with 2 INT, 12 PD and 90 tackles.

In 2012, none of the Pats' safeties - Chung, Wilson, Gregory - could play deep safety worth sh it. Deep coverage safety still referred to as "free safety"/FS) requires a solid zone-read skill set, as well as great range. So, they began transitioning DMac to deep safety (where he excelled), and acquired Talib as an experienced man-coverage corner.

At some point in the 2016 season (and maybe even earlier), the Pats began integrating some of the zone/pattern-matching coverage principles that BB and Saban had developed together in Cleveland and that Saban had implemented at 'Bama. Zone/matching schemes require that safeties (FS, SS) to be interchangeable, and often require one or both safeties to function essentially as slot corners. They're basically a zone that morphs to man-coverage for some of the DBs after the snap (and that's a drastic oversimplification).

That worked very well for them in 2016, and especially in the 2nd half of the SB.

In 2017, partly due to the lack of competent (healthy) DL and LB bodies, the Pats coverage schemes were almost entirely zone/matching out of the 3-safety nickel ("Big Nickel") and 4-safety dime (unfortunately relying on Richards as the 4th safety). So, DMac has been playing "out of position" quite a bit.

This has all been discussed at length on this forum for at least a few years, and while I'm sure that there are other posters who know their football much better than I do who will take issue with some of the details in my synopsis, it's been pretty obvious to many forum members for a long time that the whole "McCourty was moved to safety because he sucked at corner" was a superficial analysis from the get-go and has now become a really tired cliche.

At this point I am honestly wondering if you keep that text saved in some text file to just paste it whenever the topic comes up

 

[Uptown]

Chung was AWESOME yesterday!

Patrick Chung's ridiculous stat line is exemplary of his often-overlooked impact on Patriots

“Chung finished the game with 11 tackles, one interception, .5 sacks, .5 tackles for loss, one pass deflection and one quarterback hit.”

 

[1960Pats]

The Pats did win right? Seeing some of these posts I'm starting to wonder if I dreamed that they won.

Btw, when I re-watch the game I'm going to count how many times the booth brothers mentioned that the Indiots had injuries. It had to be in the 50-100 range.

 

[maineman209]

Didn't see Roberts out there much.

Roberts was out there for 49% of the D-snaps. The fact that he didn't stick out like a sore thumb all the time might be evidence that his play actually HAS improved.

 

[Hyped]

Roberts was out there for 49% of the D-snaps. The fact that he didn't stick out like a sore thumb all the time might be evidence that his play actually HAS improved.

I saw #52 getting tossed by an OL-man....but that was it. Will check out the rewatch thread.

 

[luuked]

yup, hogan is wide open and it seems like brady stares in his direction for a long time. maybe he's losing a bit of trust in him:


still frame. nobody in that entire quarter of the field, and brady seems to be staring right at him:

Yeah ideally Brady should have hit Hogan for a big gain instead of dancing around. But then again we are looking at this from a better POV and with the help of slow motion. **** happens.

 

[bbobbo]

No, when you see the all-22. You will see. I saw it on NYJFL* Network when they showed Gordon's 2 catches in all-22. The only thing I can think of is that Brady is afraid of Hooker's range? It looks like he's looking that way but there's no way Hooker gets there in time.

Or watch the broadcast version, and wait until the clots get the ball back and they'll show the QB view replay. You can see Hogan is wide open.

the only thing i can think of is that hogan keeps running a post route, toward coverage. maybe brady was waiting to see if he would break off his route towards the corner, away from coverage.
.

 

[Kontradiction]

yup, hogan is wide open and it seems like brady stares in his direction for a long time. maybe he's losing a bit of trust in him:


still frame. nobody in that entire quarter of the field, and brady seems to be staring right at him:

For whatever reason, the GIF isn't playing for me. What is the safety doing? Always possible that Brady thought he may have been able to break on the ball... especially if he had to put some air under it.

 

[luuked]

For whatever reason, the GIF isn't playing for me. What is the safety doing? Always possible that Brady thought he may have been able to break on the ball... especially if he had to put some air under it.

The safety was not trigger happy and only started to move when it looked like Brady was setting up for a throw. I think he would have been able to fit it in without much risk but I guess Brady disagreed.

 

[Wheelman]

For whatever reason, the GIF isn't playing for me. What is the safety doing? Always possible that Brady thought he may have been able to break on the ball... especially if he had to put some air under it.

He watches Brady's eyes and starts running towards Hogan. But by the time he starts running to Hogan it's too late in my opinion. bbobbo could be right about Hogan's route. Or Hogan is getting too close to the endzone.

It won't play for me either unless you open it in a new window. If you want to play it on here, right click and click play.

 

[Kontradiction]

The safety was not trigger happy and only started to move when it looked like Brady was setting up for a throw. I think he would have been able to fit it in without much risk but I guess Brady disagreed.

Thanks. That said, that's part of what has made Brady Brady. He's always been risk averse. If there was even a 2% chance the safety could break on it, he wouldn't throw it.

 

[maineman209]

I don't think D. McCourty has "lost" anything.

It seems to be a technique issue. He is almost always running along with the receiver or getting to the ball as soon as possible, but he isn't blowing up plays with regularity.

Some in this thread have pointed out that he is playing a different position (Harmon/#21 was the FS all night)….so makes sense to me. Still, I'd like to see more from McCourty and Hightower...they are arguably two of our 3 best defenders (Gilmore being the other).

I comfortable saying that DMac has, over time, lost a bit of the elite speed and CoD that he had as a rookie (9 years ago, now). But I don't think there's been any sudden, recent dropoff.

After reviewing some of last night's plays from different angles, I've come around to the POV that scheme and positioning had a lot more to do with the catches that DMac allowed than anything physical. It seems to me that the pattern-matching scheme really shouldn't leave a defender on an island as often as DMac was, so there may have been some miscommunication involved, maybe a bad read by someone else. And maybe Luck is just really good, too.

 

[maineman209]

I saw #52 getting tossed by an OL-man....but that was it. Will check out the rewatch thread.

He allowed 4 of 4 in coverage, but only for 37 yards. He appeared to be at least limiting YAC, even if he wasn't preventing the catch.

 

[bbobbo]

Thanks. That said, that's part of what has made Brady Brady. He's always been risk averse. If there was even a 2% chance the safety could break on it, he wouldn't throw it.

and then he throws it into double coverage.
.

 

[maineman209]

At this point I am honestly wondering if you keep that text saved in some text file to just paste it whenever the topic comes up

No need. I've had to repeat it so many times for the ... you know ... that I have it memorized.