The Pats NEED to make a decision about the identity of this team. I thought that they had done so by bringing Cam in. That they were going to be a run first team that relied on Cam's legs and not his throwing.
They seemed to have the O-line in place to be that Run-First team. Especially with Onwenu's ability to play extremely well at LG or RT. I felt that the Best O-line to put out for running would be Wynn, Onwenu, Thuney, Mason, Herron/Eleumenor. Injuries have now derailed that with Thuney, Herron and Eleumenor ALL being injured. No. I'm not saying that Andrews is a BAD center. He's a very good pass-blocking center and an above average run-blocking center. Thuney is just BETTER than him.. Even the O-line of Wynn, Thuney, Andrews, Mason, Herron was run-blocking very good.
Adding to the "Run first" idea, they have an excellent stable of RBs in Michel, Harris, Taylor, Burkhead, and White. This would allow them to routinely run the ball MORE and still have Play-Action options in all of the RBs, even though they've not been used like that. This would actually open up the offense and make it harder for defenses to T off on the run.
With the idea that the team was being "Run First" this puts an emphasis on your WR being good run blockers. Harry was surpassing expectations there, imho. He was also making contested catches. People were b***hing about his Yards per catch, but were ignoring that he wasn't being asked to run intermediate routes. Byrd has shown to be decent, but they aren't using him correctly, imho. HE, not Harry, Edelman or Zuber, should be the one getting the Jet sweeps or WR Screens. Not doing so, to me, is a lack of proper utilization of that 4.,25-4.3 speed.
However, since the start of the season, the Patriots BASE offense seems to be either the 3WR/1TE/1RB or 2WR/2RB/1TE. Not the 1WR/2TE/2RB or 2WR/2TE/1RB. The base scheme says "pass first". Which makes no sense. It doesn't play into their strengths of running the ball. It doesn't help the young TEs get reps during practice. It doesn't help their young QB in Stidham develop with the team.
Prior to the last game, I'd been a proponent that no player, including QB, could be responsible for a team loss. Cam proved me wrong. He single-handedly ended every 1st half drive. He was late on his reads. Being late caused him to miss players who were open. It caused him to miss badly on the throws he did make. He led receivers into bad hits such as the one that knocked Harry out of the game. Even his attempt to throw the ball away by throwing it into the ground was done so poorly that it resulted in an interception. Certain people on here will claim that the receivers weren't getting open. That's false. They were but Cam was missing them because of his slow reads. Even on the run plays, Cam was slow. He was slow to get the ball into the hands of the RBs. He was slow on plays where he decided to run the ball. I said it during the game day thread. Cam made me wish we has Mark Sanchez as our QB.
The tools are in place for this team to be a Run First team. That needs to be the focus. That also means having someone other than Cam leading on the field, imho. That's the first thing that needs to change. BB needs to rip the band-aid off just like he did with Steve Martin back in 2002. By becoming that "Run First" team, this will immediately help the defense because they shouldn't be on the field for 22 of the first 30 minutes of a game. And that will have a snowball effect of making the entire team better.
