What's with the sudden panic over the offense?

[mgteich]

What you are saying is that talent at receiver simply doesn't matter. The situation at receiver is about much more than losing Hernandez (after all, Ballard should be a reasonable replacement).

I understand these games were without Welker. But they scored more points in games without Hernandez than they did with him. That's the point. With pretty much everything else the same, they put up more points without AH. That tells me that whatever the offense was going to look like with him this year, it'll be roughly the same without him, production-wise.

 

[Deus Irae]

It's not about "defending the team,"

Of course it is

but more about a reminder that the difference will be net, not gross. Brady's still going to throw those passes - it's just a matter of completion % and YPC and touchdowns. What's the NET loss going to be?

That was a completely meaningless throw in. Brady will almost certainly not be able to throw passes this year that would have been thrown last year, because of who'll be on the receiving end. And, again, you're talking about net loss v. gross loss as if you've got a clue as to what it will be.

There will probably be some fall-off, particularly early,

Then you've got no point.

but I stand by my assertion that there's a lot more potential depth this year than last. The dropoff after Welker and Lloyd was...the Abyss.

This is simply incorrect. The dropoff after Welker and Lloyd last year was to Edelman. The dopoff after, say Jenkins and Amendola would be to ..... Edelman.

Jenkins, Jones, Hawkins and the two rookies are all more talented and physically gifted than anything the Pats had at WR3, 4 and 5.

That is simply not correct.

 

[ivanvamp]

What you are saying is that talent at receiver simply doesn't matter. The situation at receiver is about much more than losing Hernandez (after all, Ballard should be a reasonable replacement).

Work with me here, mgteich. In this post of mine here (http://www.patsfans.com/new-england...en-panic-over-offense-page10.html#post3478128), I pointed out that without Hernandez last year, the Pats actually were fare more productive.

Now, in those games, pretty much everything else was the same. What I mean is that the Pats' offense last year with Hernandez had all those guys, and without him they had all those guys. The missing piece was Hernandez. And without him they scored *MORE* points than they did with him. By a lot.

Now THIS year, they don't have all those guys. But I'm not comparing this year to last year on the whole. What I'm saying is that, whatever else the Patriots have on offense, they'll probably put up comparable points without him as they would have with him. It's a comparison between the 2013 Patriots without him vs. the 2013 Patriots with him. It's *NOT* a comparison between the 2013 Patriots and the 2012 Patriots.

Make sense?

The reason I think it's not crazy to suspect that the 2013 Patriots without AH would put up similar numbers to the 2013 Patriots *with* AH is because in the past, they've been able to continue to put up points with or without him. He doesn't seem to be the key factor in them scoring a lot of points, is I guess what the numbers would suggest.

I think there will be a drop off from the 2012 Patriots to the 2013 Patriots in terms of scoring. But I don't think the big reason for that will be the loss of Hernandez.

 

[mgteich]

I misunderstood you point. My bad.

I agree that the problems with the offense are not affected much by the loss of Hernandez.
After all, we have excellent depth at TE.

Work with me here, mgteich.

I think there will be a drop off from the 2012 Patriots to the 2013 Patriots in terms of scoring. But I don't think the big reason for that will be the loss of Hernandez.

 

[patsfanincleveland]

They Giants beat us at home that year and shut us out in the first half. The Ravens were leading when Gronk got hurt. We scored on that drive. But, weren't exactly marching up and down the field in the 2011 AFCCG.

Actually watch the game as opposed to thinking what you want to see.

The only reason the 2011 AFCCG was close is because Brady played poorly.

He missed sure wide open TD passes to Gronk and Hernandez in the first half and made other poor decisions.

That's on Brady not some nonsensical "figuring out" by the Ravens.

Likewise, in the Giants game, they scored 20 points in the second half. Once the riddle was solved it was on.

That's not totally unexpected when you play a team once every four years.

Two years ago, Clay Matthews was ridiculed for claiming the Packers beat themselves vs the Giants. He was absolutely correct.

The Packers simply didn't execute. No excuse for the loss except it's totally on them.

 

[patsfanincleveland]

How could someone pretend to not understand the worry? Our WR corps has been gutted. We are going from proven weapons to unproven weapons, who have to learn the system for the first time, for the positions where it is hardest to learn the system (i.e., WR, TE).

Given what has happened the past two months, I don't understand how a thoughtful person would come away without concerns.

Like you weren't concerned in the least a few years back when a 2nd was given for some guy named Welker...............or perhaps when the Patriots went to a mystery concept called a two TE offense.

The reality is the central theme this year was to diversify away from being so dependent upon both TE's.

If this happened two years ago, it would be bad.

 

[Mack Herron]

Work with me here, mgteich. In this post of mine here (http://www.patsfans.com/new-england...en-panic-over-offense-page10.html#post3478128), I pointed out that without Hernandez last year, the Pats actually were fare more productive.

Now, in those games, pretty much everything else was the same. What I mean is that the Pats' offense last year with Hernandez had all those guys, and without him they had all those guys. The missing piece was Hernandez. And without him they scored *MORE* points than they did with him. By a lot.

Now THIS year, they don't have all those guys. But I'm not comparing this year to last year on the whole. What I'm saying is that, whatever else the Patriots have on offense, they'll probably put up comparable points without him as they would have with him. It's a comparison between the 2013 Patriots without him vs. the 2013 Patriots with him. It's *NOT* a comparison between the 2013 Patriots and the 2012 Patriots.

Make sense?

The reason I think it's not crazy to suspect that the 2013 Patriots without AH would put up similar numbers to the 2013 Patriots *with* AH is because in the past, they've been able to continue to put up points with or without him. He doesn't seem to be the key factor in them scoring a lot of points, is I guess what the numbers would suggest.

I think there will be a drop off from the 2012 Patriots to the 2013 Patriots in terms of scoring. But I don't think the big reason for that will be the loss of Hernandez.

So I guess BB must have been hitting the bong when he decided to throw $40M at Hernandez? I'm not so sure...

Why Aaron Hernandez will be hard to replace for New England Patriots - ESPN Boston

 

[chumpchange]

With the overhaul (and downgrade) on his previous targets on offense, what does everyone think about Brady's chances at the TD record?

 

[supafly]

The reality is the central theme this year was to diversify away from being so dependent upon both TE's.

What makes you feel that the central theme was to get away from being a 2 TE offense? The recent enormous contracts given just last summer would point towards Belichick majorly disagreeing in this instance.

On top of that, why would we want to take versatile personnel off the field that could dictate either run or pass, while staying on the field for almost every snap allowing us to run the hurry up on 1/4 offensive snaps so that we could take advantage of mismatches vs LB/S?

I'm just not agreeing that there was any indication whatsoever of getting away from the 2 TE offense...at all. There were no hints to this whatsoever, nor would it make any sense.

 

[supafly]

With the overhaul (and downgrade) on his previous targets on offense, what does everyone think about Brady's chances at the TD record?

What TD record are you speaking of?

The consecutive games with a TD thrown record? If that's the case then I'd assume that it won't too much difference--at least in my opinion. I'm sure it obviously isn't going to help any, but Brady should be able to still average more than 1 TD thown per game, possibly even 1.5 or closer to 2 as the season progresses.

Having Gronk only miss a game or two would certainly help. In the meantime we'll either be using 2 TEs still, or going with more 3 wide looks. Either way, he should still be slinging the ball around pretty well. We just don't know who all the receivers will be as of yet.

 

[Mogamedogz]

There's plenty of reason to be concerned about the offense going into this season. Anyone without their homer glasses on can see that.

I think it's a slap in the face to Tom Brady at this point in his career to send him out there with this bunch of rag tag bargin basement options in the passing game. I hope they prove me wrong, but there is plenty of legitimate reason for concern.

Hopefully the running game is good enough to make up for what weve lost, but call me crazy for having my doubts.

 

[supafly]

There's plenty of reason to be concerned about the offense going into this season. Anyone without their homer glasses on can see that.

I think it's a slap in the face to Tom Brady at this point in his career to send him out there with this bunch of rag tag bargin basement options in the passing game. I hope they prove me wrong, but there is plenty of legitimate reason for concern.

Hopefully the running game is good enough to make up for what weve lost, but call me crazy for having my doubts.

There are some possibilities that they could explore, such as bringing in another more talented WR, but it seems as though the choice was between giving up a 3rd for Sanders vs using a high pick or two in the draft.

As we know, they chose selections in rounds 2 and 4, so it pretty much evened out in that regard. I wouldn't be opposed to giving up a 2nd or 3rd rounder at this point in time due to the recent circumstances for a better receiver (although that doesn't address the potential mismatch and personnel aspects of losing AH), but the team may feel that may stunt the growth of the younger rookies, who knows?

Another choice would be to try and "replace" the joker/move TE that is now lost with the departure of AH, but it's highly debatable as to whether or not they'd have enough success doing that.

IMO--we still have strengths in the run game, the backfield passing game, the slot receiver game (Amendola, possibly even Edelman), and to a lesser extent even the TEs. Ballard is expected to play a bigger role, and even Fells and the rookies could help to take some of that production over.

The real concern lies in needing to depend on the younger rookies and "how" Belichick chooses to address the loss of AH. Time will tell how it's managed, but at the moment I'd see at least 7-10 pts down in the 36 pt average from last season.

 

[Banjo]

Tom Brady solidifies his status as the GOAT if he gets anywhere near 5000 yards with this squad.

But I don't see him even getting 4000. Hell it might even be lower than 2006, where he had around 3500

We had a great run up to now. The last few years have been amazing. But this... this is gonna be a long, painful season.

 

[supafly]

We had a great run up to now. The last few years have been amazing. But this... this is gonna be a long, painful season.

I don't think too many would agree with a thought quite that negative.

There's no reason we shouldn't still average an offense in the high 20's at worst, and the defense has certainly improved.

The difference of losing Hernandez has brought my expected win total down from 11-13 games to 10-12, but I certainly don't agree with anything close to a "long, painful season."

We're the exact same in the running game, slot game, and possibly even have better depth at TE (IF we can get past the loss of AH, which is my main concern).

Keep in mind that the 2 main TE's hardly played together last season at the same time, and yet we still hosted the AFCCG again.

Belichick will certainly have a plan to counter the challenges and loss of certain aspects. There are plenty of options that can be implemented, should he choose to do so. We are definitely still the team to beat in the AFCE.

 

[patsfanincleveland]

What makes you feel that the central theme was to get away from being a 2 TE offense? The recent enormous contracts given just last summer would point towards Belichick majorly disagreeing in this instance.

On top of that, why would we want to take versatile personnel off the field that could dictate either run or pass, while staying on the field for almost every snap allowing us to run the hurry up on 1/4 offensive snaps so that we could take advantage of mismatches vs LB/S?

I'm just not agreeing that there was any indication whatsoever of getting away from the 2 TE offense...at all. There were no hints to this whatsoever, nor would it make any sense.

The best features of the two TE offense is:

The unique talents of the TE's made it impossible to defend
The hurry up style made it impossible for defenses to adjust

The downfall that cost us the last two Lombardi's

The unique talents of the TE's are impossible to replace if lost
The sheer quantity of snaps in hurry up make that scenario likely.

The offense last year had 1237 official snaps. Do you realize exactly how huge of a total that is? The Steelers would have had to plat 19 games to reach that total.



Therefore, basis for this comment is what has actually happened in the past and the recent moves for the future.

The point of "getting away" has less to do with not using the TE's than what happens without them and getting them to acceptable snaps.

Look at the RB's

Ridley, Vereen, Washington, Bolden, Blount

That is a diversified but overlapping of talent "committee" we have not had before. Why do that?

TE's are too few on the roster to build in the redundancy that carrying 5 RB's and 6 WR's allow. That's why when one of the TE's was hurt, the ability of the offense dropped so much.

 

[mgteich]

1) I agree with your prediction of 10-12 wins, but then, that is almost always my prediction.

2) An offense that is not in the top 5 would make the AFCE championship problematic. However, we should be in the playoffs, even with mediocre performance from the receiving corps. After all, we do play in the AFCE. Personally, I don't see our offense out of the top 10. All that is really required is a bit of health and the ability of the new payers to be able to run the hurry-up. After all, more plays has led to more points for the patriots, for years. Also, we might/should see an improvement in red-zone efficiency with the addition of Jenkins.

The REAL question will be the defense and how they perform on 3rd down and in allowing long plays. The defense does not have the one glaring weakness the offense has. However, there are still lots of question marks. We could be a top 5, top 10, top 15, top 20 defense, or worse. To simply say (as many do) that we will have a top 5 defense is very optimistic, given the production in the past two years.

3) The bettors still have us co-favorites with Denver. For all the supposed negative feeling toward the patriots, the bettors favor us, probably more than they should.

I don't think too many would agree with a thought quite that negative.

There's no reason we shouldn't still average an offense in the high 20's at worst, and the defense has certainly improved.

The difference of losing Hernandez has brought my expected win total down from 11-13 games to 10-12, but I certainly don't agree with anything close to a "long, painful season."

We're the exact same in the running game, slot game, and possibly even have better depth at TE (IF we can get past the loss of AH, which is my main concern).

Keep in mind that the 2 main TE's hardly played together last season at the same time, and yet we still hosted the AFCCG again.

Belichick will certainly have a plan to counter the challenges and loss of certain aspects. There are plenty of options that can be implemented, should he choose to do so. We are definitely still the team to beat in the AFCE.

 

[Danger Zone]

My expert Just Another Sheep's opinion has us at 12-13 wins.

It all depends on how bad the early growing pains are, but by mid to late season I think this offense will be humming.

I'm much more confident in this years defense to keep and make every game close/winnable.

 

[chumpchange]

There's plenty of reason to be concerned about the offense going into this season. Anyone without their homer glasses on can see that.

I think it's a slap in the face to Tom Brady at this point in his career to send him out there with this bunch of rag tag bargin basement options in the passing game. I hope they prove me wrong, but there is plenty of legitimate reason for concern.

Hopefully the running game is good enough to make up for what weve lost, but call me crazy for having my doubts.

Amen to that. I will never understand why Kraft never broke the bank to get Brady a HOF-quality receiver. Imagine what Brady could have done with a Jerry Rice or Calvin Johnson. Look at the production he got out of a past-his-prime Randy Moss. When you think about what might have been if Brady had just one receiver equal to his talent...

 

[Bruins29]

Amen to that. I will never understand why Kraft never broke the bank to get Brady a HOF-quality receiver. Imagine what Brady could have done with a Jerry Rice or Calvin Johnson. Look at the production he got out of a past-his-prime Randy Moss. When you think about what might have been if Brady had just one receiver equal to his talent...

Break the bank? As in just spend a lot of money on a player? Gee, I wonder why they did not do that? Let me think....Also, where are these receivers that are HOF guys that are avail or equal to TB in terms of talent? Name them and then we can discuss how we can have Kraft write a check and get them here..

 

[Bruins29]

There's plenty of reason to be concerned about the offense going into this season. Anyone without their homer glasses on can see that.

I think it's a slap in the face to Tom Brady at this point in his career to send him out there with this bunch of rag tag bargin basement options in the passing game. I hope they prove me wrong, but there is plenty of legitimate reason for concern.

Hopefully the running game is good enough to make up for what weve lost, but call me crazy for having my doubts.

Of course there is concern. But how dare the Pats send TB out there with those bums. The best pass catching TE tandem in the league by far (probably in history), a great slot receiver in his prime, another solid up and coming WR, 2 promising WR rookies, a sold receiving TE who just won a SB. 3 or 4 hungry journeymen who now get to play with the GOAT. A surpurb O'line, and as mentioned a pretty solid lineup of running backs. That does not include any sleeper WR rooks or UDFA TEs

Yeah, what garbage. Of course its the Pats fault for not predicting that one of the TEs was going to go on a killing spree. Luckily, the first game isnt this sunday, hint hint....

Some of you guys kill me. Its like if the team does not have proven all-pros at every position or dosent go out and sign the Mike Wallaces or trade for Larry Fitz its the Pats saying we dont care.

Be concerned about something that needs concern. The sieve D we have had the last few years.