Patriots QB Bledsoe’s Son Gives Advice: “Daddy Just Fall Down”
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Posted Under: 2000 Patriots Season
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FOXBORO, MA — Even a three year old can see that quarterback Drew Bledsoe is taking far too much of a beating this season.
As a matter of fact, Bledsoe’s son Stu, who turned 3 just three days ago, told his father earlier in the season what every fan in Patriot Nation has already had to watch him endure.
“Stu watches the games from time to time,” said Bledsoe Wednesday. ” I always ask him, ‘Did you see Daddy on TV?’ Early in the season, I asked him, ‘Did you see Daddy on TV?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ I asked him, ‘What did Daddy do?’ and he said, ‘Oh, Daddy just fall down.’ So that was one of his comments. I think this last game, Barney or something else was on, so he was watching that.”
There were a lot of people who changed the channel during Sunday’s embarrassing loss to the New York Jets in which Bledsoe “fell down” a career-high seven times during the game, although it’s doubtful that they were watching Barney. But to have to watch Bledsoe get pounded by their AFC East rivals was certainly frustrating. Bledsoe feels that the fact New England got down early was a major reason why the Jets were so successful in getting pressure on him.
“The situation we got into against the Jets is that we got behind by a bunch,” said Bledsoe. “We came back and made it close, but when you play from behind and when you’re in some longer yardage situations, then a team can afford to take more chances against you as far as bringing pressure, as far as getting into the pass rush mentality, and as opposed to worrying about the run.”
“If a defense thinks that they can afford to take more chances against you, they don’t have to worry about giving up a 4 or 5-yard run. Where they would have to worry about that is if it were a tie ball game or if you were in the lead.”
So far this season Bledsoe has been sacked a total of 31 times through just 8 games. You don’t need to be a three year old to see where that total is headed. To put it in perspective, in 1996 when the team went to the Superbowl he was sacked only 30 times all season.
The Patriots were able to have success against both Denver and Indianapolis because in both games they were able to get up early in the game and take both teams out of their game plan. New England simply doesn’t have the personnel right now to provide Bledsoe enough protection for the Patriots to be able to play from behind, and head coach Bill Belichick feels that it’s tough for any team to be successful throwing the football when the defense knows what’s coming.
“There aren’t many teams that can handle that situation,” said Belichick. “There might be a few in the league from year to year, but by in large when it becomes a one-dimensional game it’s hard to play it that way. It certainly was for us last week, no doubt about that. I think if we are in that situation a lot, it’s a good chance what happened last week will happen again.”
“When you are trying to gamble and make plays and get the ball down the field in a hurry and do a lot in a short amount of time, every once in awhile something will happen. But most of the time the percentages are against that especially when they know it’s coming.”
So now the task for both Bledsoe and the Patriots coaching staff is coming up with ways to expose opposing defenses when they opt to send an extra man in on a blitz, something they’ve struggled to do so far this season. That’s something they did well against Denver and Indianapolis during their two victories this season, and it’s something they’ll need to do again when they face Indianapolis on Sunday.
“We have to make big plays against people when they elect to come after us,” said Bledsoe. “There are two ways to do that. The first way is to get rid of the ball quickly, get it into the hands of one of our fast guys and allow them to make a play in space against fewer defenders because there are more in the backfield. The other way is to keep more blockers in and try and block their blitzers and work the ball down field.”
“There are two ways to address that, but the bottom line is we have to be effective when people choose to pressure us otherwise we’re just going to see it every down.”
They’re probably going to see it again this weekend, and they’re going to need to do something about it. Otherwise Stu will see his daddy “fall down” quite a bit.
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