New England Patriots thread (MOD WARNING - #4503)

SixtyTwo

Just on the Sterling Moore thing. Flicking through Twitter it seems he is back on the Practice squad. Unconfirmed of course. He has cleared waivers so he is free to join another team or join a Practice squad of a team .

Interesting point had he played 1 more game for the Pats and then we released him he would not have been able to join our practice squad after clearing waivers.

Seems the Pats might have been gambling on no one picking him up and then getting him back onto Practice squad for backup.

Son Of A Vidic

SixtyTwo wrote: »

Just on the Sterling Moore thing. Flicking through Twitter it seems he is back on the Practice squad. Unconfirmed of course. He has cleared waivers so he is free to join another team or join a Practice squad of a team .

Interesting point had he played 1 more game for the Pats and then we released him he would not have been able to join our practice squad after clearing waivers.

Seems the Pats might have been gambling on no one picking him up and then getting him back onto Practice squad for backup.

They probably took the gamble knowing Talib was coming. he's back on the practice squad alright. I haven't been convinced with him at times this season. Then again, I suppose I could say that about the entire secondary.

SixtyTwo

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

They probably took the gamble knowing Talib was coming. he's back on the practice squad alright. I haven't been convinced with him at times this season. Then again, I suppose I could say that about the entire secondary.

The shock for me is that he wasnt the worst of a bad bunch.

Son Of A Vidic

Hernandez spotted in practice today and seen fully participating in all drills that were witnessed during the media access session. I hope he's a 100%, because I'd rather give him an extra games rest if he's not tbh.

SixtyTwo

Bolden wont be back anytime soon. Gone and got himself a 4 game ban for performance enhancing drugs.

Paul Perillo ‏@pfwpaul

Brandon Bolden suspended 4 games for violating the NFL's policy on performance enhancing substances. #Patriots

Masked Man

Going to guess Adderall. ****in knew Talib would be a bad influence :P

Son Of A Vidic

SixtyTwo wrote: »

Bolden wont be back anytime soon. Gone and got himself a 4 game ban for performance enhancing drugs.

I find these suspensions laughable, the league is full of guys on PED's. But then I suppose they can't ban them all.

SixtyTwo

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

I find these suspensions laughable, the league is full of guys on PED's. But then I suppose they can't ban them all.

He failed a test. If you are going to take anything make sure you don't get caught. Most pro sports are rampant with drugs like adderal but tis a banned substance so taking it you run the risk

Masked Man

Patriots activate Shiancoe. 5 TEs on the roster now.

SixtyTwo

My fears have been confirmed. We are not as good as that Rams game suggested. I don't care what any other Pats fan says we are not a good football team right now. All areas of the team has problems especially our defense. And even with the pick to secure the win im not convinced. We made the Bills look good today.

eagle eye

SixtyTwo wrote: »

My fears have been confirmed. We are not as good as that Rams game suggested. I don't care what any other Pats fan says we are not a good football team right now. All areas of the team has problems especially our defense. And even with the pick to secure the win im not convinced. We made the Bills look good today.

We are a good football team, one of the best in the NFL and Superbowl contenders like always.

Personally I think the defensive playcalling has to get more aggressive. We were in that bend don't break system again and it almost cost us.

SixtyTwo

eagle eye wrote: »

We are a good football team, one of the best in the NFL and Superbowl contenders like always.

By good I mean good enough to win the Super Bowl or good enough to get there. If we play that way today against the 49ers they will murder us. If we play like the way we did today we wont progress in the Post season.

Personally I think the defensive playcalling has to get more aggressive. We were in that bend don't break system again and it almost cost us.

Aggression is only part of the problem. Offensively we need to use the run more especially when pinned down on our own goal line or looking for short yards. Ridley and Woodhead were getting yards but yet we force throws and get nowhere.

Defensively then the same old story in the secondary. In fact McCourty was the only one who looked like he was in the game in the 4th quarter. Moving him to safety was a solid move. Our front 7 were all over the place. Missing tackles and jumping offside and giving them stupid yards through penalties.

We should not be clinging on to a lead in the 4th quarter against teams like the Bills. They gave us every opportunity to put the game to bed and we choked. We made a game of it for them.

bruschi

SixtyTwo wrote: »

By good I mean good enough to win the Super Bowl or good enough to get there. If we play that way today against the 49ers they will murder us. If we play like the way we did today we wont progress in the Post season.



Aggression is only part of the problem. Offensively we need to use the run more especially when pinned down on our own goal line or looking for short yards. Ridley and Woodhead were getting yards but yet we force throws and get nowhere.

Defensively then the same old story in the secondary. In fact McCourty was the only one who looked like he was in the game in the 4th quarter. Moving him to safety was a solid move. Our front 7 were all over the place. Missing tackles and jumping offside and giving them stupid yards through penalties.

We should not be clinging on to a lead in the 4th quarter against teams like the Bills. They gave us every opportunity to put the game to bed and we choked. We made a game of it for them.

much like the 3 losses we have had this year. As bad as the defence are, which they really are, the ball was in Bradys hands in all of our losses to seal a win and didnt get done. yesterday was the same, and only for the pick, could have been the same outcome.

I thought offensively though we played well at times, and there was a good spread on players getting involved and between rush and pass. Woodheads three touch plays and TD was excellent, and showed good initiative to capitilise on a mis match in the defence taking him on. But Bradys subpar throw at the end, Welkers 2 drops, etc, I'm not sure if was laziness to do with playing the Bills, rustiness after the bye, or just plain bad football that made it go to the wire when it shouldnt have. It needs improving, but the capabilities are there.

I'm not so sure those abilities are there on defence. Talib coming in will probably help, but it wont solve the overall problem. Far too often there are blown coverages, and linebackers passing off players to the secondary fall between the players and leaves them open. Teh run defence wasnt as good as it usually is yesterday, but in fairness to Spiller and Jackson, they are a good speedy 1-2 combo at RB.

Texans in a couple of weeks will be very interesting. Colts next week too even. Looking forward to seeing them playing us, and not so much looking forward to seeing how much Luck is going to try carve up the defence.

BizzyC

I dont think too much blame can be put on Brady for the losses.

It's very hard for a team to score 35+ plus points a game, which is what our D is demanding of Brady.
After so many touches, the opposing D will catch up to the game plan and begin to play better against us.

Any team giving up over 20 points a game, especially to mediocre offenses, is going to be cutting it close.

bruschi

BizzyC wrote: »

I dont think too much blame can be put on Brady for the losses.

It's very hard for a team to score 35+ plus points a game, which is what our D is demanding of Brady.
After so many touches, the opposing D will catch up to the game plan and begin to play better against us.

Any team giving up over 20 points a game, especially to mediocre offenses, is going to be cutting it close.

yeah its still on the defence, but at the same time, the offence is in a position to win games, which it hasnt. The reason it was left to them to win was because of the frailties of the defence, which we know is crap. But where Brady was once the most clutch QB in the league, I am not as confident in him as I once was. That pass to Woodhead in his last play a case in point, wasnt even close to him, and it was an open TD opportunity. I know its completely nitpicking, but we know what the defence is, and if it falls on the shoulders of the offence to win despite how bad the defence is, and they dont, well there is some share of responsibilties there IMO.

Son Of A Vidic

Consistently inconsistent seems to be the theme this year with the Pats. The Wembley game was the first time the whole team (offense & defense) played well during a game. I hoped a corner had been turned, but obviously not. Our inability to put teams away remains a nagging problem. We have the most potent offense in the league, but our defense frailties are virtually wiping out that advantage during games.

The unbelievably bad drop by Welker in the first quarter, set the tone for the game I think. Ryan Fitzpatrick's two biggest offensive games this year came against our shockingly bad secondary. Uncharacteristically our run defense was poor and I lost count of the missed tackles. Talib can't start soon enough, playing to his abilities will help us but it certainly won't cure the defense. We just can't sustain this defensive weakness that we have.

Our defense is so bad that even Brady & Co clocking up 37 points doesn't' guarantee a victory. Brady throws an off pass but it's not the end of the world. Fúcksake the guy has fantastic stats this season - 2645 Yards, 18 TD's and only 3INT's. I think most teams in the league would very, very happily settle for those stats from their QB. At the moment he's on course for +4700 Yards, 32 TD's and 5 INT's. And Bruschi, yes you are nitpicking.

SixtyTwo

Brady wasn't the problem offensively. Our Receivers were. As well as discipline which was once again odd for us. Our defense is still the main problem. Hopefully Talib will make the difference.

Son Of A Vidic

SixtyTwo wrote: »

Brady wasn't the problem offensively. Our Receivers were. As well as discipline which was once again odd for us. Our defense is still the main problem. Hopefully Talib will make the difference.

Amen to that.

Son Of A Vidic

Between Connolly hurting his back yesterday and Mankin's being seen in a protective boot after the game. O line cover is now getting very thin.

bruschi

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Consistently inconsistent seems to be the theme this year with the Pats. The Wembley game was the first time the whole team (offense & defense) played well during a game. I hoped a corner had been turned, but obviously not. Our inability to put teams away remains a nagging problem. We have the most potent offense in the league, but our defense frailties are virtually wiping out that advantage during games.

The unbelievably bad drop by Welker in the first quarter, set the tone for the game I think. Ryan Fitzpatrick's two biggest offensive games this year came against our shockingly bad secondary. Uncharacteristically our run defense was poor and I lost count of the missed tackles. Talib can't start soon enough, playing to his abilities will help us but it certainly won't cure the defense. We just can't sustain this defensive weakness that we have.

Our defense is so bad that even Brady & Co clocking up 37 points doesn't' guarantee a victory. Brady throws an off pass but it's not the end of the world. Fúcksake the guy has fantastic stats this season - 2645 Yards, 18 TD's and only 3INT's. I think most teams in the league would very, very happily settle for those stats from their QB. At the moment he's on course for +4700 Yards, 32 TD's and 5 INT's. And Bruschi, yes you are nitpicking.

yeah I know.

some of Bradys passes were so crisp yesterday that the receivers were struggling to hold them he was firing them right into their grip. Welker had 2 poor drops, and Branch did too nearly causing an INT. In fairness, looking back at the first point I made, I should have said the offence had the ball, not Brady, as I wasnt intending putting those defeats at his hands. He got Gostkowski into an easy FG against Arizona. And others had chances of making plays to seal the other 2 losses too.

obviously the defence is the main problem, I dont think anyone disagrees with that, I was just making the point that despite our defence letting other teams score a crapload, we still had the chance in all the losses to seal the game through our offence, which they collectively didnt do, whether it be our kicker, receivers, QB who didnt make the play. They shouldnt be in that position, as they had scored enough in most cases to get a win, but it was the position they were in and didnt come up with a sealing score.

oh and corvus, can you rant about someone else needing to be dropped? Since you did that about Woodhead he is been excellent! would be good to get someone else playing badly to start producing the goods. Preferably on defence! :P

eagle eye

Everybody is so hard on the secondary but I'm seeing the same old rubbish where the front seven are not putting enough pressure on the QB too often. I think if they fix that then the secondary is fine, not great but good enough.

Goose_Hyypia

The most annoying thing about yesterdays was we were coming off a bye week. We all know how good Belichick is coming off bye weeks.
They had two weeks to prepare for the Bills offense and we give up 35 first downs?
Gaileys spread offense is obviously a bad match for our defense. Our linebacks seem to struggle against the screen passes. Bills created good mismatches, I remember Ninkovich covering Spiller at one stage in the 4th.

A common theme in the 4th seems to be our poor clock management. I cant believe they got the turnover on the 1 in the 4th they only managed to take 10 seconds off the clock. All too often this year they struggle to get vital 1st downs in the 4th. I wonder how many of the 8 "3-and-outs" the Patriots have this season have come in the 4th quarter of games?

One positive point for me was Woodhead yesterday, he really offers something different to this offense.

eagle eye

A really good post from another site(link to that site in my sig).

Finnishfan wrote: »

After watching the Bills game, I had a feeling that our 3rd down defense had the issue mentioned in the topic. Then after the Monday night game between KC and Steelers, that feeling was only emphasized. So I decided to inflict more severe mental pain on myself and went back to watch the Bills game again.

Now that feeling of mine got confirmed.

Breaking down the entire game was too much of a task, so I decided to focus on 3rd down plays by the Bills. I took a screenshot of every starting lineup we had on those plays. The lack of disguise on our pressure packages was staggering. Here are some numbers:

1) There was a total of 16 times that we lined up for 3rd down (or 4th down), and that includes all downs that were replayed due to penalties.

2) Including defensive backs, our LOS lineup were
3 players - once
4 players - 8 times
5 players - 4 times
6 players - 2 times
7 players - once

Well this number is partially explained by the fact that we played very little press coverage on 3rd downs, so we only had a total of 14 defensive players line up at the LOS who were in slot/outside coverage positions.

3) A breakdown of those 60 players who lined up around the ball:
3 players - 7 times
4 players - 6 times
5 players - 3 times

4) Out of 60 players we had lined up around the ball, a staggering 45 (75%) played with their hand on the ground (and rushed the passer). So there was only a total of 15 standing players around the ball who the OL had account for in those 16 downs.

5) On 9 of those 16 3rd downs (56.25%), ALL PLAYERS AROUND THE BALL lined up with their hand on the ground

6) Out of the 29 players who didnt have their hand on the ground, only 5 were in a somewhat successful disguise, others showed either blitz or coverage, and did just that. This is purely based on my perspective, but I paused the plays, read the formation, and missed only 5 calls. And I am not a professional QB.

Now despite that analysis didn't include all the moving parts, it still showed me one of the biggest reasons why Fitzy looked so comfortable again. We didnt surprise him and we didn't make Bills OL calls more difficult by scheme. They knew exactly when they could double Jones (which was quite often). And we didn't even try to disguise our efforts, at least not with an effort visible to me.

When you watch any great defensive team play, you see more than often them showing blitz when playing coverage. Why they do this, is becouse they want to keep the OL guessing how many will come, and where they come from. Why is it that we don't even try to hide what we are on the LOS?

With our level of disguise, Jones will not reach 12 sacks this year, becouse the OL can safely double him on every down and we don't even try to exploit the openings created by those double teams. Funny thing is, he was even tripled on some downs, becouse the Bills had a blocking TE on his side and the Guard expected somekind of a support rush from that side and ended up toying with completely outmatched Jones while Fitzy had as much time as he needed.

Son Of A Vidic

^ ^ ^

Interesting stuff that, a lack of disguise on defensive play calling really in a no-no in today's league. The biggest thing about Sunday's game for me, was how the defense just ran out of steam. They looked pretty sharp in the first quarter and then just seemed to fade away. Starting a game all fired up and aggressive is one thing, but maintaining it throughout the 4 quarters is critical.

Son Of A Vidic

Our new CB Aqid Talib started this week after his ban ended. Hopefully he'll make a difference, although he can only improve one component of an at times misfiring defence. Good to hear Belichek reporting that Talib has turned up early all week to practice. Sounds like he's enthusiastic, if his attitude is right then he could do very well.

CJC86

Any news on Hernandez? Was last week just a precaution?

Son Of A Vidic

He's still listed as limited and I suspect he won't appear against the Colts though. Especially when you bear in mind, that we are travelling to the Jets the following Thursday. So I don't think they'll risk him and he'll probably play against the Jets.

eagle eye

I think they are doing the right thing and being very careful with him. He will be needed for the playoffs and using him early and risking a relapse would be foolish.

BizzyC

Yeah, the longer Hernandez is out the more confident I am in his return/our playoff hopes.

He adds so much to the offense when he's available, what a draft steal he was.

Masked Man

Salas moves up from practice squad. Deion Branch is waived.

Along with Malcolm Williams to make room for Talib.