New England Patriots Thread Mod Warning Post #253

Bailey is something special. Jakobi is too.

In fairness Mac is a lot better than what he's been showing this year but you just can't deny Bailey with what he's done so far.

And the fact he broke the college yardage and touchdown season records just makes you believe he's the man.

He's showing off now as I type with that throw to Parker, just wow.

And now we are in front, Bailey 4 of 4 for 97 yards.

I'm now fully aboard the Bailey train after what he's done in this game. He's just lifted the whole team on both sides of the ball.

That's that, conceding 32 points to the Bears is just awful and I'm putting most of it on Bailey and the offense with lots of three and outs and bad punts. Defense has been on the field most of the second half.

How do you shut out the top scoring team then concede 31 to the lowest scoring team two weeks apart

I think the D needs a hard look at itself to be honest they were in position enough times to get the bears off the field last night.We are so slow there and miss barmore massively in the pass rush to try hide that slowness in the middle.Mccourty gone off a cliff also.Also the bears not getting Offensive holding called against them really was a joke at times too seeing as they were beaten up with injuries there and headlocking guys on alot of plays.Beaten by the better team regardless still.

Offense wise we go from two well called games to a shitshow with mac to get us in a rut and the run game died a death early.Zappe also not great either after the fumble on the third drive he had.

It will be like this all year i reckon and 9-8 is where our ceiling is i reckon.

The D was on the field far too long and D's get tired if they don't get a break. All those three and outs mean they get no rest between drives so it's understandable what happened to them.

They were on the field for eight plays, we went three and out and they then conceded the first touchdown on a nine play drive.

The second touchdown we conceded was after a bunch of short drives where they were on the field quickly three times.

Second half started with a ten play Bears drive leading to a field goal, then a Patriots three and out followed by another ten play drive for a field goal then another three and out and then the Bears eight play td drive to put them up 33-14.

As you can see from that they got no rest.

Offensive line were the main issue giving up penalties, not pass protecting to a high enough level and being pretty poor on run blocking too. Bailey's punting was a huge issue too.

Despite everything that's fine on we are 4-4 and lying eighth in the conference just one game out if making the playoffs.

We have to face the Bills twice, we have the Vikings as well. Outside of that all other games are very winnable.

I'd be hoping we end up with a winning season.

Yes I seen those reviews myself and gotta agree with them.

Mac's confidence isn't very high I'm sure. I honestly think Parker's injury is a good thing for him right now. Nearly all his picks before the injury were balls thrown to DeVante and they were aggressive throws into double coverage most often.

I'd hope somebody explained the booing to him as in that they weren't booing Mac, they were booing anybody that wasn't Bailey.

I kind of held off commenting after the Bears game because I wanted to see how Mac would go in the next few weeks. However, one interesting post-script from that Bears game is Scott Pioli was saying that the tape had caught up with Zappe, with d-linemen easing off and putting their hands up when Bailey was going to throw (because he's shorter than most). To be honest, I didn't see it but I only saw highlights so may well have been the case. Of course, as we well know from the Texans "leatherman" game, we can solve that problem so I'm surprised the O-line didn't adjust. Indeed, perhaps that's more a reflection on the state of the O-line than anything.

The D were just physically beat up in Chicago more than anything else, which I'm fine with as you can fix that, and have shown again that they are capable of dominating games. I do think we have an issue with running qbs, even going back to when tyrod taylor was qb in buffalo. Looking at it, there doesn't seem to have been as much emphasis on keeping the contain, several of Fields runs were through gaps where Judon was trying to get around the outside. I wonder if this is because we can't play a 3-4 as the base defence because we don't really have a 2-gapper. I thought it was interesting in Uche's comments after this week's game, he talked about making sure he never got past level with the QB, so this might be something that is being addressed.

We are what we are at this stage, which is a great defence and decent special teams saddled with an offence that will not win a track meet type game, and that will struggle against good defences. The real test will be when we meet the Bills or Miami again, as that will demonstrate whether we can keep those offences to the kind of scores we can count on from offence (low 20s).

On a side note, I know BB probably doesn't like in-season trades in, but when I was looking at the Bears game in particular, the one area I thought we could improve the defence significantly was at the MLB. I thought Roquan Smith would have been perfect, so would have looked like a freakin oracle if I'd posted it when I first thought of it!

Be interesting to see what Mac looks like after the bye, I think a reset is needed during this bye to get him back on track. He's really been nursed through these last few games since Chicago, same number of attempts but much shorter distances and less aggressive throws, presumably to build him back up. Even then, he's still made some horrific throws that would make you wonder if his head is just gone. All the feedback from training camp was that he'd stepped up a level, so hopefully they can get him back towards that.

Hopefully we take care of the Vikings tonight, would make our game with Buffalo next week really interesting. Anyway, on a slightly tenuous Patriots note, saw Scott Pioli was on Her Huddle this week. I always liked Pioli, and he's a great analyst/talking head, always interesting and insightful. Anyway, as if that wasn't enough, he gained extra respect today from me for rocking a pair of Doc Martens 😀Just not what you see from your average NFL exec.

Mac 28 of 39, 382 yards 2 TDs and no picks. He got good protection most of the night and looked great.

It's a crushing loss, a running into the kicker penalty cost us the game.

The offensive line has to get credit for their performance. If they keep that up we still have a great chance of making the playoffs.

Mac showed his quality tonight. He was getting the ball out quick she accurately. He just needs a little time and he's great.

Didnt stay up for the game last night, just finished the watch through there. Pleasantly surprised by our offense, Mac had a great game and as others rightly said the roughing the kicker and BS non catch call cost us the game. The passing game was like a different playbook compared to earlier in the year. Hopefully - like the broadcast commentary said - Jones is being coached up

Bill Belichick's dream player, Marcus Jones a cornerback who is great on ST's and takes a reception from Mac Jones at the 50 and goes all the way.

The problem was, and has been almost all year, that the offensive line is horrendous.

Mac Jones gets a lot of stick but you need more than 1.5 seconds to get yourself set to throw good balls consistently.

Also a field goal at that stage would have made it a seven point game.

A clear out is needed. New offensive coaches including a line coach. New players as well, we need to use our first and second round picks on tackles. We are in big trouble on both sides of the line.

Trent Brown isn't that old but looks finished to me, Isaiah Wynn never got started.

Somehow last week against the Vikings the OL did their job for a lot of the game and we seen what Mac Jones is capable of. If we get that line sorted we'll win a lot if games. We don't even have a truly elite receiver.

When you look around the league there's very few teams whose receiving corp is as bad as ours. The Giants, Jags, Texans, Ravens, Chiefs, Panthers and Falcons might be close to our level of talent at receiver. That means there's 24 teams in better shape than us.