New England Patriots Discussion

[AntoinCD]

Yeah I agree. He needs to pass a few teams with hopes for the playoffs before he gets near 26th piority. My hope is that enough teams are put off by the salary and the poor fit, although I don't see how TB will pass him and NO are a good bet too

[cmarq83]

I think guys like Babin and Mark Anderson have their place in the league. We score 37 points a game so it's not like teams should generally be a threat to run on us, and we have plenty of big bodies to throw in there in case teams start to. I just don't see the Babin claim happening. Even with Cunningham out I think BB will be interested to see if Francis and Bequette can bring anything to the table. It just sucks that we're probably going to get mostly the below average Scott.

[Jvig43]

I still am skeptical of this offense efficiency against the upper level defenses in the league. Especially in the 4th, and especially without Gronk. Next few weeks will tell alot about what this team has going into January.

[AntoinCD]

Yeah this recent scoring splurge has been great but not against any great defenses. I still think against great defenses we can score in the mid 20s which is still excellent, the question then is can our defense stop the other team from scoring more than that. We should see with Houston and SF because they are the top two teams who can limit scoring and score points.

Other teams:

Baltimore = shootout
Denver - shootout
Pittsburgh = relatively high scoring
Indy = shootout
Cincy = shootout
Green Bay = shootout
NYG = depends which defense turns up for them
Chicago = relatively low scoring on both ends

[Jvig43]

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/...uggernaut-team

Some interesting tid bits on the offense this year. It will be good to get Bolden back to help the rushing game out more, and Vareen seriously has looked awesome catching passes out of the backfield. Pretty excited about this group of backs going forward.

[AntoinCD]

Originally Posted by Jvig43

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/...uggernaut-team

Some interesting tid bits on the offense this year. It will be good to get Bolden back to help the rushing game out more, and Vareen seriously has looked awesome catching passes out of the backfield. Pretty excited about this group of backs going forward.

Yup it took Vereen some extra time to get healthy and get some trust but we are starting to see why we drafted him now. I think a telling stat with the trust he has built is he was on the field for I believe 12 snaps against the Jets and had 12 touches

[descendency]

PFT is reporting Chandler Jones will "likely" miss the game Sunday.

[Nalej]

T. Scott, Ninkovich and Frances better be on their game. With Tannenhill's mobility, i think blitzing Spikes and Hightower is a must as i don't believe our DLine will be able to produce any meaningful pressure. Especially whoever is banned to J. Long's side.

[Razor]

Justin Francis has been getting a lot of pressures I think. I agree that blitzing the LBs will go a long way this weekend to make sure that Tanny doesn't settle in. Jake Long has been atrocious this year though along with pretty much the rest of that OL. I don't see that offense having a lot of success against us.

[descendency]

Originally Posted by Nalej

T. Scott, Ninkovich and Frances better be on their game. With Tannenhill's mobility, i think blitzing Spikes and Hightower is a must as i don't believe our DLine will be able to produce any meaningful pressure. Especially whoever is banned to J. Long's side.

I say we solve that by putting no one on Jake Long's side.

[Nalej]

[Matthew Jones]

This week's preview:

http://www.nepatriotsdraft.com/2012/...o-week-13.html

[Nalej]

Great read as well. It looks like BB is really digging the 4 man front and I wouldn't be surprised if he at least started the game in that fashion.
T. Scott might get first dibs.

Has Hightower taken any snaps at DE this year?

[AntoinCD]

After 3 and a half quarters of pretty ****** execution on offense that was one damn good game killing drive. I liked what the defense did today as well, however there were some serious mis-communications between Talib and Gregory, not sure who was actually to blame

[Nalej]

Brady was a hot mess today. Was missing high. or too long on a lot of throws

[cmarq83]

Good win guys! Defense played pretty well against that mess that is the Dolphins offense. Also, damn can our cornerbacks hit. Kyle Arrington for all his general worthlessness had 2 good hits on Tannehill.

Our offense struggled, but that is somewhat expected when you have to adjust to not being able to complete 20 yard seam routes to your All-World TE whenever you want.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by cmarq83

Our offense struggled, but that is somewhat expected when you have to adjust to not being able to complete 20 yard seam routes to your All-World TE whenever you want.

Not to mention that our interior OL is crappy at best when Mankins and Connolly are both injured.

[Jvig43]

Brady was sacked four times today, our O-line was just awful. However our WRs werent getting open either.

[descendency]

Originally Posted by Jvig43

Brady was sacked four times today, our O-line was just awful. However our WRs werent getting open either.

Our QB played badly, but we were helped out by his WRs who couldn't get open and his OL who couldn't block. If our running backs didn't get stuffed a bunch, we might have lost.

[descendency]

As long as the Patriots and Broncos win out, they have at least the #2 seed.

The Broncos only have 1 hard game left (@Ravens). The rest are cupcakes (Cleveland, @Oakland, KC). They will easily go 3-1 if not 4-0. We hold the tiebreaker against Denver, though.

The Ravens have the Giants and Broncos (Both at home), but also go to @Washington and have a tough divisional matchup against the @Bengals (which could be to get into the playoffs for them). 2-2 would be a decent run through that. But in reality, NE just needs them to lose 1 more than we do over our tough stretch. The Ravens hold the tiebreaker against NE, but in a 3+ team tie, NE wins every one of them.

The Texans get @NE, Colts, @Colts, and Minnesota. My gut says they should go 3-1. But 2-2 (as long as NE is 1 of those losses) means we are tied for the first seed (if NE wins out). The tiebreaker will be settled (next) Monday night.

The Patriots have Houston, SF, Miami, @Jacksonville. Should go 2-2 with little trouble. 3-1 shouldn't be too bad (because Houston has looked vulnerable). The question is whether or not NE can turn around after 6 days and beat SF after playing a very rough and physical Houston, without Gronk and with a shaky OL.

Realistically, that looks like the playoff order will be (1-4) Texans, Broncos, Ravens, Patriots. The game against Houston will have huge playoff implications.

[AntoinCD]

Originally Posted by descendency

As long as the Patriots and Broncos win out, they have at least the #2 seed.

The Broncos only have 1 hard game left (@Ravens). The rest are cupcakes (Cleveland, @Oakland, KC). They will easily go 3-1 if not 4-0. We hold the tiebreaker against Denver, though.

The Ravens have the Giants and Broncos (Both at home), but also go to @Washington and have a tough divisional matchup against the @Bengals (which could be to get into the playoffs for them). 2-2 would be a decent run through that. But in reality, NE just needs them to lose 1 more than we do over our tough stretch. The Ravens hold the tiebreaker against NE, but in a 3+ team tie, NE wins every one of them.

The Texans get @NE, Colts, @Colts, and Minnesota. My gut says they should go 3-1. But 2-2 (as long as NE is 1 of those losses) means we are tied for the first seed (if NE wins out). The tiebreaker will be settled (next) Monday night.

The Patriots have Houston, SF, Miami, @Jacksonville. Should go 2-2 with little trouble. 3-1 shouldn't be too bad (because Houston has looked vulnerable). The question is whether or not NE can turn around after 6 days and beat SF after playing a very rough and physical Houston, without Gronk and with a shaky OL.

Realistically, that looks like the playoff order will be (1-4) Texans, Broncos, Ravens, Patriots. The game against Houston will have huge playoff implications.

I agree that the Broncos are probably favourite for the 2nd seed right now, however I still think NE will have a higher seed than Baltimore. With how Baltimore have been playing the second half of the season I would not be overly shocked if they went 1-3 or even 0-4 with that schedule.

I would have both NYG and Denver as clear favourites, Cincy are playing pretty well at the moment and that Redskins team isn't a bottom feeder anymore.

If Denver beat Baltimore then they run the table without much fuss.

I think NE goes 3-1 with a loss to Houston on Monday, though I think they will beat SF. The Pats focused on stopping the run yesterday and gave Tannehill some opportunities to take shots. He missed but I think Schaub to Johnson does some damage

[Don Vito]

Antoin to echo what you said if Tannehill connects on all those open guys he missed I think we lose that game. People were talking about how we held the to 13 points and so few yards, well a better and more experienced passing team would have gashed us on those misses yesterday, Tannehill has potential but he missed five or so big plays that would have change the game, and in most of them Talib looked like he had no idea what was going on. We dodged a bullet yesterday against an improving Miami team, but we better tighten up because more polished/talented teams won't be so forgiving.

[Blackluck]

If we had a healthy off. line + Gronk I'd give a slight edge to NE for both games. However both teams can bring pressure, and both teams can be hard to run against (Is Joseph back for Houston yet?) As it stands, I too think we split, although a win vs Houston and a loss vs SF (which would make us 1-3 against the NFC west lol.)

[AntoinCD]

Originally Posted by Don Vito

Antoin to echo what you said if Tannehill connects on all those open guys he missed I think we lose that game. People were talking about how we held the to 13 points and so few yards, well a better and more experienced passing team would have gashed us on those misses yesterday, Tannehill has potential but he missed five or so big plays that would have change the game, and in most of them Talib looked like he had no idea what was going on. We dodged a bullet yesterday against an improving Miami team, but we better tighten up because more polished/talented teams won't be so forgiving.

The bad overthrow I'm not sure was Talib in primary coverage. He seemed to be in trail position expecting Gregory over the top so I am not going to blame him without knowing.

The near TD catch by Hartline in the 4th he looked lost though.

Brandon Spikes had a real nice game against the pass yesterday and Mayo's delayed blitz nearly killed Tannehill. I would like to see more of that going forward

[Jvig43]

I'm still unsure that we matchup with the big guns in this league (this season at least) so i wouldnt be surprised to lose both games. I think either way we'll learn alot about what we have going forward, but our offense got shut down yesterday in the passing game. Thank God we have capable running backs now because without Gronk I think theres a good chance that we see more of that against the better teams. Lloyd just isn't getting us anything down field like alot of people thought he would.