2014 New England Patriots Thread

That's not entirely true, the main difference is that football fans seem to overreact more to recent hot or cold streaks. Of course it's "not statistic based like baseball", because it takes 10 seasons to get a sample size as large as 1 baseball season. However, there are advanced scouting measurements and yes even statistics that are pretty much reliable.

I say let's wait and see how the D does against TY Hilton and Andrew Luck. Hilton is a short, explosive players who should give them all sort of fits, and Luck is a QB who can actually get him the ball. As much as the Chiefs game shouldn't be the end of the world, the recent awesome play shouldn't crown them SB champs.

Hilton will be a tough match-up but Indy has no run game outside of Luck and fortunately he tries to not run much. His mobility and general awesomeness will be a challenge. He does turn it over quite a bit though so that should be something the Patriots can capitalize on.

This team is coming together nicely, but they are fragile. Gronk goes down again, the offense is in major trouble. They aren't a Super Bowl lock (no team ever is), with him let alone without. I do. Not expect the Patriots to even end up with the number 1 seed in the AFC. It's going to be difficult to get thru @indy, @gb and @sd. There's most likely at least one loss there and then the three division games and Detroit is no picnick. Fortunately, the Jets are only away game.

Denver hasn't been good on the road,but they won't lose to Oakland. That leaves KC, SD and Cincy on the road. KC and Cincy are very hard places to win, but I'd expect only 1 loss tops from them.

This Indy game and every Conference game from here on out, is a game that needs to be won if you want a shot at home field.


Last thing I'll say on this. It's not that statistical analysis has no place in football. It's that in this case, 9 weeks into a season, they aren't predictive of the future or reliably representative of where a team is right now. You have to watch the games, see the changes and the schemes and watch how the piece work as a whole. Manning threw for well over 400 yards and was only sacked once, which makes a defense not look so good on paper. In reality the defense was great.

This is a good read on Ayers/Ninkovich and the Patriots Defense.

nesn.com/2014/11/akeem-ayers-rob-ninkovich-make-patriots-defense-tough-to-predict/

It highlights what I was saying before about players fitting into schemes and the versatility of the Patriots defense. While some look at Ayers as a nothing player "because he was so cheap to acquire", the early returns look like much more than that. When he was first acquired, I expected nothing, but just two games in its clear he was a very shrewd move. How good he can be for the Pats is to be determined, but this is the same coach who turned nobodies, at a similar position,like Pfifer, Vrable and Ninkovich into household names.

Obviously, you can't pronounce something like that after two games, but you can rewrite your possible outcomes. The Denver performance alone was worth the trade down, now is all just gravy and its nice to know his versatility fits well, his knees are healthy, he picks things up quickly and he has a legit pedigree (high pick) to fall back on.

A Patriots loss to Indy would devastate hole field - they need to win tonight for so many reasons

Not just one but two stupid throws by Brady. Our secondary has been a bit inconsistent, so we are pretty lucky the Colts only have 10 points.

Fortunately our running game is working great, leave out the interceptions and we should be able to score 20+ points in the 2nd half if necessary.

Jonas Gray is still running...

The running back glorification hype machine is operating at full capacity, Peter King at the helm. Just like in baseball, sportswriters are oblivious to what every GM knows. The 20th-highest paid RB in the league makes $3.33m/year, and the 20th-highest paid OL in the league makes $7.5m/year.

I mean, Jonas Gray did a pretty decent job, granted. But as Collinsworth explained, all he was doing was hitting the hole that was supposed to be there when the play got drawn up. And why were those holes always there and never stuffed? Because the OL and TEs did such a great job.

I didn't have a problem with Gronk's leap into the endzone - and by the way, awesome block by Edelman on that play - but I expect he will get a pretty hefty fine for driving Sergio Brown into a camera.

I'm fully admitting it may be the RIGHT call, but IF it is the right call, then it's a bad rule. That ball clearly without question was not going into the end zone without the help of the Colts. You are not allowed to bring the ball back into the end zone as a return team and get a touchback, it's a safety. Now perhaps the rule allows for them to "muff" it into the end zone and not be penalized, but that's just dumb. I'm not mad about it; just pointing out how stupid that is.

Does anyone know how Fleming is holding up after that injury?

The linebackers and secondary have been excellent, but I still worry about their ability to manufacture a pass rush. Maybe that doesn't matter as much since the coverage has been so good and Belichick/Patricia have done a great job of dialing up A-gap blitzes (which Hightower/Collins execute brilliantly), but with Jones injured, I don't think any of their DL/DE are above-average pass rushers (maybe Ninkovich on a good day, but he's not much above average), which is a concern. But yeah, the defense has looked terrific.

I'm not sure how you can "protect" Gronk. Like you alluded to, you can't really get him to play less aggressively without losing the things that make him such a great player in the first place. You could bench him for a few extra plays, but that comes with obvious downsides.

I agree that Gray legitimately looks like an excellent back and that a replacement-level back wouldn't have performed as well last night. He's got surprisingly good straight-line speed for his size, good patience, hits holes hard, and enough size/power to break tackles and push the pile. He's a great fit for the power scheme they've been running lately where you need the patience to let the blocks develop and the decisiveness/speed/size to hit them hard once they do. He looks like a keeper and I've very excited about his future in New England.

My guess is a high ankle sprain for Fleming, which is usually the diagnosis when a guy gets rolled up like that. He'll be out 3-4 weeks but it shouldn't be a season-ending injury.

It's true enough that Gray did a good job, certainly better than replacement-level, I'm just annoyed how the media always tries to hype up the RB. DeMarco Murray is not better than Jonas Gray, he just plays behind an even better OL.

Charles is not a good comp because he is a dual-threat guy who can catch passes. I think guys like Charles, Vereen, Woodhead are essentially playing a different position.


I guess it just didn't look as dangerous to me as it did to you, it's not like there was someone coming at him head-on, that would be a different matter. But with the opponents just grabbing at him from the sides it seemed almost reasonable.