The game thread was pretty mad about the field goal, but it was acknowledged that the real failure was only gaining a yard or two on the 3rd and 4 look against nickel. A better run on 3rd and they likely would have gone for it.
Maybe. But my sense this year has been that these conservative calls are often due to the fact that Bill just doesn’t have any confidence that they can make it. And as we saw on the 2PA, that lack of confidence in short yardage situations has been justified.
As for Parker, I think a piece of that is that Bill sees some safety in veterans. Which is not to say that he prefers shitty veterans over talented young guys so much as he believes they have a track record that he can predict and rely on, even if that track record isn’t winning football.
For instance, earlier this year, Douglas fumbled the ball after a catch and again as a punt returner. And then we didn’t see him for a bit. and people were perhaps understandably really upset that Smith-Schuster got most of his reps despite being physically compromised. I don’t think that Belichick honestly thought that Smith-Schuster “put the team in a better position to win“ than Douglas so much as that he had a track record of ball security that Douglas did not. And while Smith-Schuster wasn’t going to win many games for them, he wasn’t going to lose them out right by coughing the ball up either.
I think that was more or less what was going on with Parker’s snaps too. He was a veteran and even if he wasn’t giving the team much in his performance, he wasn’t actively part of the problem either. And now that Douglass is back in the mix, Thornton and Raegor are back and Gesicki is more up to speed, they are probably comfortable spreading Parker’s snaps out.
Going forward, I actually expect both Parker and Smith-Schuster to play bigger roles on this team than they have to date, health permitting. If what is being reported about Bill O’Brien’s system is correct—that it is finally being implemented somewhat correctly and everybody is swimming in the same direction—my guess is that there will be more opportunities for everybody and less need for any individual skill players to be the heroes.
