2019 Game Ball Thread: Wk. 16 vs Bills

bunchabums

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Jul 16, 2005
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JC Jackson did a commendable job against Beasley but it almost fell apart on the last drive.
Going to be cool having Beasley on the team in a couple of years. He's the kind of guy BB loves. Hope it doesn't cost a second rounder and then he suddenly can't catch or block anymore.
 

DJnVa

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Dec 16, 2010
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to pour a bit of cool water on things... the mistakes they committed today would sink them against KC in the divisional round.
I don't know---the 2 big mistakes they made today (the long Brown TD and the defense on last drive in first half) led to 14 points. Tough to turn 2 mistakes into more than 14 points.

Plus, I think Bills might be better than KC.
 

loshjott

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I’ve been thinking about the fact that the Pats D seems atypical, compared to most high-end Ds, in that they don’t have that scary physical guy. Someone who seemed like he might hurt someone on any given tackle. A Ray Lewis, or Ronnie Lott, or LT.
Those guys don’t exist anymore in today’s NFL. Maybe Kam Chancellor was the last.
 

RedOctober3829

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Late on my game ball giveaways.

Brady--best I've seen him since Week 1. The running game opened up a lot of things in the middle of the field.

Michel/Burkhead--both ran so hard. 26 combined carries between them for 116 yards is good for 4.4 YPC.97 total scrimmage yards for Rex is awesome.

OL--0 sacks against that Buffalo DL is something to be proud of. Everyone, including Newhouse, blocked well in the run game.

Folk--we have ourselves a kicker, Folks.

Lawrence Guy--was a man against the run.

Harry/Meyers--just give this offense enough of a threat so that teams can't double Edelman. I want to see even more from Harry. Give him some more crossing routes, back shoulders, and slants. I think he can be the #2 primary target behind Edelman when this season is said and done.
 

RedOctober3829

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Holy crap, looking back on the snap counts from last night. Burkhead only played 19 snaps(White and Michel had 33 and 31) and touched the ball on 9 of them. Looks like Edelman and Sanu are the 2 primary WRs. Harry only played 37 or 51% of the snaps.
 

PedroKsBambino

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Nice to see more guys look like they can make plays offensively—Harry, LaCosse, Burkhead al showed well. Huge for the playoffs.

On the blown spot in the Sanu catch: people get caught up in whether the review was incontrovertible or not (it was close to being so) and forgot the initial spot was a yard off. It was terrible officiating that impacted the game, even if it wasn’t in same league of badness as several calls in the Chiefs game. Being “less egregiously wrong” isn’t the standard to apply as a fan—though this certainly was.
 

CSteinhardt

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BTW I've gone back and forth on this but I think Buffalo would have gone for two had they gotten the TD. Even with a minute-ish left.
The numbers suggest this is a mistake, although at least partly for a bit of an odd reason -- coaches have a tendency to give up on the final possession in a tie game and take it to overtime when they would do better to keep pushing for a FG attempt, and being behind forces them to maximize their scoring opportunities on that last possession. I had seen someplace that you'd have to be like 65% certain to get the 2 in order for it to be break even, as high as that sounds.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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By taking the unsportsmanlike on the kickoff didn’t Bill essentially telegraph that it wasn’t going to be a run on the try? And more than that he also signaled the pass would be in the end zone, not some sort of short pass to White or Rex to run it across the goal line.

It was a highly unusual situation. I was not even aware you could take half the distance. I thought the foul needed to be on the try Itself. So, not sure the Bills would have been too tuned in to what was happening. But Bill pretty clearly was checking with Josh whether their top 2 point play was one where the yard made much of a difference.

It is mildly interesting that even just needing a yard that they did not like a run in a big spot. But it is especially interesting that if the Bills were aware of what was going on there, knowing it is probably not a planned run would make the try easier to defend I think. Maybe they did figure it out and just did not play it well but I kind of tend to doubt it.
 

Captaincoop

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I assume he just thought that 15 yards on the kickoff was going to be more valuable than ~1 yard on the conversion attempt. It didn't telegraph that they would pass on the attempt, just that Belichick felt it was more important to make the Bills go 15 additional yards without a TO, whether they were driving to win or to tie.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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I assume he just thought that 15 yards on the kickoff was going to be more valuable than ~1 yard on the conversion attempt. It didn't telegraph that they would pass on the attempt, just that Belichick felt it was more important to make the Bills go 15 additional yards without a TO, whether they were driving to win or to tie.
The value of 15 yards on a kickoff is way less than 15 actual yards of field position though. All the penalty does on a kickoff is ensure no return while without the penalty you may have to face a return if your kicker can’t kick a touchback from the 35. I guess against a dangerous returner it has some value but I would not think nearly the same as making a two yard run a one yard run if you are considering a run.
 

DJnVa

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The value of 15 yards on a kickoff is way less than 15 actual yards of field position though. All the penalty does on a kickoff is ensure no return while without the penalty you may have to face a return if your kicker can’t kick a touchback from the 35. I guess against a dangerous returner it has some value but I would not think nearly the same as making a two yard run a one yard run if you are considering a run.
Buffalo's KO return guy is dangerous. He's 3rd in the NFL.
 

joe dokes

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The value of 15 yards on a kickoff is way less than 15 actual yards of field position though. All the penalty does on a kickoff is ensure no return while without the penalty you may have to face a return if your kicker can’t kick a touchback from the 35. I guess against a dangerous returner it has some value but I would not think nearly the same as making a two yard run a one yard run if you are considering a run.
The 15-yard head start does give the KO team a better chance of pinning the returner deep if they intentionally kick one short of the end zone. Or kicking a popup to the 15 or 20, where an up-back would have to fair catch it.

As an aside, the brief conversation between BB and McD is another example of the way the team has its shit together. Not that the Patriots are the only one, but more than zero teams would have been scratching their navels and running some hurried conversion play right as the play clock reached zero.
 

Al Zarilla

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The value of 15 yards on a kickoff is way less than 15 actual yards of field position though. All the penalty does on a kickoff is ensure no return while without the penalty you may have to face a return if your kicker can’t kick a touchback from the 35. I guess against a dangerous returner it has some value but I would not think nearly the same as making a two yard run a one yard run if you are considering a run.
When the Patriots elected to have the penalty enforced on the kickoff, I immediately thought they might try the kick it to the goal line, make them return it and try pin the Bills with Slater and company play. But, alas, no Stephen Gostkowski (remember him?) who is so good at that.
 

Prodigal Sox

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Jul 15, 2005
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When the Patriots elected to have the penalty enforced on the kickoff, I immediately thought they might try the kick it to the goal line, make them return it and try pin the Bills with Slater and company play. But, alas, no Stephen Gostkowski (remember him?) who is so good at that.
I'm thinking they may have tried that if teh conversion had failed. Once teh converted the safe play was to eliminate the possibility of a big return.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Forgot but honorary game ball to the people who put together the Pats graphic for NFLN. I wish I had a screenshot but in short, Jules is thirsting hard for a certain teammate.
 

tims4wins

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Reading between the lines in yesterday's press conference, I think BB didn't accept the penalty on the 2 point conversion because they already had a play call picked out and they liked the play call and because it was a pass there was no need to accept the penalty - they weren't going to change the play call to a run or something.
 

axx

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Reading between the lines in yesterday's press conference, I think BB didn't accept the penalty on the 2 point conversion because they already had a play call picked out and they liked the play call and because it was a pass there was no need to accept the penalty - they weren't going to change the play call to a run or something.
I was almost expecting them to do an surprise onside kick, maybe the little pooch where even if Buffalo isn't caught napping they still get the ball at the 25ish. Instead they just blasted it through the end zone.
 

tims4wins

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I was almost expecting them to do an surprise onside kick, maybe the little pooch where even if Buffalo isn't caught napping they still get the ball at the 25ish. Instead they just blasted it through the end zone.
I was texting with my dad about this this morning. I didn't particularly understand the strategy of just blasting it through. I guess they probably didn't have enough confidence in Bailey (or Folk) to attempt some sort of non-traditional kickoff play. It would have been a good time to do a very high, short pop-up kick, or some kind of other weird kick, and try to pin the Bills even deeper.