Possible Rift Between Brady and the Patriots Coaches

[crystalline]

I don't know that 2 and 3 are correct. Do you have anything to back that up?
The Patriots have nobody high on the passes dropped and drop rate charts. Meanwhile according to ESPN Brady leads the league in off target passes (over or under thrown). Now some of that could be routes and communication, and some of it is no doubt rushed throws because of pressure. A lot of it is on Tom though, he isn't even giving his WR the opportunity to make plays on over 25% of his throws.
http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/96276/top-stats-to-know-patriots-at-chiefs (that is the off target stat, before the Chief's game, but having watched that game I doubt it went down significantly.)

 
No offense intended, however I reject the premise that "stats" are informative about whether it's Brady, the offensive line, or the receivers.  If you dig back into the archive I explained using two-sample tests and confidence intervals for small samples why all drop stats do nothing but capture random variation*.  And there is so much covariation between poor offensive line and poor route running and poor QB performance that the ESPN numbers are likely to be bunk too. 
I'm telling you what my eyes show me. 
 
I think there's some more interesting discussion to be had here about receiver consistency, but it probably needs to wait a few days for everyone to enjoy the Bengals win, and probably needs to go in another thread.  When it gets picked back up-- note that in tonight's great win the main receiver was Gronk, then Edelman and then Wright had a few nice catches.  I was on a slow stream so I may have missed some -- though I didn't see the guys with worse hands (again, to my eyes) like LaFell or Dobson getting a lot of burn.
 
* at extremely high or low drop rates there may be something useful to be said about that player.  Even so multiple-comparison issues may make even that invalid.

 

[RedOctober3829]

Rift is over. Lock the thread.

 

[SeoulSoxFan]

[Mod note: will wait a bit longer to lock the thread, to allow everyone to really take in how dumb this narrative was.]

 

[Number45forever]

I wasn't on SoSH yesterday.  I opened this thread this morning and just scrolled down to the posts starting at 8:30 or so last night.  I assume jimmies were rustled in those first 45 posts but fuck if I'll ever read them. 

 

[Ralphwiggum]

We all must be prepared for this to be both Brady and Gronk's final season as Patriots. All we need to know about what the future holds is to recognize what has occurred in the past. It's The Patriot Way......love it or hate it.

 
This post is pretty spectacularly dumb.

 

[bluefenderstrat]

Brady on WEEI:  "Nowhere else, and no other coach I would rather play for."     "Never been a play called that I didn't want to run."     "Love and respect every one of my coaches, we've had a great thing going for a long time."   "Glad for this opportunity for you to hear my voice saying these things."

 

[Ed Hillel]

Brady on WEEI:  "Nowhere else, and no other coach I would rather play for."     "Never been a play called that I didn't want to run."     "Love and respect every one of my coaches, we've had a great thing going for a long time."   "Glad for this opportunity for you to hear my voice saying these things."

 
Yeah, he basically denied everything about the report outside of not really addressing the frustration about individual players, but I think that's just the nature of the business.

 

[JimD]

The moles in the Patriots organization who spoke to Mort must be nervous right now. 

 

[riboflav]

Mort on WEEI at 1pm to discuss his report for anyone who cares.

 

[Ed Hillel]

The moles in the Patriots organization who spoke to Mort must be nervous right now. 

His subtle words were "people close to the organization say..."

Could be Borges for all we know.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

His subtle words were "people close to the organization say..."

Could be Borges for all we know.

Players? Former players?

Mankins....Dobson....Thompkins....Browner?

Obviously just guessing. I doubt Mort is going to throw anyone under the bus.

 

[soxhop411]

Mort on WEEI at 1pm to discuss his report for anyone who cares.

What did he say?

 

[Ed Hillel]

What did he say?

 
I didn't hear it, but based on this article, seems like he doubled down.
 

“I was fascinated last night by the Patriots’ passion,” Mortensen said. “I also was fascinated by the fact that it looked like some of the issues which people I spoke with talked about, that Brady’s input, which had been significantly diminished and that he normally had in previous years, that those things seemed to be implemented. You saw passion. You saw passion out of Tom, you saw the offensive line blocking, you saw obviously the implementation of Tim Wright, who they acquired in the Logan Mankins trade. So we saw all that passion.

“I looked at the story and I said hey, what it does is there’s an unsettling picture here. There has been tension between Brady and the staff. I didn’t identify which members of the the staff, but everything I reported was true and it was not a personal opinion. The only personal opinion really was about the fact that if they beat the Bengals things are going to be calm.”

“I had one person just suggest that, hey, listen, it hasn’t been good with Tom, he’s going to have to pick it up, too,” Mortensen said. “But I had one team source that told me that the conservative approach had been necessary and calls for everybody just to calm down and be patient while they get everybody on the same page.

 
http://itiswhatitis.weei.com/sports/newengland/football/patriots/2014/10/06/espns-chris-mortensen-insists-tensions-were-there-between-tom-brady-patriots-coaches-theres-a-little-trouble-in-paradise/
 
 
So lulz, there you go.

 

[Ed Hillel]

GOTTA KEEP IT OPEN, MODS, MORT SAYS NOT OVER.

 

[SeoulSoxFan]

GOTTA KEEP IT OPEN, MODS, MORT SAYS NOT OVER.

my new fav thread. No worries.

 

[EricFeczko]

 
I didn't hear it, but based on this article, seems like he doubled down.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
http://itiswhatitis.weei.com/sports/newengland/football/patriots/2014/10/06/espns-chris-mortensen-insists-tensions-were-there-between-tom-brady-patriots-coaches-theres-a-little-trouble-in-paradise/
 
 
So lulz, there you go.

This makes him sound like a moron who can't tell the difference between fact and inference. By construct, "tension" is an intangible phenomenon that is inferred from concrete observations. Therefore any time one reports "tension" between two individuals, regardless of whether the "tension" is between two co-workers or between players-coaches, it is an opinion, which may have validity or not.

Even if Mort's sources told him there was tension, such information remains the opinion of the source and not a concrete fact. The fact that he has not cited one source of concrete evidence to support the opinion indicates that he may also be an idiot, and further suggests one of three things:

a) His sources think there is tension between Brady and the coaches but didn't tell him why, which makes him both an idiot and a moron
b) He thinks there is tension because of what his sources told him, but doesn't want to divulge the information, which makes him a moron but not an idiot
c) His sources are screwing with him because its funny, and he doesn't realize it, which makes him both an idiot and a moron

 

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

That's the problem with reports like this. No concrete examples, no one even willing to come out and say, "I saw this."

It's really no better than looking at a gesture on television and assuming we know how a player is feeling. We do this, at least when we're frustrated and unhappy with the results. It's an annual ritual whenever the Sox are about to be eliminated. Oh, player X has negative body language. This is why he's hitting .290, but only .275 with RISP.

A reporter (if the profession even exists today) would know better than to print this shit.

If there's a problem with Brady, it's probably just a natural part of his career progression. As the research suggests, quarterbacks drop suddenly when they decline. We saw that with Brady's numbers last year. We also can document a rather remarkable lack of competent receiving options.

Personally, yes, I think Brady is in serious decline (sorry). But he's also about as mentally tough a son-of-a-bitch as you'll ever find, and when he's pissed off, he can have games like he did last night. Which was fun to watch.