This is the group. Butler was terrific. The OBJ long TD was really McCourty's mistake.
Amendola stepped up huge tonight and the Pats will need him the next 7 games to play like this.
Ghost is just unbelievably good.
The Game Ball Thread: Wk 10 at Giants
- Thread starter SeoulSoxFan
- Start date
Amendola stepped up huge tonight and the Pats will need him the next 7 games to play like this.
Ghost is just unbelievably good.
Gost. Bite me, Mazz.
Nink. His 13 yard sack kept hope alive and kept it a 6 point game.
Gronk. His first down catch at his shins after Chandler's terrible drop was just unbelievably huge. Not to mention the 76 yard TD that turned a late deficit into a fourth quarter lead. And oh yeah, dude can throw a block, too.
Amendola. Gonna need a bunch more of his heroics going forward with Jules on the shelf.
Belichick, for never letting his team forget that 60 minutes means 60 friggin' minutes.
Butler. Incredible mental toughness, and off the charts talent. Wouldn't trade him for Revis straight up at this point. Scary to think how high his ceiling might be.
Nink. His 13 yard sack kept hope alive and kept it a 6 point game.
Gronk. His first down catch at his shins after Chandler's terrible drop was just unbelievably huge. Not to mention the 76 yard TD that turned a late deficit into a fourth quarter lead. And oh yeah, dude can throw a block, too.
Amendola. Gonna need a bunch more of his heroics going forward with Jules on the shelf.
Belichick, for never letting his team forget that 60 minutes means 60 friggin' minutes.
Butler. Incredible mental toughness, and off the charts talent. Wouldn't trade him for Revis straight up at this point. Scary to think how high his ceiling might be.
Any possibility of that final drive recorded somewhere? Had to leave at start of fourth and missed everything
This is a thread where we are supposed to discuss the previous game and who played well or poorly. The third CB sucked, whoever it was and was exposed. Doesn't mean it's a problem for every game. Brady isn't going to throw INTs at the goal line very often either.
Gost, Amendola and Butler.
Count me as one more vote for the run D. Excited for Collins to get back in there. I think he would have made a difference on a few of those throws over the middle. Cannon, Jackson and Vollmer, please get well soon.
Count me as one more vote for the run D. Excited for Collins to get back in there. I think he would have made a difference on a few of those throws over the middle. Cannon, Jackson and Vollmer, please get well soon.
Fwiw, Coleman did get hurt, his hand was all bandaged up. Good news is that's an injury he can play with. Coleman isn't beaten much, but he appears to have the Willhoite disease. TURN AROUND, BRO. Melvin is a complete disaster, I can't possibly beleive he's better than a guy like Dennard, but maybe Dennard was a shithead behind the scenes. Melvin is also a reflection of more shit injury luck.
Butler for me is already a top 10 CB and his ceiling is higher. What a story.
Butler
Amendola
Ghost
Gronk
Butler for me is already a top 10 CB and his ceiling is higher. What a story.
Butler
Amendola
Ghost
Gronk
A year playing with Revis has rubbed off on this Butler fellow.
Goddamn bonafide #1 CB in this league now.
Goddamn bonafide #1 CB in this league now.
Late to the party, but I'd echo the Butler, Ghost, Gronk, Amendola nominations. Brady was his typical clutch self.
One guy that hasn't gotten much love is LeGarrette Blount. With Lewis gone, the Pats have to rely more on the power-running game, and Blount is the ideal hammer. Come the 4th quarter, DB's and even LB's are reticent to get in front of him and attempt a tackle. I love me some LGBT.
One guy that hasn't gotten much love is LeGarrette Blount. With Lewis gone, the Pats have to rely more on the power-running game, and Blount is the ideal hammer. Come the 4th quarter, DB's and even LB's are reticent to get in front of him and attempt a tackle. I love me some LGBT.
Penthouse:
Special Teams!!!!
Gost was 3/3 on PATs and 2/2 from the field. I don't know how many of you watched the Lions-Packers game but there were missed PATs and FGs in that game and it just goes to appreciate how automatic Gost is. Belichick increased this guy's value so much more with the PATs moved back.
Ryan Allen averaged 50 yards on his 4 kicks. That's pretty good.
Danny Amendola returned kicks and punts like a boss.
Doghouse:
Defense - only because we didn't get our doctor prescribed dose of Manning face via a bone crushing interception
Special Teams!!!!
Gost was 3/3 on PATs and 2/2 from the field. I don't know how many of you watched the Lions-Packers game but there were missed PATs and FGs in that game and it just goes to appreciate how automatic Gost is. Belichick increased this guy's value so much more with the PATs moved back.
Ryan Allen averaged 50 yards on his 4 kicks. That's pretty good.
Danny Amendola returned kicks and punts like a boss.
Doghouse:
Defense - only because we didn't get our doctor prescribed dose of Manning face via a bone crushing interception
1. Amendola - grossly underrated and now critically important.
2. Ghost - case submitted
3. Butler - his strip of Beckham Jr. changed the game, and he spent most of the day in Odell's jersey.
4. LGBT - He is the running game now and by Q4 he'd worn out the Jints
5. Gronk - His blocking is almost as critical as his pass-catching. Maybe should be higher.
6. McCourty - aside from the ghastly angle on the TD, he knits the pass defense together.
7. Brady - Not his best day, but had enough to set Ghost up. I'm still puzzled by the long passes on the final drive.
8. Allen - For a change, he had an important role to play
I was surprised Lafell didn't get more touches, and hoped to see more of Sheard. Also, the O line more or less held together, but we can't go much further without getting some of the walking wounded back (think Denver's defense).
2. Ghost - case submitted
3. Butler - his strip of Beckham Jr. changed the game, and he spent most of the day in Odell's jersey.
4. LGBT - He is the running game now and by Q4 he'd worn out the Jints
5. Gronk - His blocking is almost as critical as his pass-catching. Maybe should be higher.
6. McCourty - aside from the ghastly angle on the TD, he knits the pass defense together.
7. Brady - Not his best day, but had enough to set Ghost up. I'm still puzzled by the long passes on the final drive.
8. Allen - For a change, he had an important role to play
I was surprised Lafell didn't get more touches, and hoped to see more of Sheard. Also, the O line more or less held together, but we can't go much further without getting some of the walking wounded back (think Denver's defense).
Its grading on a curve...
But I was NOT happy with Brady. The Int (and almost Int) was HUGE. He was off all day (gronk Shoe tops, Dobson fake spike etc etc). Even the "Clutch" drive to win it started with 3 TERRIBLE Incompletions.
Its a results based game....and he DID drive them down and he DID throw for 334 and 2 tds (ho hum) and he DID win....without his best WR and most dynamic RB...so there's that . As I say I am being a dick professor grading my Best student I have ever seen, probably unfairly.
Tell me I am picking nits (I am).....But I dont like nits.
But I was NOT happy with Brady. The Int (and almost Int) was HUGE. He was off all day (gronk Shoe tops, Dobson fake spike etc etc). Even the "Clutch" drive to win it started with 3 TERRIBLE Incompletions.
Its a results based game....and he DID drive them down and he DID throw for 334 and 2 tds (ho hum) and he DID win....without his best WR and most dynamic RB...so there's that . As I say I am being a dick professor grading my Best student I have ever seen, probably unfairly.
Tell me I am picking nits (I am).....But I dont like nits.
I think Cameron Fleming deserves a little love, too. He showed some promise as a rookie, then had a rough preseason & found himself on the practice squad and now he's flopping between starting LT & RT and playing both pretty well. Yeah, the system helps, but the OT spot easily could have turned into a dumpster fire after Solder, Cannon and Seabass all went down.
I mean, the INT was bad, although it looked like he thought LaFell was going to slant more across the field rather than break into the end zone so might only be partially his fault. He held the ball too long on the fumbles. Ball security is paramount so dock him some for that.
That said, but he's playing on the road without all of his tackles and they lost their best WR, who given the Giants defense strengths and weaknesses was probably the key to the game plan, early in the game. He hit two long passes during the fourth quarter and drove down the field for the game winning kick. Not sure you are going to put any quarterback into that situation and see materially better results. He's not a robot as good as he is.
Dobson fake spike was fine given game situation.
So yeah, Brady wasn't perfect and he's played better, but Im actually pretty damn happy with him this morning given that the Pats lose that game with nearly any other QB in the league at the helm.
Yeah, even Pedro Martinez got rocked once in a blue moon. Brady only proved yesterday that he is human (gasp).
It looked to me like LaFell ran the route wrong. It's the same option play they run with Edelman where the read is to sit on the goal line, break back or continue the slant. Brady through it as if he was going to stop on the goal line.
Watching the replay, it's definitely the option route but I think the misread was on Brady not LaFell. Brady locks onto LaFell when he sees him singled on the outside with a 4 yard cushion pre-snap. LaFell runs at the CB (McBride) and fakes to the outside, but he doesn't get McBride to bite on the fake. Because of this he doesn't have enough separation to just stop on the goalline; even if he had been in the spot where the ball was delivered, he was either going to get undercut or be blanketed. At this point Brady still has the ball and has seen that McBride didn't turn to the outside; once he sees the corner diagnose the in route, he should expect LaFell to keep running away from McBride. Continuing the slant would have been the wrong read as it would have taken him into the safety in the middle of the field (Collins), who froze on the play action and Dobson running a slant across his face but was disciplined enough not to chase Dobson and leave the middle undefended. The only other defender on the left side is the corner covering Amendola in man, who is cleared out when Amendola runs along the back of the end zone. Once LaFell turns upfield he's got a window where he's wide open, McBride is behind him and chasing the play, and Collins is too far away to recover in time.
To put Gostkowski in perspective, he is 12-13 (92.3%) on 50+ yard FGs in the last 4 years, the rest of the league is 273-428 (63.7%). This is such a big difference that it actually clears a 95% confidence interval of statistical significance despite the tiny sample size.
What's also remarkable is to think about how kicking has evolved so rapidly. I came of age in the John Smith era. I always recall him as a clutch, A-list kicker. Looking at his stats, though, for his career he was 67% (128 for 191), with a career long of 50 yards. Tony Franklin had seven 50+ yarders in his 10 year career, including a 59 yarder his rookie year with the Eagles. But he, too, was 67% for his career overall.
From Smith/Franklin to V in one generation, then to Ghost in another, is a pretty steep trajectory in terms of both accuracy and distance.
Benjamin Morris actually had a great piece on this back in January, where he talked about the rapid improvements in kicking and how it has affected in-game strategy.
I think the issue is depth. If you tell me Butler and Ryan are going to be healthy all year, I can live with Coleman (or maybe even Melvin) as my 3rd CB. If one of them gets hurt, however, things start to get ugly. And we've seen in the past (or even this year with Tarell Brown) that you usually don't get total health from the secondary.
The second of these "terrible" incompletions seemed to me to be a pretty obvious throw-away because everyone was covered. There's no sense dancing around and possibly taking a sack there.
You also mentioned the fake spike play. That play had one read, and one read only. A quick toss to Dobson. The DB out there was on him, so it really wasn't a big deal.
What's so impressive on re-watching the final drive is that everybody is so calm w.r.t. the clock. Brady isn't averse to throwing it in the middle of the field, there are no false starts & the clock is managed to near perfection. So a game ball to everybody just doing their job.
I just watched the second video in that stream...right after the final drive...entitled Butler vs. Beckham.
Other than the first play Butler did a hell of a job on Beckham.
Like I said...I am certainly being a hard ass grader
.....On the second "Terrible" incompletion he had Amendola wide open albeit in the middle of the field for about 7 yards +yac with a Blocker (Lefell?)streaking by. He also had White (I think) in the flat to the right (opposite of where he was looking).
The Third Dobson throw (Rainbow incompletion) was also pretty bad (by Bradys admittedly lofty standards). He ended up on the ground....but it looks like he was able to step into the throw....yet under threw him ALOT.
Could be worse....could be Manning....
I will say that Dobson actually looked open 3 times on that drive. (the long first throw that was short due to pressure, the sideline catch and the Rainbow incompletion).
Maybe there is hope...
If you will forgive the sacrilege.....Watching that Video...
I almost get the Vibe that Butler might be our "Secondary version" of Brady.
Ultra competitive dude who was disrespected by the league and will do whatever it takes to make himself better just to spite everyone. The guy for whom competition somehow brings out the next level of performance.
Indeed the last spike play to stop the clock for the FG happened under 10 seconds. If they get an illegal procedure or false start call there, it's a 10-second runoff and game over.
And Stork recovered TB's fumble after Brady was hit from behind - having to hurdle over Brady and sprint to the ball, the only Pat not named TB within five yards of it - which was a HUGE save.
And it's a line full of rookies, young players, and former practice squad guys.
It was huge to recover it but he was only that close because he was chasing the giant he was supposed to be blocking that was causing the fumble.
That isn't completely fair, Brady scrambled out the pocket (sure there was pressure but that's the DL's job) and it is far easier for a DL to turn and chase than trying to continue through or around an OL.
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Sorry to be late to the party.
One word: wow.
There was that crazy Bears game in 2002. The Ravens and Giants regular season games in 2007. Maybe the Bills season opener in 2009. The regular season Broncos, Saints, and Browns games in 2013. And now this game joins those and a few others as some of the most exciting, most infuriating, most insane regular season wins in the BB/Brady era.
Slaying this dragon was particularly satisfying, for reasons all too familiar. It felt a bit like the Tek/ARod fight game in '04, when Bill Mueller won a regular season game that felt bigger than that. The difference is that I try tonrespect the Giants more than I hate them, but it has been a long time since I was that emotionally invested in a regular season game.
Anyway:
UP
- Amendola: hard to think of another player who has been so underrated and unsung for so long only to dramatically flip the script and prove their value (Bellhorn in '04? Lackey in '13?). Since the playoffs last year he has been one of our absolute rocks. Cannot overstate what an incredible game he played, on special teams and offense, catching the ball and blocking, running his routes and Edelman's.
- Butler: So.... The pick wasn't a fluke. What a day this kid had.
- Ghost: Nothing will ever top the Snow Bowl kick for any number of reasons. But this one is in the pantheon, if one exists.
HM1: Who had that block on the Dola return?!
HM2: Lateral-rooskie coverage unit. Way to stay calm and organized and appropriately spaced on that yakety sax play.
DOWN
- Human Frailty and the Randomness of Injury
- Refs: I thought part of the reason the game felt so clunky and sloppy at times were inconsistent calls, and Hoch seemed to need to have a full crew conference to discuss them every time. The Andrews penalty was legitimate I think, but a lot of other plays and calls were odd. The Beckham catch should have been ruled incomplete on the field. GRONK was getting mauled and no flags were thrown. And pass interference remains a problematic judgment call.
- Harmon -- C'mon, man!
DM: Chandler. Without Edelman and with GRONK getting triple covered he'll need to be better.
Edit: I cut out the backups from Down because it seemed unfair. I also didn't include Brady despite a few of the most baffling decisions in recent memory (holding on to the ball too long on a strip sack, the near INT for Collins, etc.) because that first drive with Edelman was surgical but by the end of the game that offense was missing 5 starters (Lewis, Edelman, Solder, Vollmer, Jackson) and it showed.
One word: wow.
There was that crazy Bears game in 2002. The Ravens and Giants regular season games in 2007. Maybe the Bills season opener in 2009. The regular season Broncos, Saints, and Browns games in 2013. And now this game joins those and a few others as some of the most exciting, most infuriating, most insane regular season wins in the BB/Brady era.
Slaying this dragon was particularly satisfying, for reasons all too familiar. It felt a bit like the Tek/ARod fight game in '04, when Bill Mueller won a regular season game that felt bigger than that. The difference is that I try tonrespect the Giants more than I hate them, but it has been a long time since I was that emotionally invested in a regular season game.
Anyway:
UP
- Amendola: hard to think of another player who has been so underrated and unsung for so long only to dramatically flip the script and prove their value (Bellhorn in '04? Lackey in '13?). Since the playoffs last year he has been one of our absolute rocks. Cannot overstate what an incredible game he played, on special teams and offense, catching the ball and blocking, running his routes and Edelman's.
- Butler: So.... The pick wasn't a fluke. What a day this kid had.
- Ghost: Nothing will ever top the Snow Bowl kick for any number of reasons. But this one is in the pantheon, if one exists.
HM1: Who had that block on the Dola return?!
HM2: Lateral-rooskie coverage unit. Way to stay calm and organized and appropriately spaced on that yakety sax play.
DOWN
- Human Frailty and the Randomness of Injury
- Refs: I thought part of the reason the game felt so clunky and sloppy at times were inconsistent calls, and Hoch seemed to need to have a full crew conference to discuss them every time. The Andrews penalty was legitimate I think, but a lot of other plays and calls were odd. The Beckham catch should have been ruled incomplete on the field. GRONK was getting mauled and no flags were thrown. And pass interference remains a problematic judgment call.
- Harmon -- C'mon, man!
DM: Chandler. Without Edelman and with GRONK getting triple covered he'll need to be better.
Edit: I cut out the backups from Down because it seemed unfair. I also didn't include Brady despite a few of the most baffling decisions in recent memory (holding on to the ball too long on a strip sack, the near INT for Collins, etc.) because that first drive with Edelman was surgical but by the end of the game that offense was missing 5 starters (Lewis, Edelman, Solder, Vollmer, Jackson) and it showed.
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Echoing the complements on the writeup.
Of note to me is the surprisingly small margin for error in high-level football: a 3-5 yard error 15-20 yards away from the ball spells disaster for the return team.
Same here. That was fantastic. Pictures are good.
Its like an engine. Lots of moving parts. If one is out of sync by even a hair, the whole thing crashes.
Very insightful. To my untrained eye, I thought the blocking must have been fantastic because I saw the Giants getting cleaned out after Amendola had crossed over toward the other sideline already. Little did I know how much of the credit should go to Amendola himself just for staying up long enough and getting into a situation where the blocks to happen.
Ditto - really terrific work, and so helpful to see the break-down of that whole sequence.