The Game Ball Thread: Wk. 2 at the Jets

Beomoose

is insoxicated
SoSH Member
May 28, 2006
21,391
Exiled
White was a monster while the game was still competitive, can't overlook his contribution.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
32,621
Guy that got the tip on first INT. That set the tone.Folk. Maybe Harris/White on O but that’s it on that side of the ball.
 

Captaincoop

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
13,487
Santa Monica, CA
Phillips and Dugger were really good today. Credit where credit is due, Bentley made some plays and moved the pocket on some pass rushes.

Another quiet Hightower game. Wynn was bad. Durant was "cut him tomorrow" bad.
 

Euclis20

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 3, 2004
8,017
Imaginationland
Really was a team effort. Other than Harris' beast mode style run the offense was unimpressive, but no turnovers (especially after last week's fumble fest) was good enough, and the D (especially the secondary) was very good. I don't care if it's a rookie in week 2, 4 interceptions is killer in today's NFL.
 

Euclis20

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 3, 2004
8,017
Imaginationland
I'll add that Mac's floor looks like "solid game manager," which has plenty of value. No one could get separation and the O-line was terrible, yet he still put up reasonable looking numbers by hitting passes that were available.
 

jsinger121

@jsinger121
SoSH Member
Jul 25, 2005
17,676
I'll add that Mac's floor looks like "solid game manager," which has plenty of value. No one could get separation and the O-line was terrible, yet he still put up reasonable looking numbers by hitting passes that were available.
This. He is throwing to C level receivers and his TE’s aren’t really elite. Throw in the fact the OL isn’t that great and he has looked pretty solid in 2 weeks.
 

RIrooter09

Alvin
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2008
7,254
This. He is throwing to C level receivers and his TE’s aren’t really elite. Throw in the fact the OL isn’t that great and he has looked pretty solid in 2 weeks.
I guess that depends on how you define elite. They're not Kelce, Waller, or Kittle but they're pretty damn good TEs and are paid accordingly.
 

Garshaparra

New Member
Feb 27, 2008
527
McCarver's Mushy Mouth
3 up: Harris, Uche, JCJ. (HM: White, Judon, Bentley, Folk)

3 down: O-line, O-line, o-line
For 3 down, I'd say: O-line, D-line, O-line. The Jets run game was pretty substantial until it was clear that Wilson was an INT factory, and kept them in the game. I expect a lot of short games this year, with the Pats running and play action short passing game, versus other teams running til the Pats can't stop them.

That said, Harris and White were very effective. The TEs are delivering, not monster yardage, but very solid play in both blocking and receiving. And Mac never let the O-line problems shake his confidence, and kept on going.
 

ShaneTrot

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Nov 17, 2002
6,403
Overland Park, KS
After watching Wilson shit the bed, I really appreciate how the Pats are working with Jones. His situation is better with the Pats than it would be with the Jets and he could use a little more help from the line and the receivers. It hasn't been ideal but it hasn't been a disaster either.
 

NortheasternPJ

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 16, 2004
19,272
After watching Wilson shit the bed, I really appreciate how the Pats are working with Jones. His situation is better with the Pats than it would be with the Jets and he could use a little more help from the line and the receivers. It hasn't been ideal but it hasn't been a disaster either.
Wilson also seems like he has either the inability to even see where the defense is or has no idea how to read coverages. Mac seems the complete opposite.
 

Seels

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2005
4,948
NH
While I thought the team looked good today I'll say the play calling has been gas station level vanilla ice cream. I hope at some point this changes. Seems like every third down was a screen pass.
 

BigSoxFan

Member
SoSH Member
May 31, 2007
47,094
While I thought the team looked good today I'll say the play calling has been gas station level vanilla ice cream. I hope at some point this changes. Seems like every third down was a screen pass.
Really thought the TEs would be more active than they’ve been the first 2 games.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
I'll add that Mac's floor looks like "solid game manager," which has plenty of value. No one could get separation and the O-line was terrible, yet he still put up reasonable looking numbers by hitting passes that were available.
Yeah I came away from this game thinking I don’t remember a time I was this concerned with a 19 point win but the run D is bad, the OL went from issues all over to terrible OT play, and the receiving group including the TEs looks ok but nothing special. I’m glad they got some chunk plays and I know this group needs time to gel and this is an extension of the preseason but they have their work cut out for them if they want to be competitive with better teams.

Game ball to the secondary.
 

Miniman

Member
SoSH Member
May 4, 2019
534
Does the Harris run get it's own category? That was a thing of beauty.

And the secondary was outstanding.
 

RoDaddy

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jun 19, 2002
3,245
Albany area, NY
Run defense and pass blocking have problems. Those issues need to be addressed for this team to be good.
Yeah, I'm kinda disappointed by the team so far this year. If Wilson hadn't thrown a ridiculous-almost-nver-happens 4 picks, it would've been much closer against a team we should've dominated. Mac has been everything we hoped so that's most important but the OL and DL are struggling and it seems we need to get a quality backup OT and big ass DT. I mean, aren't we kinda light at DT?
 

chilidawg

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 22, 2015
5,934
Cultural hub of the universe
Run D seemed bad on 1st and 2nd, but came up with some big 3rd and 4th down stops. Are they playing light on the early downs and heavy in obvious run situations? With as bad as Wilson was it would seem like teeing off on the run would be a good idea, but maybe playing for the pass paid off with the picks.

White, Secondary, Harris, Folk get game balls from me.
 

BrazilianSoxFan

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 11, 2006
3,751
Brasil
Run D seemed bad on 1st and 2nd, but came up with some big 3rd and 4th down stops. Are they playing light on the early downs and heavy in obvious run situations? With as bad as Wilson was it would seem like teeing off on the run would be a good idea, but maybe playing for the pass paid off with the picks.

White, Secondary, Harris, Folk get game balls from me.
No idea if they were playing light on early downs, but the Pat's D playing the pass against a QB having a horrible night put the Jets in the position of having to stick to the run game even when behind, shortening the game.
 

DeadlySplitter

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 20, 2015
33,253
JC ballhawk Jackson, INT aside, was pretty good today. He couldn't really handle the CB1 duties late last season, maybe he can carry that load until Gilmore is back (he will be back.. right? gulp)
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

Member
SoSH Member
May 11, 2011
10,392
NH
Wilson gets the game ball. A competent QB on the other side of the field and this game looks a lot different. Pats have two weeks to get their heads out of their asses on both sides of the ball or they’re going to get completely dismantled. I felt a lot better about this team last week after the loss. Ugly win is still a W. Open up the offense. Figure out how to stop the run. Please.
 

Big McCorkle

Member
SoSH Member
May 9, 2021
231
Yeah I came away from this game thinking I don’t remember a time I was this concerned with a 19 point win but the run D is bad, the OL went from issues all over to terrible OT play, and the receiving group including the TEs looks ok but nothing special. I’m glad they got some chunk plays and I know this group needs time to gel and this is an extension of the preseason but they have their work cut out for them if they want to be competitive with better teams.

Game ball to the secondary.
The OL is an absolute concern and the receiving group, yeah, at the absolute very least they need time to gel... (really, I'm either concerned with the receiving group or I'm concerned with McCorkle's conservatism and I don't know which), but I'm really not particularly concerned about the run defense. It hasn't been great so far, but both the Jets and Dolphins had overall a negative EPA/play while rushing the ball. Negative EPA might sound great, but it's really not really run defense; they gave up -0.01 EPA/rush against the Dolphins and -0.06 against the Jets today. I'm not going to spend the time to weight for carries, but -0.035 EPA per rush against would have ranked about league average last year. (The Patriots last year were 29th overall, at +0.022.)

Because you don't really want an elite run defense, at least not if you don't have a great secondary to go with it. The Jets have had the best run defense in the NFL for the last five seasons; it hasn't gotten them anywhere because opposing teams just have just opted to pass the ball against their weaker secondary. The Bucs run defense has also been quite excellent for the last two or three years; the sense I've gotten from watching them is that this has actually kind of hurt the team, because opposing teams really don't try to run the ball at them much at all and opt to throw it... and throwing the ball is inherently more efficient before you factor in the relative weakness of their secondary compared to their defensive line. This is maybe a bit tautological, but the fact is that you want the opposing team to try to run the ball against Vea, Suh, and the rest of the guys there, and opposing teams are not at all obliged or incentivized to do so even if some will still opt for it. And the logic is borne out in the numbers...

"There isn’t a clear pattern that emerges between RSWOE and many other measures of defensive performance. When we look at its correlation with defensive points allowed or team scoring margin, for instance, virtually no relationship exists... a team’s RSWOE holds a weak but positive correlation with the expected points added that it allows per play. And since negative EPA per play is good for a defense, a positive relationship between the two indicates that the higher the RSWOE, the less efficient the defense is overall. We see a similar story with defensive success rate, though it has an even stronger correlation in the wrong direction... Meanwhile, the strongest correlation tested suggests that the more dominant the interior run defense, the more an opponent will drop back to pass — and the less it will try to run." https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-best-interior-run-defenders-probably-wont-make-your-defense-better/

Basically, so long as the Patriots are ranking in that middle-area where the run defense is not dominant but isn't actually managing to give up positive value to opposing offenses as it did last year, I'm happy. The pass defense has been up against at least one, maybe two scrubs so far in Tua and Zack, but Tua was really bad in terms of production (and also, I think, bad in terms of pure play; he didn't get unlucky) and Wilson was a raging dumpster fire in both accounts, even worse than he was in week 1. Especially Gilmore theoretically coming back decently soon, I'm actually very happy with how the defense is projecting forward, with a potentially elite secondary and fairly quality pass rush (so long as Uche is actually allowed to play, at least) that will scare teams away from passing the ball and a somewhat weak run defense that will bait them into running it on early downs. And even then, without the context of the offense getting to choose which one to attack, overall the productive difference between a mediocre rush defense and a elite run defense is vastly smaller than the difference between a mediocre pass defense and an elite pass defense. I don't know if the Pats actually have an elite pass defense, but if they do have one (even without Gilmore) this largely how you would have expected them to perform over the course of their first two games.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,850
They need to take the training wheels off Mac. I understand he will take the checkdowns and that's a good thing, but I think Josh can do more to get him throwing down the field. They have 0 throws into the end zone through 2 weeks.
 

Big McCorkle

Member
SoSH Member
May 9, 2021
231
They need to take the training wheels off Mac. I understand he will take the checkdowns and that's a good thing, but I think Josh can do more to get him throwing down the field. They have 0 throws into the end zone through 2 weeks.
I hate that I don't know where this conservatism is coming from. Is it the playcalling, is it guys not getting open downfield, or is it on Jones? I certainly hope it's the playcalling, but, again, I just don't know.
 

BigSoxFan

Member
SoSH Member
May 31, 2007
47,094
They need to take the training wheels off Mac. I understand he will take the checkdowns and that's a good thing, but I think Josh can do more to get him throwing down the field. They have 0 throws into the end zone through 2 weeks.
Has to be this week. New Orleans is really tough to run on so we’ll have to throw. I’d like to see Mac get to throw a bit more, especially since it’ll be a necessity against Tampa. Like, that game figures to be a serious ass kicking based on what we’ve seen so far.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,850
I hate that I don't know where this conservatism is coming from. Is it the playcalling, is it guys not getting open downfield, or is it on Jones? I certainly hope it's the playcalling, but, again, I just don't know.
He's said he can do a better job of pushing the ball, but it seems to my untrained eye they are making sure he's not overloaded. I would imagine each week Josh will get a little more aggressive.

He's 51/69 through 2 games. I think we've established he can handle the game manager throws.
 

BroodsSexton

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 4, 2006
12,630
guam
I hate that I don't know where this conservatism is coming from. Is it the playcalling, is it guys not getting open downfield, or is it on Jones? I certainly hope it's the playcalling, but, again, I just don't know.
Isn’t it a bit premature to demand this though? Whether it is play calling, Mac’s intuition and inclination to checkdown, or guys not getting open—all the same it’s good to let him get acclimated, and that he’s not pressing. I just don’t think we can draw any conclusions as of now, other than, he’s clearly not hurting the team—which is pretty much the best thing you can say for a rookie getting adjusted. Come back after week 5 and if he still isn’t taking any shots we can talk. But until then, let him work it out. Hell, the Pats and Brady typically took the first five weeks to work things out each year. Why can’t we expect the same for Mac?
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,100
I'll give the team a C for the bad OL play and uneven run defense, although I thought the team did a good job tightening up the run D in the red zone, and situational football does matter. Add half a letter grade for a divisional road win, another half for keeping the Yets out of the end zone, another half for their avoiding the 0-2 trap, so a B all around.

Game balls to the secondary all around. Harris gets the honorable mention.

I'm not at all worried about Mac's check down throws; it's his 2nd pro game. We will need to be patient with him; even in today's NFL, rookie QB's take time to develop. A little more time in the pocket today would have been useful.
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,062
Hingham, MA
Isn’t it a bit premature to demand this though? Whether it is play calling, Mac’s intuition and inclination to checkdown, or guys not getting open—all the same it’s good to let him get acclimated, and that he’s not pressing. I just don’t think we can draw any conclusions as of now, other than, he’s clearly not hurting the team—which is pretty much the best thing you can say for a rookie getting adjusted. Come back after week 5 and if he still isn’t taking any shots we can talk. But until then, let him work it out. Hell, the Pats and Brady typically took the first five weeks to work things out each year. Why can’t we expect the same for Mac?
Yeah I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon and ultimately whether it is due to Mac playing conservatively, Josh calling plays conservatively, the O line not playing well, or the WRs not getting open… I’m not overly concerned. Last week was his first ever game. This week was his first road game. He faced a zero blitzing Flores D last week and a Saleh defense this week. He has managed the game and run the offense well. He has only panicked on a very small handful of plays. He has not had any killer mistakes. It will only get better from here.

That being said, they are making it too hard on themselves on offense. They can’t rely on 10+ play drives with multiple 3rd down conversions to score TDs. They need more chunk plays through the air.

I think they will get there eventually.
 

Big McCorkle

Member
SoSH Member
May 9, 2021
231
Isn’t it a bit premature to demand this though? Whether it is play calling, Mac’s intuition and inclination to checkdown, or guys not getting open—all the same it’s good to let him get acclimated, and that he’s not pressing. I just don’t think we can draw any conclusions as of now, other than, he’s clearly not hurting the team—which is pretty much the best thing you can say for a rookie getting adjusted. Come back after week 5 and if he still isn’t taking any shots we can talk. But until then, let him work it out. Hell, the Pats and Brady typically took the first five weeks to work things out each year. Why can’t we expect the same for Mac?
I didn't mean that as a criticism of Jones, I'm saying that because Gamepass still doesn't have the All-22 I literally do not know which one it is. I absolutely love what I've seen so far; not only has he been substantially better than the other rookies, he's been real solid in a absolute sense.

The implications of each possibility are worth comparing though. It's a matter of being able to predict things are going to come together. If it's the playcalling i.e. there just aren't a lot of plays called that are designed to push the ball down the field in situations when they don't absolutely 'need' to, then fixing it is as easy as just actually calling them when the coaches feel that Jones is really ready for them. (I would argue that if the playcalling is the problem, then Jones is absolutely ready for them and they should do that next week.) If it's just Jones not being sufficiently aggressive, then that's probably a somewhat more difficult fix, but, as you say, something that I expect would come together fairly quickly over the course of the next few weeks. I'll only actually be concerned if he's still going with the same approach come, say, the Cowboys game.

However, if it's that the receivers aren't getting open down the field, then I'll be concerned now. That's partially just the "trauma" of last season talking, though. I really doubt that it's nearly that bad.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
I truly don’t care what the EPA of said runs were because EPA is contextual and the context here is it was against the Fins and the Jets. Obviously run defense is less important than pass defense. Also, the base run EPA last year was -0.108. Seems like they are worse than that. Plus it is against two teams who have shitty OLs. Again EPA isn’t adjusting for that. Their DL got pushed back against the Jets OL. Look what the Jets did against Carolina on the ground vs the Pats. Same for Miami vs us compared to Buffalo. You focus a lot on EPA buts it’s not a one stop shop. The context around it matters. We agree on the relative importance of run defense. We also agree on the difference between an elite run defense and a poor one is way less, for lack of better words, impactful than an elite pass D vs a poor one. But saying you aren’t concerned because some contextual stats showed they were league average against two teams with poor OLs (I’d expect them to have a top 10 EPA against those teams) to me shows an over reliance on a stat which isn’t perfect. And if you routinely give up 4+ yards against the run, again, when you play a better team you’re going to start to feel that pain.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
I’m off tomorrow so I’ll try and break it down but they’ve had specific issues with outside zone that go back to at least last year. See LAR and SF. You can also win SBs with a bad run D, I get that. It’s not a fatal weakness but it’s a problem right now.

Edit: this is also an issue to me when they have 8+ in the box and are geared to stop the run and get gashed anyway. Sometimes the problem is guys like Godchaux getting beat. Other times it’s when LBs overflow and can’t adjust to the cutback. Other times it’s LBs and safeties getting blocked out of the play. Last week it was more between the tackles issues. This week it was on the outside. They just aren’t winning enough 1:1 and too many guys aren’t stacking and shedding. And this is against the Jets and Fins!
 
Last edited:

Big McCorkle

Member
SoSH Member
May 9, 2021
231
I truly don’t care what the EPA of said runs were because EPA is contextual and the context here is it was against the Fins and the Jets. Obviously run defense is less important than pass defense. Also, the base run EPA last year was -0.108. Seems like they are worse than that. Plus it is against two teams who have shitty OLs. Again EPA isn’t adjusting for that. Their DL got pushed back against the Jets OL. Look what the Jets did against Carolina on the ground vs the Pats. Same for Miami vs us compared to Buffalo. You focus a lot on EPA buts it’s not a one stop shop. The context around it matters. We agree on the relative importance of run defense. We also agree on the difference between an elite run defense and a poor one is way less, for lack of better words, impactful than an elite pass D vs a poor one. But saying you aren’t concerned because some contextual stats showed they were league average against two teams with poor OLs (I’d expect them to have a top 10 EPA against those teams) to me shows an over reliance on a stat which isn’t perfect. And if you routinely give up 4+ yards against the run, again, when you play a better team you’re going to start to feel that pain.
Absolutely, you're right, I didn't properly factor in that the Jets and Dolphins are pretty shitty at running the ball, which they certainly are-- or at least certainly were last year. That absolutely would change the outlook. If there's not actually improvement from last year, it's going to be a problem. At the same time, I think the central point holds true: they don't need to be good at stopping the run, just not as bad as they were last year, in no small part because it might actually be advantageous to not be great at stopping the run. If they can hold to the current level of opponent production, it's won't be a notable issue. If these two games are going to end up as relative outliers because the Jets and Dolphins are just particularly bad at running the ball (which, again, upon actual reflection and examination, yeah they do kinda suck, so these two games might well end up as outliers), then it's gonna be a real concern. I'm not remotely well-versed at all in the intricacies of running the ball or run defense, so I don't have that much to go off of besides production numbers.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
I’m curious - do you know of a stat that adjusts EPA or anything like that based on the relative effectiveness of a team? I know DVOA tries to kind of do that but it’s a black box and it is more complicated than that. Because I like using EPA for like an entire season or something where they play a bunch of teams so the balance of schedule is… well it balances out. But here it’s two games. And I’d argue two games against bad OLs. If we could just reflect that somehow… but that’s not what EPA is for or is built to do. I’m also wondering what kind of a sample size you’d want before really diving into EPA. What do you think? Would imagine 4 games would be a good point to look for trends… that’s probably around 200+ plays on offense and defense. Is there an argument for more or less? Sorry if I came on strong earlier. I should have asked questions like the above to explain more some concerns I had with it. No disagreement with the importance of run defense although I thought it would be a strength of the team with their front 7 this year and their struggles there have been one of the most surprising developments to me about the team.

Edit: and then I’m asking about an adjusted EPA based on what? Two games of data? You could do a DAVE stat so tie it to last year if adjusted I guess. Anyway - questions still remain on if you know a stat that does that.
 

Big McCorkle

Member
SoSH Member
May 9, 2021
231
I’m curious - do you know of a stat that adjusts EPA or anything like that based on the relative effectiveness of a team? I know DVOA tries to kind of do that but it’s a black box and it is more complicated than that. Because I like using EPA for like an entire season or something where they play a bunch of teams so the balance of schedule is… well it balances out. But here it’s two games. And I’d argue two games against bad OLs. If we could just reflect that somehow… but that’s not what EPA is for or is built to do. I’m also wondering what kind of a sample size you’d want before really diving into EPA. What do you think? Would imagine 4 games would be a good point to look for trends… that’s probably around 200+ plays on offense and defense. Is there an argument for more or less? Sorry if I came on strong earlier. I should have asked questions like the above to explain more some concerns I had with it. No disagreement with the importance of run defense although I thought it would be a strength of the team with their front 7 this year and their struggles there have been one of the most surprising developments to me about the team.

Edit: and then I’m asking about an adjusted EPA based on what? Two games of data? You could do a DAVE stat so tie it to last year if adjusted I guess. Anyway - questions still remain on if you know a stat that does that.
I don't think there's opponent-adjusted EPA numbers out there, or at least if there are I'm not aware of them. DVOA is better for that, but I believe it phases in the opponent adjustment over time, so like with the 2019 Pats early on they were posting ungodly historic numbers on defense, and even though everyone involved could recognize that they were playing against teams and QBs that were pretty much shit and that they were actually probably not the best defensive unit in the history of the game, that's how the numbers were until those adjustments were phased in. (And I'd be more inclined to reference DVOA for team-wide performance, but it wasn't available on Sunday after the game before it was put behind a paywall. There are only so many paywalls I'm willing to climb.) You could absolutely make an opponent-adjusted EPA stat, you're just not going to get good opponent-adjusted stats on a two-game sample, as I think you said in the edit. There's no statistic in existence that's going to let you do that. Even if you could, EPA is a very noisy stat, particularly over small samples (Jones's number today, for instance, was kinda killed by that one sack I think he had zero fault in on third down that took them out of field goal range early on; that sack was about as bad as one of Wilson's interceptions), so trying to use two games to project forward even with opponent adjustments is not something I'd do if I was putting money down on stuff.

(Though, for the specific measurement of quarterback play, I remember someone saying that PFF grade actually correlates better with future EPA than current EPA.)

Ultimately, what I use EPA primarily for is as a stand-in for box score composite stats and box score stats in general, both the typical ones like Passer Rating or YPC and the more esoteric ones like ANY/A, etc, because it's really a lot better at factoring in a lot of stuff, y'know, like how a 2-yard run on 3rd and 1 is a helluva lot more productive than a 2-yard run on 2nd and 9. (I remember on the Dolphins post-game thread there was discussion about how the team actually gave up a pretty low yards per carry, only for someone to point out how many of those yards converted on third down and such.) So in terms of what sort of sample size you want, well, probably about the same sample size to use for any box score stat. Which'll vary on what stat and what you're trying to use it for.

But, yeah, a lot of this just boils down to me forgetting that Miami and NYJ are probably pretty bad at running the ball and thus not considering that at all. I would be perfectly happy if they end up being slightly below average against the run; that might actually, counterintuitively, be a very, very good place to rank. But if how they've produced against teams that are probably pretty bad at running the ball is indicative of their true talent level, all of that goes out the window.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure they did produce better against the run in the last two games than they did against the Jets and Dolphins last season-- especially better than that abomination in December. And they'll probably get better from here, not necessarily in terms of production but in terms of 'real talent,' so to speak. They've got a bunch of guys coming in as rookies or from another team or from taking last year off, so it's to be expected that there'll be some time needed get things worked out as a unit and individually.
 

Eddie Jurak

canderson-lite
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 12, 2002
44,478
Melrose, MA
Edit: this is also an issue to me when they have 8+ in the box and are geared to stop the run and get gashed anyway. Sometimes the problem is guys like Godchaux getting beat. Other times it’s when LBs overflow and can’t adjust to the cutback. Other times it’s LBs and safeties getting blocked out of the play. Last week it was more between the tackles issues. This week it was on the outside. They just aren’t winning enough 1:1 and too many guys aren’t stacking and shedding. And this is against the Jets and Fins!
I want to believe that at least some of their problems on both sides of the ball relate to all of the new personnel compared to last year and it being early in the season.
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,062
Hingham, MA
So this was kind of touched upon in the preseason, but if they aren’t good st stopping the run, but on offense they want to play ball control and have lengthy possessions, seems to me that will shorten games and limit possessions. With last year’s team I could understand that - keep it close, try to win late. But with this year’s team won’t that approach give them less margin for error? We’ve kind of seen in both games where one small mistake on offense kills a drive, either turning 7 into 3 or 3 into 0. Maybe this team should be trying to add more possessions? Just thinking out loud. If this continues every week is going to be nip and tuck.
 

Ralphwiggum

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 27, 2012
9,827
Needham, MA
Mac has only played two games and we've seen over the years that BB is able to get his teams to improve as the season goes along, but through two weeks this looks like a pretty mediocre Pats team. Could have won week one but didn't to a Miami team that got absolutely smoked at home in week 2. A comfortable win in week 2 in a division road game, but really needed four awful picks by Wilson to make it comfortable. The Jets probably suck hard but without Wilson throwing the ball to us over and over again that's a nail biter.

All that said we will know a lot more after the next two weeks. I can't see them being competitive against Tampa but stranger things have happened.
 

Over Guapo Grande

panty merchant
SoSH Member
Nov 29, 2005
4,461
Worcester
My guess is that they will open the playbook as much as they feel that they need to. They were "in" the Miami game, so they could keep doing what was working-ish. Ahead on the Jets early, so why change. If/when they ever fall down 14 - I think that will show how much the coaching staff feels comfortable releasing the hounds.
 

Bowhemian

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 10, 2015
5,701
Bow, NH
You know who doesn't get a game ball? The DE's or LB's, whichever is responsible for setting the edge. They sucked at it yesterday.
 

Over Guapo Grande

panty merchant
SoSH Member
Nov 29, 2005
4,461
Worcester
You know who doesn't get a game ball? The DE's or LB's, whichever is responsible for setting the edge. They sucked at it yesterday.
I was watching the game with my cousin yesterday... and there was a play in the 3rd quarter where I said "And that is how you set the edge!" as Hightower was right there. Turns out that he was unblocked. Not even Freeman bad unblocked, but, literally, unblocked.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,850
Could have won week one but didn't to a Miami team that got absolutely smoked at home in week 2.
Despite it being the Dolphins in both games this is almost an apples to oranges comparison---we faced Miami with a rookie making their first ever start with a ton of new guys and in their second game the Fins lost their starting QB in the first quarter. If the upshot is that we aren't as good as Buffalo in week 2, I'm not sure anyone thought we would be.

And I'm not criticizing Mac or Josh. I'm saying I want to see more because he seems to be handling what he's been given really well.