The Game Goat Thread: Wk. 1 @ Miami

Super Nomario

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I didn't have the same read on the Ogbah sack---the math is that three vs two is a problem for the TE/QB moreso than Brown. Not sure he had the right read himself, but he wasn't the real problem there...no matter who he takes there's a free rusher. Not sure what people wanted him to do---was there some line call we think he should have made differently? On other plays---yeah, not good. Overall, line was weak.
OL are generally coached to take the inside guy because he has a shorter path to the QB. Brown blocked the outside guy and Ogbah just ran through the middle untouched. Mac's got the responsibility to get rid of the ball fast because there was going to be an unblocked rusher no matter what (Miami started rushing 6 against 5, though Andrews' man ultimately dropped), but he had no shot with the inside guy cut loose.

Chad Graff of Athletic had an interesting stat: Pats used only two personnel formations, 28 plays with 11 personnel and 26 with 12 personnel.

That is really interesting---only one other team (Panthers) used just two personnel formations. And historically, Pats were a lot more multiple than that. Is it about defense, QB, line, or some combo? Or is this the direction they are going----I didn't watch enough pre-season to assess that but I am sure some of you did....
They don't have a fullback anymore so basically the only personnel groupings they have are 11 and 12, except for specialty stuff like goal line (which they never got close enough to use). I think this will be typical.

The Pats offense was 5th in weighted DVOA in 2021 - so this wasn't some record based purely on the defense. The passing offense was 10th in DVOA. Apparently the Pats ceiling with a rookie Mac is 5th overall in total offense.
The overall numbers look really good but they were inconsistent week to week in 2021. The three 45+ point performances carry a lot of weight in averages. They scored under 20 offensive points in 9/18 games, by my reckoning.
 

PedroKsBambino

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OL are generally coached to take the inside guy because he has a shorter path to the QB. Brown blocked the outside guy and Ogbah just ran through the middle untouched. Mac's got the responsibility to get rid of the ball fast because there was going to be an unblocked rusher no matter what (Miami started rushing 6 against 5, though Andrews' man ultimately dropped), but he had no shot with the inside guy cut loose.
Sorry--I reversed the sacks. I was commenting on the strip sack, where Jones came on the outside and Brown took the inside guy. You're right on the Ogbah one.
 

SMU_Sox

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Sorry--I reversed the sacks. I was commenting on the strip sack, where Jones came on the outside and Brown took the inside guy. You're right on the Ogbah one.
Like Perry said on that play Andrews has the DT, Strange has the DE and Brown is supposed to take the Linebacker or any other rusher from that side. Teams rushing later guys (usually corners or safeties) has been an issue for them since late last season and I know Brown allowed a sack on it last year I think vs the Colts.
 

astrozombie

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Some not so fun statistics from yesterday regarding the offense (line?)
Well it's a good thing they drafted a blue chip prospect who made headlines for an elite program in the first round here, rather than a projected third rounder! /s
 

Super Nomario

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I keep coming back to when Belichick said he's at the point in his career where he just wants to coach the players he wants to coach. I would assume this also applies to working with the coaches he wants to work with. Responding to the loss of McDaniels by bringing back his old assistant buddies to fill the void tells me BB just isn't interested in coaching development at this point in his career, apart from sons, perhaps.

While he's always been a disciplinarian, everything starting from moving on from Brady shows me a coach who's old, tired, and wants a comfortable situation of players and coaches who ho don't challenge his authority in any way. This to me is a dying administration that I fear isn't going to end as gracefully as the Brady era did.
As far as I can tell, this was relayed second-hand via Urban Meyer. I don't think "wanting to coach" is really about whether he personally likes them so much as whether he views them as coachable (the context of Meyer's comments was Meyers asking how Belichick was able to develop players). I also go back to these comments around the same time period:

The one thing that I've definitely learned is, you've gotta count on your most dependable people. It may not be your most talented person, but you can count on your most dependable people. There have been times when I’ve put too much responsibility on people that weren't dependable, and they didn't come through ... so who's fault is that? Mine. ... They might have been the most talented, or the people you hoped would do the right or best thing, and they didn’t come through.

You have to go with the person who you have the most confidence in, the most consistent. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but I’m going down with that person.
I don't think it's about comfort or not wanting guys who challenge authority or whatnot. He trusts Judge and Patricia and knows he can rely on them on a consistent basis.
 

Cellar-Door

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As far as I can tell, this was relayed second-hand via Urban Meyer. I don't think "wanting to coach" is really about whether he personally likes them so much as whether he views them as coachable (the context of Meyer's comments was Meyers asking how Belichick was able to develop players). I also go back to these comments around the same time period:



I don't think it's about comfort or not wanting guys who challenge authority or whatnot. He trusts Judge and Patricia and knows he can rely on them on a consistent basis.
I mean he can rely on them to consistently not be good at the job he hired them for.
 

cornwalls@6

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This is by far my biggest concern. I truly do not understand Bill's approach to offensive coaching, and I'm struggling to see how this will be the optimal way to develop Mac. I mean, we don't even have an experienced, dedicated QB coach.
Agree with this, and to take it further, why wasn’t Josh’s successor either already on staff, or if he is, being prepared more aggressively to step in? JMD has been a perennial head coach candidate for years now. They knew he would eventually take an HC job. Seems like somebody (maybe Caley) should have been developed to step in, if they didn’t want to hire a short term external option like O’Brien. Instead of bring back 2 guys who between them, have something like 1-2 years of offensive coaching experience. I too worry about the effect of this arrangement on Macs development, given his physical limitations, and smaller margin for error than other, more gifted guys.
 

rodderick

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Mac provides a baseline of performance you can win with even if there aren't tremendous pieces around him, which is incredibly valuable in today's NFL. Of course he isn't a failure and he's a top 15 QB even if he doesn't develop a lick and continues to play at his current level, which is highly unlikely to happen. People are just antsy because they watch Mahomes, Herbert, Allen, Jackson and Burrow and think unless Mac somehow someway makes a jump into that category the Pats won't be contenders, and most don't believe he has the physical attributes to make said jump. It's hard to disagree with that notion, but he can potentially give the Pats similar value through mental acuity and decision making, which is why the coaching decisions are so frustrating: we can't afford to screw with what he does best because the athleticism isn't there to compensate for it.

I think the comparisons to Brady are a bit off, Tom has at least 15lbs and two inches of height on him and a significantly stronger arm at 45 than Mac has at 24. Brady is limited in mobility, but there isn't a window he can't hit and he makes his living on the intermediate part of the middle of the field, where arm strength matters more than anywhere else.
 

tims4wins

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Item 13 from Reiss here was a hidden story in the loss. Sunday's game was winnable, but the Pats obviously made too many mistakes, and this was a factor:

 

Super Nomario

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I mean he can rely on them to consistently not be good at the job he hired them for.
Too early to tell. The biggest issues Sunday seemed to be Trent Brown screwing up. He's supposed to be one of the best players on the team, but also maybe he falls into that not quite dependable bucket. The offense on a down-to-down basis wasn't great, but not a disaster either.

I agree, but tbf both Mick Lombardi (WR) and Carmen Bricillo (OL) went to Vegas with Josh
At various points in the last decade, they've had guys waiting in the wings who would have been more obvious successors to Josh. 2012 and 2013 they had George Godsey, 2014-2016 they had Brian Daboll, they had Chad O'Shea up until 2018, they had Jedd Fisch in 2020. But those guys all left for better opportunities while McDaniels stayed. So it's not so much a failure to develop coaches behind McDaniels as much as bad timing.

The other bad timing piece is that McDaniels hung on long enough that Fears and Scarnecchia retired (Scar twice!). I'd feel better about the OC situation if the position coaches supporting were more experienced, but Caley is really the only guy who has been in his role for a while.

I do wonder if they gave any consideration to promoting Mick Lombardi and whether the way things shook out was Lombardi preferring to go to Vegas or Belichick preferring Patricia / Judge. Lombardi isn't all that experienced either, FWIW, so I don't have a preference here. But I do think it's interesting.
 

Cellar-Door

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Too early to tell. The biggest issues Sunday seemed to be Trent Brown screwing up. He's supposed to be one of the best players on the team, but also maybe he falls into that not quite dependable bucket. The offense on a down-to-down basis wasn't great, but not a disaster either.
Honestly, I think it's early but we've seen enough to make some judgements, Trent Brown didn't decide to not run any play action, Trent Brown didn't minimize pre-snap movement. Trent Brown didn't even play in many of the pre-season games where they also ran garbage offense. Maybe Patricia is a good O-line coach (I doubt it, especially given how much players who have been good before struggled in pre-season), maybe Judge is secretly a good QB coach (again really doubt it), but I feel very confident in saying Patricia can't call plays at an NFL level... it's a hard skill, he doesn't have it.
 

rodderick

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Honestly, I think it's early but we've seen enough to make some judgements, Trent Brown didn't decide to not run any play action, Trent Brown didn't minimize pre-snap movement. Trent Brown didn't even play in many of the pre-season games where they also ran garbage offense. Maybe Patricia is a good O-line coach (I doubt it, especially given how much players who have been good before struggled in pre-season), maybe Judge is secretly a good QB coach (again really doubt it), but I feel very confident in saying Patricia can't call plays at an NFL level... it's a hard skill, he doesn't have it.
I thought play selection itself was fine, had some qualms here and there, but that's bound to happen even with elite OCs calling plays. The lack of play action was jarring, but to me that's more of a function of the system, I don't think you end the day running two PA snaps if your offense is predicated on heavily incorporating them. I feel the issues you described have more to do with day to day coaching than play calling itself, and that's where I think Judge and Patricia's lack of experience impacts the team. Their gameday performance is secondary to me.
 

BaseballJones

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Can anyone explain why the Pats don't run many RPOs? Mac is great at it and when they do run it, they're usually hugely successful. Why not do something your QB is great at?
 

BigSoxFan

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Can anyone explain why the Pats don't run many RPOs? Mac is great at it and when they do run it, they're usually hugely successful. Why not do something your QB is great at?
Feel like RPO and play action should be central to everything we do on offense, especially with 2 healthy backs who happen to be the best players we have on offense. I don’t have an idea of what Patricia is looking to accomplish on offense.
 

BaseballJones

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Feel like RPO and play action should be central to everything we do on offense, especially with 2 healthy backs who happen to be the best players we have on offense. I don’t have an idea of what Patricia is looking to accomplish on offense.
I agree, though they didn't run enough RPOs last year either though. This isn't necessarily about Patricia. Here's an article before last season on how they could use RPO with Jones to great effectiveness.

https://www.boston.com/sports/new-england-patriots/2021/05/10/patriots-offense-rookie-mac-jones-cam-newton/

But it just hasn't been part of the game plan, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why.
 

ShaneTrot

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I just listened to Andrew Callahan's podcast and they ran 2 play-action passes. It is 2022, right? He also said they averaged 2 yards per pass attempt with 2 TE on the field.
 

Cellar-Door

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I just listened to Andrew Callahan's podcast and they ran 2 play-action passes. It is 2022, right? He also said they averaged 2 yards per pass attempt with 2 TE on the field.
That 2nd one is weird, given the TEs themselves had pretty okay numbers. I would guess it's because they ran all those garbage screens?
 

Ed Hillel

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It’s kind of wild….there are only 7 active qb’s who have won a SB as a a starter.

Brady 7
Rodgers 1
Stafford 1
Wilson 1
Flacco 1
Mahomes 1
Foles 1
I know this is a sidebar, but I think we need to appreciate that this is probably the craziest stat in NFL history. Brady has more SB wins than all the other active QB combined. This will never, ever happen again.
 

E5 Yaz

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slamminsammya

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They don't have a fullback anymore so basically the only personnel groupings they have are 11 and 12, except for specialty stuff like goal line (which they never got close enough to use). I think this will be typical.
Do 22, 21, 20 (two RBs in shotgun or something), 10, empty just not exist now? I can understand not wanting to go with 2 RBs frequently, since neither of Harris nor Stevenson are exceptional route runners, but they have 4 quality wideouts.
 

BusRaker

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Has week one simply become an extension of preseason for some teams? Sure they game counts but with a 17 game season do some coaches feel it's better to keep things simple, keep players fresh, lessen the risk of injuries and start to ramp things up down the road? (especially a cold weather team in Miami) Sucks for us fans but might be a legitimate strategy.
 

Super Nomario

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Do 22, 21, 20 (two RBs in shotgun or something), 10, empty just not exist now? I can understand not wanting to go with 2 RBs frequently, since neither of Harris nor Stevenson are exceptional route runners, but they have 4 quality wideouts.
These are all rare looks league-wide. 21 was 7% of snaps around the league in 2021, and if you look at the teams running it, it's all teams with traditional fullbacks. We got rid of ours. 22 was only 3% of snaps; unsurprisingly, the teams running the most snaps of that were the same teams with fullbacks. 10 is even fringier, just 2% of snaps, with 18/32 teams running less than 10 snaps all of 2021. None of these are things team run much of. That we ran 0 snaps of 10 personnel instead of the what amounts to a league average of 1 snap is hardly worth commenting on (especially when we paid two TEs a ton of money).
 

Dogman

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Honestly, I think this plays a larger part than most acknowledge.

Just thinking through it, 2 PA calls, only 2 personnel groupings for the game. I'm not saying we will see a bunch of different personnel groupings throughout the season but it seems to me that this was as vanilla as can be. Add in BB's comments about evaluating the team by mid-October and I think this game, coupled with the Miami heat, is not indicative of what we will see starting in game 5.

Honestly I think the defense played fine. Only 13 points (yeah couldn't get off the field on two long drives and that Dugger misplay) and offensive TOs killed us. Add in Miami recovering all 4 fumbles and, well, just not a good recipe for success.
 

BaseballJones

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It definitely seemed "vanilla", but WHY? I mean, I get that BB is still in evaluation mode, but can't you evaluate while still trying the things that you think might give your team the best chance of winning? Like, why does evaluation = vanilla? Wouldn't you want to evaluate your players while doing what you think will work best? Like, if a particular concept is a winning one for you, wouldn't you run it and evaluate your players WITHIN that context? You don't evaluate players based on things that you aren't likely to run when games matter. You evaluate players based on things you WILL run when games matter.

At least that's how it seems to me, but what do I know? (precious little, obviously)
 

Cellar-Door

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If this is true about Bourne, shouldn’t they have had plenty of time to move past this by now?

View: https://twitter.com/greshkeefe/status/1569735376482275329?s=46&t=c1EG_sPLpCcbjFFxSttKwg
Maybe, but Patricia with the Lions was known for that stuff, and Bill isn't exactly a "no worries" guy either. Bill likely doesn't want to undercut Patricia, but yeah at some point keeping one of your better players off the field because your bumbling incompetent assistant coach is trying to prove some dumb tough guy point seems counter-productive.
 

lexrageorge

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Curran is not necessarily a reliable source of internal matters, and by his words "doghouse" seems more like his guess than actual info from a source. Bourne may have missed or been late to a pre-season meeting; he was benched for the 2nd preseason game. Seems more like a game planning issue than a discipline/doghouse issue. The former is a mistake for which I can actually forgive of an inexperienced offensive coordinator.
 

PedroKsBambino

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I completely get why we would question Patricia's ability to call plays/run an offense---there is no track record there, and it's a really unusual thing to ask him to take on at this point in his career.

But Patricia as assistant/BB as head coach has a track record of setting standards and holding players accountable we cannot seriously question. Well, I guess you can, but it seems like the idea Patricia suddenly forgot how to do that well is really unlikely even if the side of the ball he's coaching changed. And yes, I know it didn't work in Detroit---there's a massive difference between being the head guy and trying to set a tone and being BB's assistant, imo.
 

BigJimEd

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Bourne may have missed or been late to a pre-season meeting; he was benched for the 2nd preseason game. Seems more like a game planning issue than a discipline/doghouse issue. The former is a mistake for which I can actually forgive of an inexperienced offensive coordinator.
Agreed. Belichick said as much. Also said he expects Bourne to get plenty of chances.

But turmoil and Belichick is lying generates more clicks and viewers so....
 

BaseballJones

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Maybe, but Patricia with the Lions was known for that stuff, and Bill isn't exactly a "no worries" guy either. Bill likely doesn't want to undercut Patricia, but yeah at some point keeping one of your better players off the field because your bumbling incompetent assistant coach is trying to prove some dumb tough guy point seems counter-productive.
No chance Patricia buries Bourne all by himself. BB signs off on that 100% of the time it happens.

As far as game planning goes, well, we know they ran as vanilla a game plan as they basically possibly could (WHY, I have no idea, but they did) and maybe that Uber vanilla game plan just didn’t include Bourne.

If they had run all their complex stuff and Bourne wasn’t present then I’d call total BS on that explanation, but since they ran a bizarrely vanilla game plan, I can actually buy that it just didn’t include Bourne.
 

rodderick

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While I think Bourne gettin two snaps is ridiculous, I'm also not discounting the fact that by all reports from the beat he had a worse training camp than Agholor, Meyers and Parker and was invisible at times at practice. Maybe he's a gameday type of player (and I also think Agholor is the other side of the coin: shining more with limited contact), but there's legitimate reason to believe he lost playing time due to performance as well and is now the 4th receiver on the team. Obviously, him playing less snaps than Lil'Jordan Humphrey is a sign that there are off field issues, but it's not like he's an established great player who's unquestionably the best receiver on the team as has been portrayed by some.
 

Van Everyman

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Notwithstanding the grumbliness of that column--"Belichick better make changes because Robert Kraft is mad as hell!" "Matt Patricia better get his act together and fast!"--I actually think this is exactly the kind of thing you'd want them to be doing: assessing how guys they didn't gameplan for actually performed when they got their chances. If they keep benching guys who deliver in crunch time, that's one thing. But we're not even at week 2.
 

Shelterdog

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Agreed. Belichick said as much. Also said he expects Bourne to get plenty of chances.

But turmoil and Belichick is lying generates more clicks and viewers so....
I listened to the Bedard podcast (he is somewhat knowledgeable, does watch the games, does pick up things I might not) and to hear him speak there's chaos on the team, it's the worst Pats offense he's ever seen, it's apparent that some players are quitting on the team, Judge and Patricia can't connect with the players, BB is being a softy because he doesn't want to face the truth about how bad the team is,e tc. He and others are using the kind of language to describe the team that you would use to describe a 2-5 win team. Maybe they're right? I don't see it yet and I could be wrong but I still have faith that they pull it together to a reasonable degree this season.
 

tims4wins

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I listened to the Bedard podcast (he is somewhat knowledgeable, does watch the games, does pick up things I might not) and to hear him speak there's chaos on the team, it's the worst Pats offense he's ever seen, it's apparent that some players are quitting on the team, Judge and Patricia can't connect with the players, BB is being a softy because he doesn't want to face the truth about how bad the team is,e tc. He and others are using the kind of language to describe the team that you would use to describe a 2-5 win team. Maybe they're right? I don't see it yet and I could be wrong but I still have faith that they pull it together to a reasonable degree this season.
There has been so much of this type of discussion dating back to the beginning of the summer, from so many different places, that it is very hard to ignore at this point, especially in lieu of a 7 point opening day performance in which the offense directly gave 7 points to Miami as a result of offensive line disfunction. I remain somewhat optimistic (it's my nature as a fan), but someone is clearly going to end up with egg on their face this season. Whether that is BB/MP/JJ or the media remains to be seen. But early results have me leaning toward the media being more right than wrong on this.
 

BaseballJones

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Well I think it's entirely possible that the process of building the next great Patriots team could include a rough season THIS year. What if BB is taking the long view here, thinking that this is a few year process to get the team where it needs to be? Very few coaches have that kind of security. BB does, and thus can afford to think that way. So when WE see a team that appears to take a step backward - which frustrates us to no end - what BB sees is the developmental steps that are taking place throughout the organization that is building them towards achieving the kind of future success he thinks is possible.

I don't know if that's what's happening here, but it's entirely possible.
 

Shelterdog

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There has been so much of this type of discussion dating back to the beginning of the summer, from so many different places, that it is very hard to ignore at this point, especially in lieu of a 7 point opening day performance in which the offense directly gave 7 points to Miami as a result of offensive line disfunction. I remain somewhat optimistic (it's my nature as a fan), but someone is clearly going to end up with egg on their face this season. Whether that is BB/MP/JJ or the media remains to be seen. But early results have me leaning toward the media being more right than wrong on this.
They obviously didn't play good or look good--but some in the media are playing the dysfunction up to the point that ithe media' observations will be wrong if the Pats are merely average or below average; if you keep saying they are completely incompetent on offense and they end up 8-9 and 20th in the league in offense you're wrong.